The Works of Samuel Johnson, in Sixteen Volumes. Volume 04 — John Shaqi
The Works of Samuel Johnson, in Sixteen Volumes. Volume 04Johnson, Samuel
Philosophy
The Works of Samuel Johnson, in Sixteen Volumes. Volume 04
Johnson, Samuel
Essays
Next day, I procured a lodging in the backward
garret of a mean house, and employed my landlady
to inquire for a service. My applications were
generally rejected for want of a character. At length
I was received at a draper's, but when it was known
to my mistress that I had only one gown, and that
of silk, she was of opinion that I looked like a thief,
and without warning hurried me away. I then tried
to support myself by my needle; and, by my landlady's
recommendation obtained a little work from
a shop, and for three weeks lived without repining;
but when my punctuality had gained me so much
reputation, that I was trusted to make up a head of
some value, one of my fellow-lodgers stole the lace,
and I was obliged to fly from a prosecution.
Thus driven again into the streets, I lived upon
the least that could support me, and at night
accommodated myself under pent-houses as well as I
could. At length I became absolutely pennyless,
and having strolled all day without sustenance, was,
at the close of evening, accosted by an elderly man,
with an invitation to a tavern. I refused him with
hesitation; he seized me by the hand, and drew me
into a neigbouring house, where, when he saw my
face pale with hunger, and my eyes swelling with
tears, he spurned me from him, and bade me cant
and whine in some other place; he for his part would
take care of his pockets.
I still continued to stand in the way, having
scarcely strength to walk further, when another soon
addressed me in the same manner. When he saw
the same tokens of calamity, he considered that I
might be obtained at a cheap rate, and therefore
quickly made overtures, which I no longer had
firmness to reject. By this man I was maintained four
months in penurious wickedness, and then abandoned
to my former condition, from which I was
delivered by another keeper.
In this abject state I have now passed four years,
the drudge of extortion and the sport of drunkenness;
sometimes the property of one man, and
sometimes the common prey of accidental lewdness;
at one time tricked up for sale by the mistress of a
brothel, at another begging in the streets to be
relieved from hunger by wickedness; without any
hope in the day but of finding some whom folly or
excess may expose to my allurements, and without
any reflections at night, but such as guilt and terrour
impress upon me.
If those who pass their days in plenty and
security, could visit for an hour the dismal receptacles
to which the prostitute retires from her nocturnal
excursions, and see the wretches that lie crowded
together, mad with intemperance, ghastly with
famine, nauseous with filth, and noisome with disease;
it would not be easy for any degree of abhorrence
to harden them against compassion, or to
repress the desire which they must immediately feel
to rescue such numbers of human beings from a state
so dreadful.
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