Page:Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749, vol. 1).pdf/219

 with which the great suffer themselves to be so grosly cheated by their pride: the great! than whom, there exist few amongst those they call the vulgar, who are more ignorant of, or who cultivate less, the art of living than they do: they, I say, who for ever mistake things the most foreign to the nature of pleasure itself, whose capital favourite object is enjoyment of beauty, wherever that rare invaluable gift is found, without distinction of birth or station.

As love never had, so now revenge had no longer any share in my commerce with this handsome youth. The sole pleasures of enjoyment were now the link I held to him by: for though nature had done such great matters for him in his outward form, and especially in that superb piece of furniture she had so liberally enrich'd him with; though he was thus qualify'd to give the senses their richest feast, still there was something more wanting to create in me, and constitute the passion of love. Yet Will had very good qualities too, gentle, tractable, and, above all grateful: silentious, even to a fault; he spoke at any time very little, but made it up emphatically with action; and to do