Page:Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749, vol. 2).pdf/257

 as if one was to fancy one's self compleatly disguis'd at a masquerade, with no other change of dress, than turning one's shoes into slippers: or, as if a writer should think to shield a treasonable libel, by concluding it with a formal prayer for the king. But, independent of my flattering myself that you have a juster opinion of my sense, and sincerity, give me leave to represent to you, that such a supposition is even more injurious to Virtue, than to me: since consistently with candour and good-nature it can have no foundation but in the falsest of fears, that its pleasures cannot stand in comparison with those of Vice, but let truth dare to hold it up in its most alluring light: then mark! how spurious, how low of taste, how comparatively inferior its joys are to those which Virtue gives sanction to, and whose sentiments are not above making even a sauce for the senses, but a sauce of the highest relish! whilst vices, are the harpies, that infect, and foul the feast. The paths of Vice are Rh