n easy prey to his seducing
arts (as will be seen in the conclusion of this work:) and who, as he
observed, 'had not yet got over that distinction in their love, which
makes a woman prefer one man to another.']

How difficult is it, says he, to make a woman subscribe to a preference
against herself, though ever so visible; especially where love is
concerned! This violent, this partial little devil, Sally, has the
insolence to compare herself with my angel--yet owns her to be an angel.
I charge you, Mr. Lovelace, say she, show none of your extravagant acts
of kindness before me to this sullen, this gloomy beauty--I cannot bear
it. Then was I reminded of her first sacrifice.

What a rout do these women make about nothing at all! Were it not for
what the learned Bishop, in his Letter from Italy, calls the
entanglements of amour, and I the delicacies of intrigue, what is there,
Belford, in all they can do for us?

How do these creatures endeavour to stimulate me! A fallen woman is a
worse devil than ever a profligate man. The former is incapable of
remorse: that am not I--nor ever shall they prevail upon me, though aided
by all the powers of darkness, to treat this admirable creature with
indignity--so far, I mean, as indignity can be separated from the trials
which will prove her to be either woman or angel.

Yet with them I am a craven. I might have had her before now, if I
would. If I would treat her as flesh and blood, I should find her such.
They thought I knew, if any man living did, that if a man made a goddess
of a woman, she would assume the goddess; that if power were given to
her, she would exert that power to the giver, if to nobody else. And
D----r's wife is thrown into my dish, who, thou knowest, kept her
ceremonious husband at haughty distance, and whined in private to her
insulting footman. O how I cursed the blasphemous wretches! They will
make me, as I tell them, hate their house, and remove from it. And by my
soul, Jack, I am ready at times to think that I should not have brought
her hither, were it but on Sally's account. And yet, without knowing
either Sally's heart, or Polly's, the dear creature resolves against
having any conversation with them but such as she can avoid. I am not
sorry for this, thou mayest think; since jealousy in a woman is not to be
concealed from woman. And Sally has no command of herself.

What dost think!--Here this little devil Sally, not being able,