I then fell ill for a short time, and during that, arranged some more of these memoirs. Soon after, disappointments, troubles of various sorts, and other considerations made me nearly burn them. Getting well I drowned my sorrows in female society, and had many of the fair mercenary ones, whom I had known before I left England. To their class I owe a debt of gratitude, and say again what I think I have said else where: that they have been my refuge in sorrow, an unfailing re-lief in all my miseries, have saved me from drinking, gambling, and perhaps worse. I shall never throw stones at them, nor speak harshly to them, nor of them.

They are much what society had made them, and society uses them, enjoys them, even loves them; yet denies them, spurns, damns, and crushes them even whilst frequenting them and enjoying them. In short, it shamefully ill treats them in most Christian countries, and more so in protestant England than in any other that I know.

Then came the weariness of spirit, the vacuous dissatisfaction of an affectionate man, without a woman to attach himself to. Hating still my home, again with less money (my own fault), I went on a round of visits to my relations of whom I had many. Among them, I went to my aunt in H***f**dshire; I had not been there for four or five years. She was now an old woman, and all her children were married excepting one still at home. Fred was dead, little Joey, whose nursemaid years before I had shagged, and caught with Page Robert, lived with my aunt. His mother, whose cunt I once saw when young, was poor and had a large family. The old butler was dead, and with the exception of one old gardener and the old farm yard keeper, not one was on the estate who was there in the jolly days, when I had Pender, Whiteteeth, and Molly. My mother I should say was also dead, and the house in which I was born was inhabited by one of my married sisters, whom I did not like, nor she me.

I found life at the manor house slow. Walking and riding out with my cousin, even tho she was the handsomest of the lot, did not satisfy me. Why she had not married was always a wonder. So after I had paid visits to some neighbouring friends I thought of leaving, when something detained me. It was a woman again. God bless cunt! copulation for ever! God bless it for all the sweet associations and affections it produces. This act described as filthy, and not to be alluded to, is the greatest pleasure of life. All people are constantly thinking of it. After the blessed sun, sure the cunt ought to be worshipped as the source of all human happiness. It takes and gives and is twice blessed.

Joey had grown a big hobledehoy before his time, and was turned fourteen years old. — Forgetting what I had been at his age, — my desires to know what a cunt really was, — my languishing inclinations towards females, I now treated him as a child, and only thought of him as the little piddling imp, who formerly gave me the excuse for getting acquainted with his nursemaid, a dozen years before.

He came home at about a quarter past one and went back at three, to a school about a mile from the Hall. To suit him (tho indeed it had nearly always been my aunt's principal meal), we had dinner at half-past one. After dinner, I used to smoke and read till three or four, then go out, — and often with my aunt or cousin. The simple meal rarely occupied three-quarters of an hour, then my aunt took a nap in her room, — Emily sitting with her. — Joe always disappeared immediately, and either went back to play at school, or look at some rabbits he had in the stables. Nobody heeded where he went.

There was no man servant just then in the house, one was expected soon. A parlour maid waited at table. A fine, strapping, but some what bold looking woman, apparently nearly thirty years old. She was no great beauty, but the picture of health, blue eyed and light-brown haired, fleshy and strongly built. My aunt had a favorite dog ill at the farm, cut off meat for it at our meals, and used to send this woman with it to the farm-yard directly she had done waiting. When I began to want a woman, I wondered if this woman would assuage me. Her name was Tomlin.

Smoking and strolling out of the library, directly after the midday meal one day, in the direction of the farm, I thought to my surprize that I saw a man kissing a woman in the laurel shrubbery, not far from the memorable privy in which I once had Pender. As I approached I heard male footsteps going off. — Going on then to the farm, and thinking of the fuckings I had in cow house, dairy, and barn, — after about a quarter of an hour I saw the parlour maid come quickly across the rick yard, and pass into the laurel walk towards the house. Not thinking of that, and walking leisurely back, I saw Joe in the distance on the extreme edge of the lawn, on the other side of the grounds, making for the stables very quickly. Then it struck me of a sudden that he had been in the summer house called the grotto, — perhaps thinking of my own tricks in that grotto put the idea into my head, that the servant had been there as well.

At our supper I watched Joe, but saw no signs of intelligence between him and the woman. — At the next midday meal I fancied that he eyed her in a peculiar way, so when she went off with the dog's food, I went off to the stables, and thence to a point from which I could see the walk leading to the grotto. The grotto was hidden from view, and so it was from the house. Master Joe after a time came away from it in a hurry. I hid in a stable, and saw him pass out towards the road, then going back near to the laurel walk, I saw the parlor maid going very quickly towards the kitchen entrance of the house, and looking demure enough. There is a game up for certain, thought I, between that woman and that boy.

The grotto has already been partly described: it was a big building, an expensive toy. The back and sides were built of rock, burs, and lumps of stone; ferns and ivy grew on it, the boughs of big trees over hanging it. The roof partly was rockwork, the remainder, formed of trunks of trees rustically put together and boarded, was falling into decay. My aunt would not incur the expense of restoring it. — I suspected that the boy and full grown woman had been there. How could I man- age to watch them. I spent an hour in the grotto before I could devise the means.

It was almost surrounded and covered by big trees and shrubs, and by climbing up the rock work at the back (easily enough done), I reached the arch, and leaning over that reached the wooden part of the roof, which was so decayed that in many places the ivy had worked itself thru the boards, and hung down inside. — At a convenient spot, I thrust a walking stick thru it, and made a hole big enough to see half the place be-low. It was so big that indeed any one looking up care-fully, might have seen an eye placed there, or certainly have seen the hole.

Next day saying I should not be at midday meal, and putting on an overcoat — really to lay down upon and prevent my hurting myself on stones, I posted myself on the roof. Soon after, in came Joey and — bless him — sat down on the side nearest the peep hole, pulled out his cock, looked at it and put it back. Almost simultaneously in came the woman. He kissed her, in an instant his hands were up her clothes, they scarcely had time for talk, there was no wind, and I heard them fairly well.

Opening her legs she let him feel her. “Don't you wish your uncle (so they called me) was gone?” said she. “I just do,” said Joey. “Oh, let me see it,” pulling up her clothes. She pushed them down. “No, you saw it the other day, it's the same; where is your thing?” Joe pulled it out stiff enough, she took hold of it, and quietly felt it. Joe contineud his groping, and begging for a look. “Not to day. I can't wait.” “Oh, its coming,” said Joe all on a sudden. The woman let go his cock and sat down. He sat on her knee. She caught hold of his cock again, and after a few frigs Joey cried out again, “Oh, it's a coming,” and out spouted his sperm. “What did you do that for?” said he. “You won't tell any one ever, will you now?” said she. “If your father knew he'd send you to Van Die-mens' land. He said he would if you troubled him, you know. Here, look.” She lifted her petticoats right up in front of Joey, who was sitting on the seat, feeling his cock and sulking, but instantly dropped them, almost before he could have seen anything, and laughing, went out. They were not together five minutes. Joey put by his machine and, looking out first carefully, went off.