This contemplation of female charms makes me think I am like Paris, when selecting a Goddess for the golden apple, and I wonder if he made a mistake. I often do, and get so bewildered in my choice, that I do not know which to take. This one has such a lovely backside, but has hanging breasts. That one has too much hair on her cunt, and her nymphae hang out too much, but she is otherwise beautiful. That one has a lovely face, but too light a hair on her cunt, and her legs are thin. So I inspected and thought, till my prick would wait no longer, and urged me to let it taste its pleasure. Then when it left their cunts, how different some ladies looked to me, to what they had before. Surely a prick stiff and throbbing, and a prick flabby, affect the powers of imagination very differently.

But it was very charming always. At times I paid the full fees for a trio, and placed them as I have seen in engravings, and I invented myself combinations quite as beautiful and exciting. — I discover now, that I have as fertile a fancy as erotic artists, and moreover begin to delight in fucking, in different and oftentimes difficult postures. Postures which give not the voluptuous ease when the prick is in the woman, which the old fashioned way of belly to belly, or belly to backside give, but which nevertheless fire me with a sensation of intense lust, and fill my imagination with ideals of voluptuousness.

During this time I travelled alone, and had no one to interrupt me, or to make demands upon my time for companionship, and so I could arrange my erotic intentions beforehand and surely carry them out. In the intervals of my enjoyment of female society, I amused myself by making notes, or writing the narratives fully. [This I find now by rough perusal of manuscript not yet touched, has a freshness which is not in some of that revised, and which I think I have already said else-where, was written out from memoranda (memoranda very copious it is true) many years after and I had at the end of two years a very large mass of manuscript, mostly relating to my frolics with professed Paphians. This I largely abbreviated soon after, and shall do so, still more now. This following paragraph I leave exactly as I then wrote it.]

On perusal I find I think much repetition, much which must have been written elsewhere, tho where, and when, I cannot recollect. Even with my good memory, I cannot at once bring to my mind what I have written in a narrative of the amours of nearly twenty-five years. But I shorten it. The roads to copulation are like the act, very much the same every-where. Prince and beggar do it the same way. A policeman thrusts and wriggles his prick like a Duke. A milkmaid heaves her buttocks and tightens her cunt like a Duchess. It will be wearisome to tell how I tailed Mary one night, if I have told that I did it the same way to Fanny the night before. Yet when I had women I mostly wrote about my doings with them at great length, described in detail as well as I could our voluptuous movements, and the sensuous ideas which rushed through my brain as I fucked then. That writing in-deed completed my enjoyment then. Now my pen may run through the greater part of it.

What is a little odd, is that I got few chances of seeing thro key and spyholes, much worth recording. Perhaps that may be in a degree attributable to spending so much of my time with harlots, and when at my hotel, being usually very tired, and recruiting by repose for my next orgie. Yet I saw one or two pretty sights.

At * * * * *, after a mid-day meal, I heard a male and female voice in the chamber adjoining, which was connected with mine by folding doors. I had only arrived there that morning. I looked for a peep hole but saw none. A big chest of drawers was placed across the door, obscuring the key hole. It was empty, yet with much difficulty I moved it aside, and then found that a piece of furniture was placed in a similar way on the other side. Balked, I looked for my gimlet and couldn't find it. Then I noticed that the doors, very badly made as they usually are abroad, did not shut into a recess, but folded on my side against the architrave or top framework (I expect there were also folding doors on the other side, but if so they were open), and did not at the top appear to fold close owing to their having warped. I mounted the drawers, but was then not tall enough, so putting one of my trunks on them I mounted that, and then thro a long chink at the top, saw half over the room, which was like mine, an unusually large one; for the hotel was not of modern build. [This took place quite twenty-five years ago.]

There opposite to me on a large sofa, sat a man and woman. He with his arm round her waist, and his head on her shoulder. She was sitting and quite pensively looking down, and listening attentively to all he was telling her. She looked about twenty, he about twenty-five years of age, and they were Americans. Every-thing was quite quiet, and I heard word by word nearly everything he said to her. — She scarcely uttered a word in return, and was absorbed in listening.

He was telling her the whole process of conception as he understood it, how the female got impregnated, and how an unwelcome foetus could be got rid of. What he said indeed was in some respects new even to me — al-tho it is a subject on which I don't think I am quite ignorant. Every now and then, she turned her head round towards his, and said something which I could not catch, it was said in so low a tone, and then resumed her pensive look on the floor. — When she made a remark — he said “Yes,” or “no — poor dear,” — and kissed her. — I had seen neither of them before, and did not know what relation they bore to each other. I first thought when I peeped, that they were a newly married couple. Then from some remarks, that they had been illicitly fucking, or as I suppose it would be said, that he had seduced her

He must have talked on this subject I think some-thing like half an hour, and in a tone as monotonous as that of a lecturer on science — he never raised his voice a bit, was in no respect excited, but went on speaking with the American nasal accent. Then somehow I fancied he had got her in the family way, for his remarks, were interlarded with “you.” Then he took to kissing her, and then gently he put his hands up under her clothes, and I heard him say “cunt.”

But in front of the sofa was a table, which partly hid his middle, and hid hers entirely. So tho I knew that he put his hand up there, for the lift up of her clothes, and his position shewed that, I could not see more than to her knees, the table in front of her, tho a foot or so away from her, hid her middle. — But I saw that she put her legs apart to help, and soon after leaning more back on the sofa, pushed her bum forward, to facilitate his feeling whatever it might have been that he felt; and certainly it must either have been her bum or her cunt.

In doing this he leant forward, stooping for his feel up her, and tho he went on speaking, I then entirely lost all hearing, excepting of mere sound, for his face now was turned upwards towards hers, and the back of his head was towards me. Probably he may have dropped his voice, for we all I think do so when lust comes on us. A soft murmuring voice is the voice of love. A man doesn't bawl out that he wants a woman to let him fuck her. Then I could see that she lifted her clothes entirely up, and his head bending lower went out of sight, all being hidden by the table, but the bunch of her clothes, which shewed above the table. He unmistakably was looking at her cunt, or kissing it. Lick it, he scarcely could in that attitude, and they remained like that for a minute or two.

Then he resumed his seat, putting one arm round her, but keeping his right hand out of sight, and unmistakably (the table hid it) under her petticoats, and he went on explaining and lecturing. Then smiling, and relinquishing her waist, he opened his trowsers and pulled out his prick. That I could see as he sat. Then he said something which I could not catch, she turned to him, I saw her right hand lay hold of his prick, and she began frigging it clumsily. He pulled it then more out of his trowsers, and laughing said quite loudly, “No — so,” and gave it himself a gentle frig or two. She took it in a pretty little hand again, and soon got it by a little frigging up to a fine erection. — Then they turned half towards each other, and they kissed, but the table now hid her hand and his machine, tho I knew she had it in her hand, and that his hand was on her cunt. I could see a little more of her legs sideways, but could hear nothing for a minute or two. They were in silent enjoyment of feeling each other's privates. Then they put arms round each other's necks, and cuddled. Oh how I envied him, and my prick stood stiff, but I resisted my desire to masturbate.