Vulgar words in The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) - or a History of the Life of Mademoiselle de Beleau Known by the Name of the Lady Roxana (Page 1)

This book at a glance

bastard x 4
hussy x 3
make love x 2
slut x 5
whore x 48
            

Page 1

~   ~   ~   Sentence 193   ~   ~   ~

When she came into the house, the mistress was fuming, and raging like one distracted, and called the maid all the foolish jades and sluts that she could think of, and that she would take the children and turn them all out into the streets.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 287   ~   ~   ~

"What d'ye mean by that, hussy?" said I.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 299   ~   ~   ~

"I am indeed," said I, "and thou art for my sake; but to be a whore, Amy!" and there I stopped.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 300   ~   ~   ~

"Dear madam," says Amy, "if I will starve for your sake, I will be a whore or anything for your sake; why, I would die for you if I were put to it."

~   ~   ~   Sentence 302   ~   ~   ~

But, however, Amy, you shall not be a whore to him, to oblige him to be kind to me; no, Amy, nor I won't be a whore to him, if he would give me much more than he is able to give me or do for me."

~   ~   ~   Sentence 379   ~   ~   ~

"What ails the slut to talk so?" said I.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 402   ~   ~   ~

And, I must own, I am of the same mind; else it is in the power of a whore, after she has jilted and abandoned her husband, to confine him from the pleasure as well as convenience of a woman all the days of his life, which would be very unreasonable, and, as times go, not tolerable to all people; and the like on your side, madam."

~   ~   ~   Sentence 423   ~   ~   ~

"Well, Amy," says I, "the case is as you say, and I think verily I must yield to him; but then," said I, moved by conscience, "don't talk any more of your cant of its being lawful that I ought to marry again, and that he ought to marry again, and such stuff as that; 'tis all nonsense," says I, "Amy, there's nothing in it; let me hear no more of that, for if I yield, 'tis in vain to mince the matter, I am a whore, Amy; neither better nor worse, I assure you."

~   ~   ~   Sentence 454   ~   ~   ~

And thus, in gratitude for the favours I received from a man, was all sense of religion and duty to God, all regard to virtue and honour, given up at once, and we were to call one another man and wife, who, in the sense of the laws both of God and our country, were no more than two adulterers; in short, a whore and a rogue.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 472   ~   ~   ~

Nor was what followed more her own fault than mine, who led her almost into it at first, and quite into it at last; and this may be a farther testimony what a hardness of crime I was now arrived to, which was owing to the conviction, that was from the beginning upon me, that I was a whore, not a wife; nor could I ever frame my mouth to call him husband or to say "my husband" when I was speaking of him.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 507   ~   ~   ~

"Nay, you whore," says I, "you said, if I would put you to bed, you would with all your heart."

~   ~   ~   Sentence 516   ~   ~   ~

Had I looked upon myself as a wife, you cannot suppose I would have been willing to have let my husband lie with my maid, much less before my face, for I stood by all the while; but as I thought myself a whore, I cannot say but that it was something designed in my thoughts that my maid should be a whore too, and should not reproach me with it.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 517   ~   ~   ~

Amy, however, less vicious than I, was grievously out of sorts the next morning, and cried and took on most vehemently, that she was ruined and undone, and there was no pacifying her; she was a whore, a slut, and she was undone!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 521   ~   ~   ~

"A whore!" says I.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 522   ~   ~   ~

"Well, and am not I a whore as well as you?"

~   ~   ~   Sentence 720   ~   ~   ~

I argued with myself that I could not be a cheat in anything that was esteemed sacred; that I could not be of one opinion, and then pretend myself to be of another; nor could I go to confession, who knew nothing of the manner of it, and should betray myself to the priest to be a Huguenot, and then might come into trouble; but, in short, though I was a whore, yet I was a Protestant whore, and could not act as if I was popish, upon any account whatsoever.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 767   ~   ~   ~

I, that knew what this carcase of mine had been but a few years before; how overwhelmed with grief, drowned in tears, frightened with the prospect of beggary, and surrounded with rags and fatherless children; that was pawning and selling the rags that covered me for a dinner, and sat on the ground despairing of help and expecting to be starved, till my children were snatched from me to be kept by the parish; I, that was after this a whore for bread, and, abandoning conscience and virtue, lived with another woman's husband; I, that was despised by all my relations, and my husband's too; I, that was left so entirely desolate, friendless, and helpless that I knew not how to get the least help to keep me from starving,--that I should be caressed by a prince, for the honour of having the scandalous use of my prostituted body, common before to his inferiors, and perhaps would not have denied one of his footmen but a little while before, if I could have got my bread by it.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 815   ~   ~   ~

Great men are indeed delivered from the burthen of their natural children, or bastards, as to their maintenance.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 834   ~   ~   ~

I think I may say now that I lived indeed like a queen; or, if you will have me confess that my condition had still the reproach of a whore, I may say I was, sure, the queen of whores; for no woman was ever more valued or more caressed by a person of such quality only in the station of a mistress.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,039   ~   ~   ~

Had I been a daughter or a wife, of whom it might be said that he had a just concern in their instruction or improvement, it had been an admirable step; but all this to a whore; to one who he carried with him upon no account that could be rationally agreeable, and none but to gratify the meanest of human frailties--this was the wonder of it.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,041   ~   ~   ~

Whoring was, in a word, his darling crime, the worst excursion he made, for he was otherwise one of the most excellent persons in the world.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,158   ~   ~   ~

But the malice of his thoughts anticipated him, and the Dutch merchant was so good as to give me an account of his design, which, indeed, was wicked enough in its nature; but to me it would have been worse than otherwise it would to another, for, upon examination, I could not have proved myself to be the wife of the jeweller, so the suspicion might have been carried on with the better face; and then I should also have brought all his relations in England upon me, who, finding by the proceedings that I was not his wife, but a mistress, or, in English, a whore, would immediately have laid claim to the jewels, as I had owned them to be his.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,281   ~   ~   ~

I have been a whore to two men, and have lived a wretched, abominable life of vice and wickedness for fourteen years.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,359   ~   ~   ~

These were my wicked arguments for whoring, for I never set against them the difference another way--I may say, every other way; how that, first, a wife appears boldly and honourably with her husband, lives at home, and possesses his house, his servants, his equipages, and has a right to them all, and to call them her own; entertains his friends, owns his children, and has the return of duty and affection from them, as they are here her own, and claims upon his estate, by the custom of England, if he dies and leaves her a widow.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,360   ~   ~   ~

The whore skulks about in lodgings, is visited in the dark, disowned upon all occasions before God and man; is maintained, indeed, for a time, but is certainly condemned to be abandoned at last, and left to the miseries of fate and her own just disaster.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,364   ~   ~   ~

The opposite circumstances of a wife and whore are such and so many, and I have since seen the difference with such eyes, as I could dwell upon the subject a great while; but my business is history.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,406   ~   ~   ~

I began to understand him now, and to see plainly that he resolved to make love to me, but I would by no means seem to take the hint; and, besides, I knew that he had a wife with him in Paris; and I had, just then at least, no gust to any more intriguing.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,422   ~   ~   ~

Well, however, we were obliged to do nothing in it, for neither of us knew how to direct a letter to him, or to direct anybody to him; so I told him I would leave it till I came to England, for that my woman, Amy, corresponded with him, and that he had made love to her.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,466   ~   ~   ~

I, that was infinitely obliged to him before, began to talk to him as if I had balanced accounts with him now, and that the favour of lying with a whore was equal, not to the thousand pistoles only, but to all the debt I owed him for saving my life and all my effects.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,470   ~   ~   ~

For where is the man that cares to marry a whore, though of his own making?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,564   ~   ~   ~

He would have taken me as a wife, but would not entertain me as a whore.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,566   ~   ~   ~

And was ever woman so stupid to choose to be a whore, where she might have been an honest wife?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,572   ~   ~   ~

And he hoped, he said, I could not blame him that he was unwilling anything that was to call him father should upbraid him with leaving him in the world to be called bastard; adding that he was astonished to think how I could satisfy myself to be so cruel to an innocent infant not yet born; professed he could neither bear the thoughts of it, much less bear to see it, and hoped I would not take it ill that he could not stay to see me delivered, for that very reason.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,617   ~   ~   ~

Having thus spent nine months in Holland, refused the best offer ever woman in my circumstances had, parted unkindly, and indeed barbarously, with the best friend and honestest man in the world, got all my money in my pocket, and a bastard in my belly, I took shipping at the Brill in the packet-boat, and arrived safe at Harwich, where my woman Amy was come by my direction to meet me.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,625   ~   ~   ~

This, with some other securities, made me a very handsome estate of above a thousand pounds a year; enough, one would think, to keep any woman in England from being a whore.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,681   ~   ~   ~

He applauded my way of managing my money, and told me I should soon be monstrous rich; but he neither knew or mistrusted that, with all this wealth, I was yet a whore, and was not averse to adding to my estate at the farther expense of my virtue.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,798   ~   ~   ~

For the common vice of all whores, I mean money, was out of the question, nay, even avarice itself seemed to be glutted; for, including what I had saved in reserving the interest of £14,000, which, as above, I had left to grow, and including some very good presents I had made to me in mere compliment upon these shining masquerading meetings, which I held up for about two years, and what I made of three years of the most glorious retreat, as I call it, that ever woman had, I had fully doubled my first substance, and had near £5000 in money which I kept at home, besides abundance of plate and jewels, which I had either given me or had bought to set myself out for public days.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,806   ~   ~   ~

"Ignorant creature!" said I to myself, considering him as a lord, "was there ever woman in the world that could stoop to the baseness of being a whore, and was above taking the reward of her vice!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,963   ~   ~   ~

For now I began not to be sick of his lordship only, but really I began to be sick of the vice; and as I had good leisure now to divert and enjoy myself in the world as much as it was possible for any woman to do that ever lived in it, so I found that my judgment began to prevail upon me to fix my delight upon nobler objects than I had formerly done, and the very beginning of this brought some just reflections upon me relating to things past, and to the former manner of my living; and though there was not the least hint in all this from what may be called religion or conscience, and far from anything of repentance, or anything that was akin to it, especially at first, yet the sense of things, and the knowledge I had of the world, and the vast variety of scenes that I had acted my part in, began to work upon my senses, and it came so very strong upon my mind one morning when I had been lying awake some time in my bed, as if somebody had asked me the question, What was I a whore for now?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,966   ~   ~   ~

But not to dwell upon that now; this was a pretence, and here was something to be said, though I acknowledge it ought not to have been sufficient to me at all; but, I say, to leave that, all this was out of doors; the devil himself could not form one argument, or put one reason into my head now, that could serve for an answer--no, not so much as a pretended answer to this question, why I should be a whore now.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,971   ~   ~   ~

But this objection would now serve no longer, for my lord had in some sort broke his engagements (I won't call it honour again) with me, and had so far slighted me as fairly to justify my entire quitting of him now; and so, as the objection was fully answered, the question remained still unanswered, Why am I a whore now?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,972   ~   ~   ~

Nor indeed had I anything to say for myself, even to myself; I could not without blushing, as wicked as I was, answer that I loved it for the sake of the vice, and that I delighted in being a whore, as such; I say, I could not say this, even to myself, and all alone, nor indeed would it have been true.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,973   ~   ~   ~

I was never able, in justice and with truth, to say I was so wicked as that; but as necessity first debauched me, and poverty made me a whore at the beginning, so excess of avarice for getting money and excess of vanity continued me in the crime, not being able to resist the flatteries of great persons; being called the finest woman in France; being caressed by a prince; and afterwards, I had pride enough to expect and folly enough to believe, though indeed without ground, by a great monarch.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,977   ~   ~   ~

What am I a whore for now?"

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,015   ~   ~   ~

"Why, prithee, Amy," says I, "what will my children say to themselves, and to one another, when they find their mother, however rich she may be, is at best but a whore, a common whore?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,016   ~   ~   ~

And as for acquaintance, prithee, Amy, what sober lady or what family of any character will visit or be acquainted with a whore?"

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,573   ~   ~   ~

This we picked out of the girl's discourse, that is to say, Amy did, at several times; but it all consisted of broken fragments of stories, such as the girl herself had heard so long ago, that she herself could make very little of it; only that in the main, that her mother had played the whore; had gone away with the gentleman that was landlord of the house; that he married her; that she went into France.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,575   ~   ~   ~

But this, after I had searched into it, as far as by Amy's relation I could get an account of it, did not disquiet me half so much as that the young slut had got the name of Roxana by the end, and that she knew who her Lady Roxana was, and the like; though this, neither, did not hang together, for then she would not have fixed upon Amy for her mother.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,754   ~   ~   ~

I was now under a new perplexity, for this young slut gave so complete an account of everything in the dress, that my friend the Quaker coloured at it, and looked two or three times at me, to see if I did not do so too; for (as she told me afterwards) she immediately perceived it was the same dress that she had seen me have on, as I have said before.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,981   ~   ~   ~

So indeed I did not know what to do with her; and thus I had a bitter in all my sweet, for I was continually perplexed with this hussy, and thought she haunted me like an evil spirit.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,240   ~   ~   ~

_Quaker._ As thou intendest to stay here to-morrow, to see the things which thou callest antiquities, and which are more properly named the relics of the Whore of Babylon; suppose thou wert to send Thomas, who at thy command followeth after us, to the place called Dover, to inquire whether such a young woman has been inquiring for thee.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,385   ~   ~   ~

"Hussy," said I, in the greatest passion imaginable, "how dare you mention the word murder?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,502   ~   ~   ~

You scrupled to be happily married to me, and soon after came to England, and was a reputed whore to any nobleman that would come up to your price, and lived with one a considerable time, and was taken by several people to be his lawful wife.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,504   ~   ~   ~

I must say an inhuman false-hearted whore, one that had not tenderness enough to own her own children, and has too little virtue, in my mind, to make a good wife.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,647   ~   ~   ~

I raved like a mad woman, and, at the end of my discourse, told him that I did not value what could happen to me, even if I was forced to beg my bread, for I would stand the test of my own character; and as I could get nothing by being an honest woman, so I should not scruple to declare that "the son you have left what you have to is a bastard you had by me several years before we were married."

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,649   ~   ~   ~

no, not in the least; for if you ever mention anything of it, the title, as well as all the estate, will go to another branch of my family, and you will then be left to starve in good earnest, without having the least glimpse of hope to better your fortune; for," added he, "it is not very probable that you will be courted for a wife by any man of substance at these years; so if you have a mind to make yourself easy in your present circumstances, you must rest contented with what I have left you, and not prove yourself a whore to ruin your child, in whose power it will be to provide for you in a handsome manner, provided you behave yourself with that respect to him and me as you ought to do; for if any words arise about what I have done, I shall make a fresh will, and, as the laws of this nation will give me liberty, cut you off with a shilling."

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