The Works of Samuel Johnson, Volume 4 | Page 4

my hours in bitterness and anguish. The conversation of
the people with whom I was placed was not at all capable of engaging
my attention, or dispossessing the reigning ideas. The books which I
carried to my retreat were such as heightened my abhorrence of myself;
for I was not so far abandoned as to sink voluntarily into corruption, or
endeavour to conceal from my own mind the enormity of my crime.
My relation remitted none of his fondness, but visited me so often, that
I was sometimes afraid lest his assiduity should expose him to
suspicion. Whenever he came he found me weeping, and was therefore
less delightfully entertained than he expected. After frequent
expostulations upon the unreasonableness of my sorrow, and
innumerable protestations of everlasting regard, he at last found that I
was more affected with the loss of my innocence, than the danger of
my fame, and that he might not be disturbed by my remorse, began to
lull my conscience with the opiates of irreligion. His arguments were
such as my course of life has since exposed me often to the necessity of
hearing, vulgar, empty, and fallacious; yet they at first confounded me
by their novelty, filled me with doubt and perplexity, and interrupted
that peace which I began to feel from the sincerity of my repentance,
without substituting any other support. I listened a while to his impious
gabble, but its influence was soon overpowered by natural reason and
early education, and the convictions which this new attempt gave me of

his baseness completed my abhorrence. I have heard of barbarians, who,
when tempests drive ships upon their coast, decoy them to the rocks
that they may plunder their lading, and have always thought that
wretches, thus merciless in their depredations, ought to be destroyed by
a general insurrection of all social beings; yet how light is this guilt to
the crime of him, who, in the agitations of remorse, cuts away the
anchor of piety, and, when he has drawn aside credulity from the paths
of virtue, hides the light of heaven which would direct her to return. I
had hitherto considered him as a man equally betrayed with myself by
the concurrence of appetite and opportunity; but I now saw with
horrour that he was contriving to perpetuate his gratification, and was
desirous to fit me to his purpose, by complete and radical corruption.
To escape, however, was not yet in my power. I could support the
expenses of my condition only by the continuance of his favour. He
provided all that was necessary, and in a few weeks congratulated me
upon my escape from the danger which we had both expected with so
much anxiety. I then began to remind him of his promise to restore me
with my fame uninjured to the world. He promised me in general terms,
that nothing should be wanting which his power could add to my
happiness, but forbore to release me from my confinement. I knew how
much my reception in the world depended upon my speedy return, and
was therefore outrageously impatient of his delays, which I now
perceived to be only artifices of lewdness. He told me at last, with an
appearance of sorrow, that all hopes of restoration to my former state
were for ever precluded; that chance had discovered my secret, and
malice divulged it; and that nothing now remained, but to seek a retreat
more private, where curiosity or hatred could never find us.
The rage, anguish, and resentment, which I felt at this account are not
to be expressed. I was in so much dread of reproach and infamy, which
he represented as pursuing me with full cry, that I yielded myself
implicitly to his disposal and was removed, with a thousand studied
precautions, through by- ways and dark passages to another house,
where I harassed him with perpetual solicitations for a small annuity
that might enable me to live in the country in obscurity and innocence.
This demand he at first evaded with ardent professions, but in time
appeared offended at my importunity and distrust; and having one day
endeavoured to sooth me with uncommon expressions of tenderness,

when he found my discontent immoveable, left me with some
inarticulate murmurs of anger. I was pleased that he was at last roused
to sensibility, and expecting that at his next visit he would comply with
my request, lived with great tranquillity upon the money in my hands,
and was so much pleased with this pause of persecution, that I did not
reflect how much his absence had exceeded the usual intervals, till I
was alarmed with the danger of wanting subsistence. I then suddenly
contracted my expenses, but was unwilling to supplicate for assistance.
Necessity, however, soon overcame my modesty