The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

In this distress I had no assistant, no friend to comfort or advise me;

I sat and cried and tormented myself night and day, wringing my hands,

and sometimes raving like a distracted woman; and indeed I have often

wondered it had not affected my reason, for I had the vapours to such a

degree, that my understanding was sometimes quite lost in fancies and

imaginations.

I lived two years in this dismal condition, wasting that little I had,

weeping continually over my dismal circumstances, and, as it were, only

bleeding to death, without the least hope or prospect of help from God

or man; and now I had cried too long, and so often, that tears were, as

I might say, exhausted, and I began to be desperate, for I grew poor

apace.

For a little relief I had put off my house and took lodgings; and as I

was reducing my living, so I sold off most of my goods, which put a

little money in my pocket, and I lived near a year upon that, spending

very sparingly, and eking things out to the utmost; but still when I

looked before me, my very heart would sink within me at the inevitable

approach of misery and want. Oh let none read this part without

seriously reflecting on the circumstances of a desolate state, and how

they would grapple with mere want of friends and want of bread; it will

certainly make them think not of sparing what they have only, but of

looking up to heaven for support, and of the wise man's prayer, 'Give

me not poverty, lest I steal.' Let them remember that a time of distress is a time of dreadful

temptation, and all the strength to resist is taken away; poverty

presses, the soul is made desperate by distress, and what can be done?

It was one evening, when being brought, as I may say, to the last gasp,

I think I may truly say I was distracted and raving, when prompted by I

know not what spirit, and, as it were, doing I did not know what or

why, I dressed me (for I had still pretty good clothes) and went out.

I am very sure I had no manner of design in my head when I went out; I

neither knew nor considered where to go, or on what business; but as

the devil carried me out and laid his bait for me, so he brought me, to

be sure, to the place, for I knew not whither I was going or what I did.

Wandering thus about, I knew not whither, I passed by an apothecary's

shop in Leadenhall Street, when I saw lie on a stool just before the

counter a little bundle wrapped in a white cloth; beyond it stood a

maid-servant with her back to it, looking towards the top of the shop,

where the apothecary's apprentice, as I suppose, was standing upon the

counter, with his back also to the door, and a candle in his hand,

looking and reaching up to the upper shelf for something he wanted, so

that both were engaged mighty earnestly, and nobody else in the shop.