The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

This was an adventure indeed unlooked for, and perfectly undesigned by

me; though I was not so past the merry part of life, as to forget how

to behave, when a fop so blinded by his appetite should not know an old

woman from a young. I did not indeed look so old as I was by ten or

twelve years; yet I was not a young wench of seventeen, and it was easy

enough to be distinguished. There is nothing so absurd, so surfeiting,

so ridiculous, as a man heated by wine in his head, and wicked gust in

his inclination together; he is in the possession of two devils at

once, and can no more govern himself by his reason than a mill can

grind without water; his vice tramples upon all that was in him that

had any good in it, if any such thing there was; nay, his very sense is

blinded by its own rage, and he acts absurdities even in his views;

such a drinking more, when he is drunk already; picking up a common

woman, without regard to what she is or who she is, whether sound or

rotten, clean or unclean, whether ugly or handsome, whether old or

young, and so blinded as not really to distinguish. Such a man is

worse than a lunatic; prompted by his vicious, corrupted head, he no

more knows what he is doing than this wretch of mine knew when I picked

his pocket of his watch and his purse of gold.

These are the men of whom Solomon says, 'They go like an ox to the

slaughter, till a dart strikes through their liver'; an admirable

description, by the way, of the foul disease, which is a poisonous

deadly contagion mingling with the blood, whose centre or foundation is

in the liver; from whence, by the swift circulation of the whole mass,

that dreadful nauseous plague strikes immediately through his liver,

and his spirits are infected, his vitals stabbed through as with a dart.

It is true this poor unguarded wretch was in no danger from me, though

I was greatly apprehensive at first of what danger I might be in from

him; but he was really to be pitied in one respect, that he seemed to

be a good sort of man in himself; a gentleman that had no harm in his

design; a man of sense, and of a fine behaviour, a comely handsome

person, a sober solid countenance, a charming beautiful face, and

everything that could be agreeable; only had unhappily had some drink

the night before, had not been in bed, as he told me when we were

together; was hot, and his blood fired with wine, and in that condition

his reason, as it were asleep, had given him up.