To escape from this persecution,
I once more entered into servitude.
"A life of comparative regularity restored my health; and--
do not start--my manners were improved, in a situation where vice
sought to render itself alluring, and taste was cultivated to
fashion the person, if not to refine the mind. Besides, the common
civility of speech, contrasted with the gross vulgarity to which
I had been accustomed, was something like the polish of civilization.
I was not shut out from all intercourse of humanity. Still I was
galled by the yoke of service, and my mistress often flying into
violent fits of passion, made me dread a sudden dismission, which
I understood was always the case. I was therefore prevailed on,
though I felt a horror of men, to accept the offer of a gentleman,
rather in the decline of years, to keep his house, pleasantly
situated in a little village near Hampstead.
"He was a man of great talents, and of brilliant wit; but, a
worn-out votary of voluptuousness, his desires became fastidious
in proportion as they grew weak, and the native tenderness of his
heart was undermined by a vitiated imagination.
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