The Mysteries of the Court of London by Pauline Clarendon — page 358: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

MRS. BRACE AND HER VISITORS dOO speare’s works are so greedily devoured by them, and what well-born miss of sixteen has not perused Byron’s “‘ Don Juan’? Let aristocratic papas and mammas examine the shelves in the library; and they will find that the books most frequently in request among the young ladies, are ‘Tom Jones,” “ Joseph Andrews,’ and ‘ Peregrine Pickle.”’ Again, look in the fashionable print-shops, and contemplate the engravings which, from their price, can find purchasers only in wealthy circles, and you will not fail to observe that they are nearly all invested with an air of voluptuousness. Half-naked bosoms lend their charms to these pictures; and the same may be said of the plates which embellish Annuals, Keepsakes, and Books of Beauty. Is not this true, reader? But if another proof be requisite to support our argument, it is found in the plays produced at the theatres frequented by the fashion and the aristocracy; for those pieces which abound in the most indecent allusions or scenes which furnish food for an impure fancy to elaborate, are invariably the most successful. And that ladies in high life only affect morality, and really care nothing about it in their hearts, is undoubtedly demonstrated by the cir- cumstance that, whereas they shrink in loathing and horror from contact with the daughter of crime who may chance to cross their path as they step from their carriage into the lobby of the theatre, they enter that theatre with the foreknowledge that they are about to behold the acting or listen to the warbling of women whose profligacy and dis- soluteness are notorious throughout the civilized world. Let us not, then, be again told of the immorality of the millions; let not the titled, the high-born, and the wealthy set themselves up as examples; for when they thus insolently arrogate to themselves the right of being taken as models, they become breathing, living, walking lies. It was six o'clock, we said, and Mrs. Brace was seated in her own private parlour. She was dressed in a style of the most becoming elegance; and, though in her fortieth year, never perhaps had she appeared so truly handsome. Her hair, as Florimel had observed on a former occasion, was radiant in its glossy blackness; a soit tint of artificial red blended so finely and delicately with the natural white on her plump cheeks that the presence of the roseate cosmetic would not have COME OOO SS (GO)