The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 334: what you’re looking at

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

THE PEARLS 301 obscure and entertaining the ambition to rise so highly, how was it possible to attain that object without the sacrifice of virtue? Again, though she had exercised the moral courage as a matter of worldly calculation to remain vir- tuous until her marriage with Sackville, yet the moment that nuptial knot was tied and she had tasted the Joys of love, all the desires that were inherent in her nature flamed up with voleanic ardour, and she became, as it were, a veritable Messalina in a few short months. Venetia had a generous mind, a large intellectual capacity, a cool judgment, and a quick appreciation of everything that was tasteful, elegant, and refined, and yet her passions, when once the rein was given to them, threatened to plunge her into depravities the grossest and the vilest. How often has it been, — alas, that we should be compelled to chronicle the fact!— that women of the strongest intelligence have proved themselves of the weakest morality, so that some who have wielded the sceptre of a mighty state and kept millions in awe were unable to rule a little rebel passion or triumph over a single provocative desire. During the current of Venetia’s thoughts, there was a subject which intruded itself more than once. This was the fact that out of the six individuals who had originally laid the memorable wager concerning her, four had already revelled in her charms. She was the wife of one, the fa- vourite mistress of another, had fallen into the arms of a third by sheer mistake, and had voluntarily abandoned her- self as a paramour to the fourth. Thus Horace Sackville was her husband, the prince regent owned her as his favourite, the Earl of Curzon had passed a night in her arms through the mistake just alluded to, and Sir Douglas Huntingdon had been blessed by the joys of her spontaneous yielding. Of the six personages who had originally laid the memorable wager, the Marquis of Leveson and Colonel Malpas were the only two who had not possessed her, and these two she hated cordially. For the marquis, made up as he was with all kinds of succedaneous materials, appeared in her eyes to be a loathsome monster of feculence and corruption; and Colonel Malpas was a detestable coward, a sneaking, grovel- ling scoundrel, whose personal beauty could not for a single moment palliate those evil qualities which rendered him an abhorrence to a woman of Venetia’s mind and spirit. GomiGcbooks (C(O)