Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE GERM OP REFINEMENT. jo sum up, the daughters of the Circumcision, the heifers of the Greeks, the Trojan lasses and the maidens of Christendom have all commenced to stir and whisk the lees of their stagnant fluid, either to stifle their inborn itch, or to bring grist to the mill through the fair first-fruits of their most sinful flesh. When the human race was wandering in the trackless desert and no one was the other’s acquaintance, soft pleasure, we read, refined the ferocity of their minds. A man and a woman happened to stand in the same place together: what they were to do, they had to learn from no master; for Venus all artlessly achieved her grateful task. (Ovid, Art, Book II.) Before Jove’s beard had grown and men had not increased, when more through the stupidity of awkward inexperience than through ignorance of fell lust virginitatem vel castum servaret cubile ma- tronarum chorus, adulteria videntur raisse ignota. Cum tamen magis ignoratione vitiorum, quam cognitione virtutum, (ipsa Astraea aut Saturno regnantibus jam castarum decrescebat nume- rus, ) nudam simplicitatem colerent, quis infi- cias iret, tempus hoc per decem lustra sine probro et scelere fuisse conspicuum? Juvena- lem illudit Naso: Vixego Saturno quem quam regnante videbam, Cujus non animo dulcia furta forent. Rusticam hanc pietatem nee ipse Saturnus coluit teste Prudentio. Ante Sephiram et Helenam alienum lectum concutere, et alterius amicam subagitare non jus sed depravatum cacoethes sinebat. Tu prius et fluctus poterus slccare marines Quam facere ut nostrae nolint peccarepuellae. (Propert. L. 2, El. 32.) Palluit prae amore Caini prosapia, quae hamis blandientibus convellebat sobolem Sethi repugnantem. Sethidae obliti juris divini ma- lesuadum cum improbissim…
