Prostitution Quotes in Mary Barton

 

Prostitution in Mary Barton

‘You see Esther spent her money in dress, thinking to set off her pretty face; and got to come home so late at night that at last I told her my mind; my missis thinks I spoke crossly, but I meant right, for I loved Esther, if it was only for Mary’s sake. Says I, ‘Esther, I see what you’ll end at with your artificials, and your fly-away veils, and stopping out when honest women are in their beds: you’ll be a street-walker, Esther, and then, don’t you go to think I’ll have you darken my door, though my wife is your sister.’ P.9

‘He had gone through a street or two, when he heard a step behind him; but he did not care to stop and see who it was. A little farther, and the person quickened step, and touched his arm very lightly. He turned, and saw, even by the darkness visible of that badly lighted street, that the woman who stood by him was of no doubtful profession.’ P.116

‘It was told by her faded finery, all unfit to meet the pelting of that pitiless storm: the gauze bonnet, once pink, now dirty white; the muslin gown, all draggled, and soaking wet up to the very knees; the gay-coloured barege shawl, closely wrapped round the form, which yet shivered and shook, as the woman whispered, ‘I want to speak to you.’ P.116

‘He swore an oath, and bade her begone. ‘I really do. Don’t send me away. I’m so out of breath, I cannot say what I would all at once.’ She put her hand to her side, and caught her breath with evident pain.’ P.116

‘I tell thee I’m not the man for thee,’ adding an opprobrious name. ‘Stay,’ said he, as a thought suggested by her voice flashed across him. He gripped her arm – the arm he had just before shaken off – and dragged her, faintly resisting, to the nearest lamp-post. He pushed the bonnet back, and roughly held the face she would fain have averted to the light, and in her large, unnaturally bright grey eyes, her lovely mouth, half-open, as if imploring the forbearance she could not ask for in words, he saw at once the long-lost Esther; she who had caused his wife’s death.’ P.116

‘Much was like the gay creature of former years; but the glaring paint, the sharp features, the changed expression of the whole! But most of all, he loathed the dress; and yet the poor thing, out of her little choice of attire, had put on the plainest she had, to come on that night’s errand.’ P.116

‘I’ve looked for thee long at corners o’ streets, and suchlike places. I knew I should find thee at last. Thee’ll maybe bethink thee o’some words I spoke, which put thee up at th’time; summat about street-walkers; but oh no! thou art none o’ them naughts; no one think thou art, who sees thy fine draggle-tailed dress, and thy pretty pink cheeks!’ stopping for very want of breath.’ P.116

‘He flung her, trembling, sinking, fainting, from him, and strode away. She fell with a feeble scream against the lamp-post, and lay there in her weakness, unable to rise. A policeman came up in time to see the close of these occurrences, and concluding from Esther’s unsteady, reeling fall, that she was tipsy, he took her in her half-unconscious state to the lock-ups for the night.’ P.117.

‘The superintendent of that abode of vice and misery was roused from his dozing watch through the dark hours… ‘He would not listen to me; what can I do? He would not listen to me and I wanted to warn him! Oh, what shall I do to save Mary’s child! What shall I do? How can I keep her from being such a one as I am; such a wretched, loathsome creature! She was listening just as I listened, and loving just as I loved, and the end will be just like my end. How shall I save her?... So the night wore away. The next morning she was taken up to the New Bailey. It was a clear case of disorderly vagrancy, and she was committed to prison for a month.’ P.117.

‘To whom shall the outcast prostitute tell her tale? Who will give her help in the day of need? Hers is the leper sin, and all stand aloof dreading to be counted unclean.’ P.149

‘In her wild night wanderings, she noted the haunts and habits of many a one who little thought of a watcher in the poor forsaken woman. P.149

‘I always meant to send for her to pay me a visit when I was married; for, mark you! He promised me marriage. They all do. Then came three years of happiness. I suppose I ought not to have been happy, but I was. I had a little girl, too. Oh! The sweetest darling that ever was seen! But I must not think of her,’ putting her hand wildly up to her forehead, ‘or I shall go mad; I shall.’ P.151

‘It went like a shot through me when one day he came to me and told me he was ordered to Ireland, and must leave me behind; at Bristol we then were… So I went back to Chester, where I’d been so happy, and set up a small-ware shop, and hired a room near. We should have done well, but alas! Alas! My little girl fell ill, and I could not mind my shop and her too: and things grew worse and worse. I sold my goods anyhow to get money to buy her food and medicine; I wrote over and over again to her father for help… I could not bear to see her suffer, and forgot how much better it would be for us to die together… So I went out into the street one January night.’ P.152

‘I must have a drink. Such as live like me could not bear life if they did not drink. It’s the only thing to keep us from suicide. If we did not drink, we could not stand the memory of what we have been, and the thought of what we are, for a day. If I go without food, and without shelter, I must have my dram.’ P.154

‘And do you think one sunk so low as I am has a home? Decent, good people have homes. We have none. No; if you want me, come at night and look at the corners of the streets about here. The colder, the bleaker, the more stormy the night, the more certain you will be to find me.’ P.154

‘In Angel’s Meadow, 145 Nicholas Street.’ P.226

 

 

A Harlot's Progress, William Hogarth 1732, The Met, accessed 12 August 2022