These prejudices of education, proper in themselves to retard the first
explosions of a combustible constitution, were strengthened, as I have
already hinted, by the effect the first moments of sensuality produced in
me, for notwithstanding the troublesome ebullition of my blood, I was
satisfied with the species of voluptuousness I had already been
acquainted with, and sought no further.

Thus I passed the age of puberty, with a constitution extremely ardent,
without knowing or even wishing for any other gratification of the
passions than what Miss Lambercier had innocently given me an idea of;
and when I became a man, that childish taste, instead of vanishing, only
associated with the other. This folly, joined to a natural timidity, has
always prevented my being very enterprising with women, so that I have
passed my days in languishing in silence for those I most admired,
without daring to disclose my wishes.

To fall at the feet of an imperious mistress, obey her mandates, or
implore pardon, were for me the most exquisite enjoyments, and the more
my blood was inflamed by the efforts of a lively imagination the more I
acquired the appearance of a whining lover.

It will be readily conceived that this mode of making love is not
attended with a rapid progress or imminent danger to the virtue of its
object; yet, though I have few favors to boast of, I have not been
excluded from enjoyment, however imaginary. Thus the senses, in
concurrence with a mind equally timid and romantic, have preserved my
moral chaste, and feelings uncorrupted, with precisely the same
inclinations, which, seconded with a moderate portion of effrontery,
might have plunged me into the most unwarrantable excesses.