The Progress of Love

This vile woman held my master till half an hour after seven; and he came hither about five in the afternoon. And then I heard his voice on the stairs, as he was coming up to me. It was about his supper; for he said,I shall choose a boiled chicken with butter and parsley.--And up he came!

He put on a stern and majestic air; and he can look very majestic when he pleases. Well, perverse Pamela, ungrateful runaway, said he, for my first salutation!--You do well, don't you, to give me all this trouble and vexation! I could not speak; but throwing myself on the floor, hid my face, and was ready to die with grief and apprehension.--He said, Well may you hide your face! well may you be ashamed to see me, vile forward one, as you are!--I sobbed and wept, but could not speak. And he let me lie, and went to the door, and called Mrs. Jewkes.--There, said he, take up that fallen angel!- Once I thought her as innocent as an angel of light but I have now no patience with her. The little hypocrite prostrates herself thus, in hopes to move my weakness in her favour, and that I'll raise her from the floor myself. But I shall not touch her: No, said he, cruel gentleman as he was! let such fellows as Williams be taken in by her artful wiles! I know her now, and see she is for any fool's turn, that will be caught by her.

It is impossible to feel the same way about this scene after reading Kenneth Tynan's diaries. It would seem to follow so naturally for the characters to have one of them getting spanked on the bottom. I don't know if this means that Richardson's idea of romance had a fair amount of dominance in it, or whether Tynan's spanking fantasies were just highly literate.