Entering the Lady's Dressing Room

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(font: "Garamond")[Surprised to see you in the hallway, Celia commends you on your good taste in preferring chocolate over tea or coffee. She is delighted to accept your invitation but asks if you wouldn't rather stay in and try out a hot chocolate recipe with her? Do you" [[Recall that the kitchen is not your strongest room in the house—there is still cheese sticking to the ceiling from the|chocolateNightOut]] <html><a href="https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/d/defoe/daniel/d31r/complete.html#chapter9" target="_blank"> Robinson Crusoe "Earthenware Pot" Fondue Debacle</a></html>[[ and cooly persuade her that that you would like to treat her to a chocolate adventure in the city.|chocolateNightOut]] *or* [[Vow that if anyone is going to make "hot chocolate" with Celia, it will be you! *Ye Virgins must make much of time and you will make much of chocolate.* You accept her invitation and head to the Lady's Kitchen.| ladysKitchen]]]

(font: "Garamond")[After Celia leaves, you look around to make sure her maid Betty is out of sight. You open the door and slip in unseen. As you step into the room you are startled by how messy it is. Do you: [[Decide to leave, but go away with something of a new fondness for Celia?| leave]] *or* [[Feel an irrepressible urge to straighten up, starting with all of the clothing on the ground? |pickUpClothes]] *or* [[Remember your|searchRoom]] <html><a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/bacon/" target=_blank>Lord Bacon</a></html>: [[*Knowledge is Power over Nature.* and decide to go forth to explore?| searchRoom]]]

<== (font: "Garamond")[You alight and go forth to White’s Chocolate House (est. 1697) for some hot, delicious, tantalizing brew! You hail a narrow <html><a style="text-decoration:none;" href="http://georgianaduchessofdevonshire.blogspot.com/2008/11/modes-of-transportation-carriages.html" target= _blank>vis-a-vis</a></html> and arrive after a splendid few minutes spent looking at Celia and she looking at you. ==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/rXf4"></html> <== You enter and find an empty table, one that was once host to the late essayists Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, which leads you to recall a particularly spledid edition of their *Tatler*. ==><== <html><img src="https://books.google.com/books/content?id=nyQ9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA96&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U2jOBWNqFEXY1k81qLpUgqDGWg3mw&ci=120%2C997%2C807%2C141&edge=0"></html> <== Ahh, you think, if only I had some of *that* powder——then perhaps I could finally sneak into Celia's dressing room. [[Play Again|Enter]]]<html> <a style="text-decoration:none;" href="mailto:[email protected]"> Tell us what you think!</a></html>

<== (font: "Garamond")[Celia takes you to an immaculate sitting room and whispers to Betty to gather the necessary items. "We aren't actually going into the kitchen of course--so messy! Everything will be brought in for us." Now you decide is a good time to make some small talk. You mention jokingly that Celia was in her dressing room for a long time, teasing, "What could you have *possibly* been up to?" She laughs as a tray of powdered cacao, fine sugar, ground cinnamon, cloves, and Indian pepper, and some vanilla essence arrives, ==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/gIFe"></html> <== and says smiling: "Five hours, I know." Shaking her head, she shrugs, "But who could do it in less? In fact, I think I need another 5 hours *at least.* I've been trying to clean the place up. It's a distaster. My sisters Corinna and Chloe have been staying with me. They are such slobs!" Now let's make some chocolate! ==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/NxSG"></html> *Mind you don't spill.* <== [[Play again|Enter]]]<html> <a style="text-decoration:none;" href="mailto:[email protected]"> Tell us what you think!</a></html>

(font: "Garamond")[Celia isn't perfect: she's messy. What a delight. As Herrick says in his Definition of Beauty: (text-style: "italic")[Beauty no other thing is, than a beam Flash'd out between the middle and extreme.] <== To be perfect would be extreme. She is now more beautiful to you than ever and you leave the dressing room a happy, love-besotted Strephon, and seek out your Celia with a more sophisticated vigour. [[Play Again| Enter]]]<html> <a style="text-decoration:none;" href="mailto:[email protected]"> Tell us what you think!</a></html>

(font: "Garamond")[While you are picking up one of Celia’s petticoats you decide to try it on and have a good laugh. Do you: [[Find yourself intrigued and surpringly comfortable as you look for something else to try on?|tryOnCloathes]] *or* [[Reflect that this mess is utterly incommensurate with the Celia you know and decide to go on a fact—finding mission—both for science and for your own piece of mind? |searchRoom]]]

(font: "Garamond")[You look at yourself in Celia’s best silk frock, bonnet and stockings——wishing only that your feet were as small and delicate as Celia’s so that you could wear her shoes too. Something about this all feels right, and you decide, "Perhaps it is not that I want to be with Celia, but I want to *be* Celia." Upon this epiphany you decide to jot down a quick note to Celia saying that you’re through, and secretly slip away to <html><a href="http://gdurl.com/TX-p" target=_blank>a Molly House</a></html>. ==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/SgBq"></html> <== [[Play Again|Enter]]]<html> <a style="text-decoration:none;" href="mailto:[email protected]"> Tell us what you think!</a></html>

(font: "Garamond")[The first thing you discover is a dirty smock on the ground. You pick it up to take a closer look and perceive a pair of stains at what might perhaps be the armpits, though this seems unseemly and wrong. Do you: [[Go in for a sniff to gather more evidence about the source of the stain.|sniff]] *or* [[Drop the dirty smock and decide to leave everyting just as you found it embarrassed that you have sunk so low as to have been roooting through Celia's dirty laundry. |leaveAfterSmock]] *or* [[Decide to do her laundry, hoping Celia will be impressed by your domestic skills.|domesticSkills]]]

(font: "Garamond")[The nose confirms—these are disgusting sweat stains. You are appalled and revolted: Celia not only sweats, but sweats a great amount if the evidence is to be trusted. What others have said about Celia being so “sweet and cleanly” is clearly a lie. This knowledge sits uneasily, but being the good empirical explorer you are, you are impelled to go forward and discover just how deep the lies go! ==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/e3ja"></html> <== You see a dressing table a few steps in front of you with various items and containers scattered on the desktop next to a mirror. Walking over you see combs and a brush. Do you: <== [[Pick up the comb and brush for inspection. No detail is too small to yield truth?|pickUpComb]] *or* [[Keep the comb and brush in mind, but decide to take a full inventory of the table first?|lookAtOtherItems]] *or* [[Ignore the table and look at something else. There is nothing here that Alexander Pope didn't disclose in |Basin]]] *<html><a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/previctorian/pope/rape.html" target=_blank>The Rape of the Lock</a>*?

(font: "Garamond")[This dirt and disorder were certainly not what you were expecting to find, but then again, you never expected to find yourself sneaking into Celia's room and rooting around in her soiled underthings either. Love has made you a fool, but you are a fool in love. And much as Herrick writes in "Delight and Disorder," ==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/wwvM"></html> <== You find yourself much more foolish and much more in love than when you first stepped into the dressing room. [[Play Again|Enter]]]<html> <a style="text-decoration:none;" href="mailto:[email protected]"> Tell us what you think!</a></html>

(font: "Garamond")[Come to think of it, you don't really have any domestic skills to speak of. Luckily, you happen to happen to spy a copy of Jonathan Swift’s *Directions to Servants.* Ahhhh... "Chapter 14: Directions to the Laundress." ==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/S1ur"></html> *Thanks Dr. Swift! Is there nothing you can't do?* <== You scrub the smock and hang it from a decorative rose tree in the French-style gardens. However, there are now too many servants around for you to sneak back into the house and into Celia’s room, so you leave. The next time you meet Celia, you present her with some roses. Celia looks curiously, then shakes her head, and gives a little laugh, then off you go to White’s for some Chocolate. ==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/rXf4"></html> <== While you’re there, she tells you about the mysterious and ridiculous appearance of her under-smock in the rose garden. “I was only out for just a few minutes, she says. I wish I could have caught the thief. Can you imagine?” You laugh about it until she admits that for a second, when you gave her roses, she thought you might have done it. Her tone suggests that now is *not* the time to come clean, so to speak. You reply, "There are definitely some rogues and ruffians out there, Celia—but don’t worry, You're safe with me." She smiles again. *Nice Save, Bro!* Thank goodness you got out of that dressing room when you did. [[Play again|Start]]]<html> <a style="text-decoration:none;" href="mailto:[email protected]"> Tell us what you think!</a></html>

==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/UGfA"></html> <== (font: "Garamond")[You take the elaborate comb out of its case and notice that it is clotted with various infelicitous debris. Gracious! It appears to be an amalgamation vile of dirt, dandruff, powder, lead, hair, and sweat. The sweat seems consistent in scent with what you suffered in the affair of the undersmock, leading you to believe that this must indeed be the residue of Celia’s hair grooming process. Your hypothesis gains momentum as you see jars of what look like pomatum and paste also on the table. Do you: [[Decide that these supplies and tools present you with the opportunity to fix your own hair just so?|c18Hair]] *or* [[Continue to explore (for science! For the truth!) and examine the other items on the table?|lookAtOtherItems]]]

(font: "Garamond")[ You observe an oily cloth, allum flower, and some leather gloves aside a jar marked “Puppy water.” You recognize the oily cloth as evidence or moisturizer being applied to Celia’s forehead for the express purpose of wrinkle concealment! (The lies continue, you mutter to yourself.) Allum flower: a known deodorant, this certainly seems consonant with the abundant sweat specimens you’ve encountered but suggests, with perhaps more terror, that not only does she sweat smelly, smelly sweat such as we witnessed on the smock but, perhaps also Celia in her proper person smells! A worrying prospect indeed, one that begins to undermine your thoughts about the nature of the female body itself. Recalling rumors that Queen Elizabeth—Gloriana Regina herself, the Virgin Queen—customarily had her body dry rubbed with clean linens to exfoliate the skin and remove traces of sweat, dirt, and other material detritus of female existence, you begin to doubt not just the integrity of Celia’s normally pleasing scent and recall with bitter asperity <html><a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/montaigne/" style="text-decoration: none">Michel de Montaigne’s</a> claim in his essay <a href="https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/m/montaigne/michel/essays/book1.55.html" target=_blank style="text-decoration: none"> “Of Smells” </a> that not only should women be seen and not heard, but also, and most importantly, that “A woman smells most perfectly when she does not smell at all, just as her deeds are said to smell sweeter when they are unnoticed and unheard.” Indeed you begin to suspect that even <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/edmund-spenser" target=_blank style="tex-decoration: none">Spenser’s</a> <a href="http://www.radford.edu/~mhtay/ITEC225/SamplePage/Tutorial.05/Cases/Case3/SonES64.htm" target=_blank style="text-decoration: none">Amoretti</a> </html>was false! Bolstered by a new sense of outrage, do you: [[Decide to give closer inspection to the jar marked puppy water, wondering what this could possibly be?|puppyWater]] *or* [[Feel your work here is done and begin to explore another part of the dressing room? | Basin]]]

(font: "Garamond")[After a few hours of intensive, focused labor, it is done: ==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/Kxij"></html> <== Without a doubt, you are one fashionable gentleman. It's time to leave the dressing room and take this hair out on the town where everyone——including Celia——can see it. [[Play again|Start]]]<html> <a style="text-decoration:none;" href="mailto:[email protected]"> Tell us what you think!</a></html>

==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/i5SF"></html> <== (font: "Garamond")[ A review of the ingredient list for this rather silky lotion leaves you mortified:<html><ul><li> Sallet Oil four pounds</li><li>two Puppy-dogs newly whelped</li> <li>Earthworms washed in white Wine one pound</li> Wait a minute, the Puppy water is a lotion made of puppies?! Puppies! Nervously you eye the gloves on the table; the hide suspiciously bears markings similar to Celia’s late pet Tripsy, who if you recall rightly had a litter of puppies just last spring. Upon this recollection, do you: [[You vomit in disgust (it doesn't really matter where as it likely won't be noticed amid the filthy, foul chaos, and steel yourself in your resolve to demystify, debunk, and disenchant all of Celia's tricks and devices, no matter how disturbing the truth may be.| mirror1]] *or* [[Not being a dog person per se, you wonder if there isn’t rather a good opportunity here to enter into an burgeoning trade in feminine grooming products.|cosmetics]]]

==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/1xxO"></html> <== (font: "Garamond")[ You remember having seen some advertisements not so long ago for Packwoods Hair and Parfumer on Grace-Church Street. ==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/eQzd"></html> <== Convinced that Packwood would be *delighted* to add personal care products to his inventory, you swipe the puppy water and a few other items. If what you have seen today is any indication, the double standard society holds women to guarantees a healthy future for the cosmetics and personal care industry. ==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/Iz9Y"></html> <== Excited at the fortuitous synergy of capitalism, upward-mobility, and gender-based objectification in your historical moment, you rush out——leaving a trail of talcum and lead powder behind you and eager to establish your new career as the skin-care guru of London. [[Play Again| Enter]]]<html><a style="text-decoration:none;" href="mailto:[email protected]"> Tell us what you think!</a></html>

(font: "Garamond")[You eye a mirror on the table besides pots of what look like cosmetic paints; looking into it, you realize that the mirror magnifies and gives you a detailed view of your face. Why would Celia need this you wonder? Quickly your mind alights to two non-exclusive possibilities: <html><ol><li>She applies cosmetics in fine detail undetectable to the naked human eye</li> <li>She uses the tweezers to help remove black worms from outside her nose</li><li>She needs the mirror to see up her nose to check for and exterminate any thread worms or other parasites that might be residing there.</li></ol></html> Alas not only is her smell a lie, so is her facial appearance. Eying yourself in the mirror, do you: [[Decide you might need a touch up yourself, apply a little lead paste and rouge here and there to keep up appearances (even intrepid empiricists want to look good), and do a brief check for worms.| worms]] *or* [[Feel a little queasy but decide to sally forth in your inquiry and examine other parts of the dressing room.|Basin]]]

<== (font: "Garamond")[The inspection yields results—too many results. After discovering a parasitic ecosystem in and around each nostril, you abandon your exploration for the aid of medical science. Stopping at the apothecary <html><img src="https://siftingthepast.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/siftingthepast_pharmacie-rustique_nach-natur-gezeichnet-von-g-locher-1730-1795-1774-graviert-von-bartholomc3a4us-hc3bcbner-1775_1775.jpg" style= "max-width:400px"> you pick up:<ul><li>red wine vinegar</li><li>prunella</li> <li>nightshade water</li> <li> And some mercury———just for good measure. </li></ul></html> [[Play Again| Enter]]]<html> <a style="text-decoration:none;" href="mailto:[email protected]"> Tell us what you think!</a></html>

(font: "Garamond")[Before you can look further, your eyes are arrested by the sight of a washing basin with used towels beside. Peering inside (how could you not?) you see an unseemly array of trace spit, vomit, mucus, and what you suspect to be bits of food scraped from her teeth. While you had always assumed that Celia lived off of honey and the nectar of paradisal fruits, what you see below you looks to be——little bits of partially-chewed ham. Feeling a wave of nausea you reach for a towel to block the smell and cover your mouth. Your nausea increases, alas, as your nose makes contact with the slime of ear wax, dirt, and sweat that coats the towel. In haste you grab for a handkerchief to wipe away the slime only to find it, how shall we say, well-used, with a fine patina of snuff and snot. You are overcome and collapse into a heap of filthy petticoats, stained stockings, aprons, and caps that are greasy to the touch. [[You have reached your limit and leave the dressing room. You’ve come across enough evidence that you can make morally-certain conclusions|moralCertainty1]] *or* [[You decide that you might need to revisit the dressing room after steadying your nerves with a few pinches of snuff yourself. |greatRusselStreet]] or [[While lying amid the petticoats, find yourself intrigued by their gossamer filth and decide to examine them further. |pickUpClothes2]] or [[Climb out of the petticoat muck and continue on to see what fresh horror awaits you next.|leavePetticoats1]]]

(font: "Garamond")[Seeing your snuffbox empty, your mind wanders... Wasn’t there some excellent golden snuff advertised in that back issue of *The Daily Courant*... ==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/ezhh"></html> <== You head off to—not White’s—you might run into Celia near there. Tom’s on Great Russel Street is not far off, so off you go to get your fix. ==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/rjpj"></html> <== [[Play Again|Enter]]]<html> <a style="text-decoration:none;" href="mailto:[email protected]"> Tell us what you think!</a></html>

(font: "Garamond")[While you are picking up one of Celia’s petticoats you decide to try it on and have a good laugh. Do you: [[Find yourself intrigued and surpringly comfortable as you look for something else to try on?|tryOnCloathes]] *or* [[Stand agog in the knowledge that your Celia drapes herself in this frippery. Saddened but resolute, you continue on, seeking the Truth?| leavePetticoats1]]]

(font: "Garamond")[You emerge from the petticoats like a phoenix from the ashes, revitalized in your sacred purpose: to get to the bottom of things, no matter how disgusting or disastrous. In the corner of the room you see a finely carved, decorative wooden chest. You aren’t fooled. You know this is where her deepest secret is hidden. You walk over and as you begin to lift the lid a deeply foul odor emerges. You: ==><== <html> <img src="http://gdurl.com/JyNU"> </html> <== [[You contemplate the fable of Pandora and decide that the human race is probably be better off keeping some unknowns unkown. You leave feeling both titanic and dirty, and decide it's high time to go home and take a rigorous and thorough sponge bath!| bathAtHome]] *or* [[Throw caution to the wind, open the lid wide, and thrust your hand into the dark abyss.|cautionToWind]]]

<== (font: "Garamond")[You emerge from the petticoats like a phoenix from the ashes, revitalized in your sacred purpose: to get to the bottom of things, no matter how disgusting or disastrous. In the corner of the room you see a finely carved, decorative wooden chest. You aren’t fooled. You know this is where her deepest secret is hidden. You walk over and as you begin to lift the lid a deeply foul odor emerges. Do You: ==><== <html> <img src="http://gdurl.com/JyNU"> </html> <== [[Contemplate the fable of Pandora and decide that the human race is probably be better off keeping some unknowns unkown. You leave feeling both titanic and dirty, and decide it's high time to go home and take a solid and thorough sponge bath?| bathAtHome]] *or* [[Throw caution to the wind, open the lid wide, and thrust your hand into the dark abyss?|cautionToWind]]]

(font: "Garamond")[As you wait for the water to get warm enough to dissolve the residue of Celia's room from your *person* you reflect on the nature of the human body in all of its materiality. You can't help but recall with probity a passage from <html><a href="http://www.pepysdiary.com/" target=_blank style="text-decoration:none">the diary</a> of <a href="http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/summary/" target=_blank style="text-decoration:none">Samuel Pepys</a></html>: ==><== *very fine ladies; and the manner pretty enough, only methinks it cannot be clean to go so many bodies together in the same water* <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/8TW77"</html> <== The very idea of a large public bath full of CELIAS——such a STEW—— is too much for your senses to bear. You scrub and scrub away and decide, taking liberties from <html> <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/john-dryden" target=_blank style="text-decoration:none"> Dryden</a></html>, that a man could hardly approach a woman, but "as a *moated* castle, he must first pass the mud and filth with which it is encompassed." [[Play Again| Enter]]]<html> <a style="text-decoration:none;" href="mailto:[email protected]"> Tell us what you think!</a></html>

==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/aqJj"></html> <== (font:"Garamond")[Before reaching the bottom, you recall some lines of <html> <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/john-milton" target=_blank style="text-decoration:none">Milton’s </a>Paradise Lost——*</html> Before thir eyes in sudden view appear The secrets of the hoarie deep, a dark Illimitable Ocean without bound, Without dimension, where length, breadth, & highth, And time and place are lost; where eldest Night And Chaos, Ancestors of Nature, hold Eternal Anarchie, amidst the noise Of endless Warrs, and by confusion stand. <html>*Paradise Lost Bk 2, ll 890-897</html> [[These lines impress upon you that regardless of Celia’s disarray, you’re a cultured person. What are you doing? What do you hope to find? What will you accomplish, **No**, you say. Not me. Not that. | Milton]] *or* [[Decide you will have none of that regicide’s poetic truths. Facts are facts. Evidence, not fancy is your objective, scientific truth your calling. You thrust your hand to the bottom.|handInBox]] ]

(font:"Garamond")[You close the lid and retreat to your study to better spend your time reflecting on the beauties of <html><a style="text-decoration:none;" href="https://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/contents/text" target=_blank style="text-decoration: none"> Miltonic Verse</a></html>. ==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/7BTZ" style= "max-width:700px"></html> <== [[Play Again|Enter]]]<html> <a style="text-decoration:none;" href="mailto:[email protected]"> Tell us what you think!</a></html>

(font:"Garamond")[Upon contact with a soft, wet, foul smelling mass you retract with disbelief bordering on madness. Celia Sh—ts. Your Petrachian goddess. Your Amoratti. Your Chloe. This "fact" is earth shattering. Apocalyptic. Life as you know it will never be the same. Do you: [[Feel your sanity slip away?| asylum]] *or* [[Feel as though you have discovered the ulitmate Truth?| puttingPiecesTogether]] *or* [[Feel yourself on the verge of a hard-bought epiphany?|epiphany]]]

(font:"Garamond")[Unable to comprehend, your understanding falters and you eck out what remains of your days in Bedlam. ==><== <html><img src= "http://gdurl.com/CAZb"></html> <== <html>In his anticipatory retrospective, “Some Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift” (1731), Swift self-declares:</html> ==><== <html> He gave what little wealth he had to build a house for fools and mad and show’d by one satyric touch No nation wanted it so much.</html> <== Whether you be mad or a fool, you live out your remaining days haunted by the uncomfortable irreconcilable truth that has become your eternal chant of despair: “oh Celia, Celia, Celia sh—ts.” [[Play again|Start]]]<html> <a style="text-decoration:none;" href="mailto:[email protected]"> Tell us what you think!</a></html>

(font: "garamond")[Now privy to the foulness of Celia’s secret life and indelibly marked by the memory of each disgusting article of her lair— the disgraceful petticoats, the stained stockings, and smelly smock; the grimy combs, the witch's brew of cosmetics, moisturizers, and oils; the soiled basin of no return; the fetid towels and handkerchiefs; and, lo! the excremental chest!—you know will never forget. <html>You can never forget.</html> Indeed you prove upon your pulse <html><a style="text-decoration:none;" href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/locke/">John Locke's</a></html> theory of mind by recalling these instruments of feminine deception and their owner whenever you encounter a foul smell, and, conversely, recalling that foulness whenever you encounter a woman of Celia’s charms. Those wicked enchantresses! You however will not be bewitched: science has equipped you with the ability to see through such illusions to and know the horror that is woman and her lies. The lament of Shakespeare's mad king swirls in you brain:] ==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/6Aqd"></html> <== (font: "garamond")[Oh Lear—you weren’t mad, you were wise! You exit the dressing room a sadder and a wiser man, eager to share your story with the first person you encounter.] [[Play again|Start]]<html> <a style="text-decoration:none;" href="mailto:[email protected]"> Tell us what you think!</a></html>

<== (font: "Garamond")[In your horror, you begin to swoon and catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. Unfortunately, your eyes lie no more than your nose. Taking a good long look at yourself, you realize that you are standing in Celia’s dressing room, which is now a much bigger mess than when you entered, your hand coated in excrement and other infelicities. Laughing, you are unable to resist the comic conclusion———Celia isn’t a horror; she is merely human, just like you. You reconsider the evidence: Celia goes through all of this effort to improve upon the human body—to make it more beautiful, more pleasant, more cultured than it is in its natural state. You reflect on what man in his natural state—without any interventions of hygiene or culture—might look like. ==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/2VDW"></html> <== Even though you find fault with women being held to a higher beauty standard then men, you are filled with a new admiration for humankind and its ability to render something better than it is. Perhaps it’s not that we should expose indecorous truths, but rather we should decorate our unpleasantries so long as we don't mistake decor for truth. Walking out calmly, shutting the door to the dressing room, you reason: I’d rather we work to create pleasant and useful fictions than resign ourselves impotently to material fact. On that note, you think it time to treat yourself to a new wig, possibly one with a tulip. <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/6S2Z"></html> [[Play Again|Enter]]]<html> <a style="text-decoration:none;" href="mailto:[email protected]"> Tell us what you think!</a></html>

(font: "Garamond")[Before you can look further, your eyes are arrested by the sight of a washing basin with used towels beside. Peering inside (how could you not?) you see an unseemly array of trace spit, vomit, mucus, and what you suspect to be bits of food scraped from her teeth. Feeling a wave of nausea you reach for a towel to block the smell and cover your mouth. Your nausea increases, alas, as your nose makes contact with the slime of ear wax, dirt, and sweat that coats the towel. In haste you grab for a handkerchief to wipe away the slime only to find it, how shall we say, well-used, with a fine patina of snuff and snot. You are overcome and collapse into a heap of filthy petticoats, stained stockings, aprons, and caps that are greasy to the touch and: [[You have reached your limit. You leave the dressing room. You’ve come across enough evidence that you can make morally-certain conclusions.|moralCertainty1]] *or* [[You decide that you might need to revisit the dressing room after steadying your nerves with a few pinches of snuff yourself. |greatRusselStreet]] *or* [[While lying amid the petticoats, you find yourself intrigued by their gossamer filth and decide to examine them further. |pickUpClothes2]] *or* [[You climb out of the petticoat muck and continue on to see what fresh horror awaits you next.|leavePetticoats1]]]

<== (font: "Garamond")[The first thing you discover is a dirty smock on the ground. ==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/6pKY"></html> <== You pick it up to take a closer look and begin to perceive a pair of stains at what would seem to be the region of the armpits, though this feels unseemly and wrong. Do you: [[Go in for a sniff to gather more evidence about the source of the stain?|sniff]] *or* [[Drop the dirty smock and decide to leave everyting just as you found it embarassed that you have sunk so low as to have been rooting through Celia's dirty laundry? |leaveAfterSmock]] *or* [[Decide to do her laundry, hoping Celia will be impressed by your domestic skills?|domesticSkills]]]

(font: "garamond")[Your Name is Strephon and the year is 1732. You are madly in love with Celia, a young woman of quality whose beauty, like all of Swift's pastoral heroines, seems to transcend mere human materiality—] <== <html>By Nature form'd with Care, And faultess to a single Hair. Her graceful Mein, her Shape, and Face, Confest her of no mortal Race: And then, so nice, and so genteel; Such Cleanliness form Head to Heel: O Humours gross, or frowzy Streams, No noisome Whiff, or Sweaty Streams, Before, behind, above, below, Could from her tainless Body flow. <a style="text-decoration:none;" href="https://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/strephon.html"> "Strephon and Chloe"</a> (ll 3-10) Jonathan Swift, 1734.</html> <== (font: "garamond")[After five hours lurking outside of her door, you see Celia leave her dressing room. Do you: [[Run up to her and ask her to join you at a chocolate shop?|hotChocolateCelia]] *or* [[Hide and wait until the coast is clear to sneak into her room while she is gone?|goIntoTheDressingRoomNow]]]

==><== <html><img src="http://gdurl.com/dgwj8"></html> <== (font: "Garamond")[ You now know enough that you needn't know any more: Celia is disgusting. How disgusting——Does it matter? Disgusting is disgusting. You leave the dressing room beyond a reasonable doubt that Celia is not the goddess you desire. [[Play Again| Enter]]]<html> <a style="text-decoration:none;" href="mailto:[email protected]"> Tell us what you think!</a></html>