For decades I have tried to help... shall we say, ahem, women from tragic backgrounds make a better life for themselves. I go on walks with them, sometimes paying them for their time, and occasionally I even invite them into my home, or I visit them in their home. I have been doing this since 1840. I started when I was separated from my wife, and, like a good Victorian, I do not let her opinion influence me in the slightest. I am a God-fearing man and very much want these, ahem, fallen women to stop living lives that exposes them to violence, disease, and the moral corruption of themselves, their families, and the countless men who pay for their services--but not me! I never paid for that, and I will not be corrupted. I only pay them to go for walks with me to hear me preach to them about living a better life. Or to come home with me. Or I go home with them. To preach to them! Why are you looking at me like that? Don't tell me you believe all those rumors said about me by the opposition party, those knaves the Conservatives... or... by my own party... just because I'm Prime Minister! And because I burned some letters in 1887 which "might in parts have suggested doubt and uneasiness" (my words). Letters written to the, ahem, courtesan Mrs. Dale. Whom I had a portrait commissioned of. And because I go home after my meetings with them and whip myself. But why do people make me out to be an... well, the term begins with an A? I just do not understand it.

I have even written a statement that, for reasons I cannot get into now, I have decided will only be opened upon my death. This statement reads, "With reference to rumours which I believe were one time afloat [see that? I pretend I've only maybe heard them once or twice], thought I know not with what degree of currency [see? downplaying it, like a boss!]: and also with reference to the times when I shall not be here to answer for myself; I desire to record my solemn declaration and assurance [both declaration and assurance, because I'm nothing if not thorough], as in the sight of God and before His judgement seat, that at no point of my life have I been guilty of the act which is known as that of infidelity to the marriage bed [I would make a joke about how loyal I am to furniture, but I am famously humourless]." Of course, what exactly I mean by infidelity to the marriage bed, and whether there were any other acts that do not strictly fall under that---stop that! Stop giggling!

And if I do it also to test myself to remain chaste like the good Christian man I am, and if I get, erm, aroused by it, and if I write in my diary about the scents of the women I visit and then whip myself, and if I knew of only one woman out of 90 that had actually changed her life by 1854, that doesn't make me the asshole... does it?