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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/16300-8.txt b/16300-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6516dca --- /dev/null +++ b/16300-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15716 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The History of Emily Montague, by Frances Brooke + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The History of Emily Montague + +Author: Frances Brooke + +Release Date: July 15, 2005 [EBook #16300] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE *** + + + + +Produced by Andrew Sly + + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: This text retains many old and inconsistent +spellings as found in the Dodsley 1769 edition. Differences from that +edition are as follows: As is usually done in modern editions of Emily +Montague, the letters have been renumbered to run consecutively from 1 +to 228. This avoids irregularities in numbering in the original. Normal +case has been used for the initial words of each letter. Long s has been +replaced with a regular short s. The Errata which appeared at the end of +volume four of the original has been applied to the text. Various other +corrections have been made, and in each case, the original form has been +recorded in the html markup. Usage of quote marks has been modernized. + + + + + THE + HISTORY + OF + EMILY MONTAGUE. + In FOUR VOLUMES. + + + By the AUTHOR of + Lady JULIA MANDEVILLE. + + + --"A kind indulgent sleep + O'er works of length allowably may creep." + Horace. + + Vol. 1 + + + LONDON, + Printed for J. DODSLEY, in Pall Mall. + MDCCLXIX. + + + + +TO HIS EXCELLENCY GUY CARLETON, Esq. GOVERNOR AND COMMANDER IN +CHIEF OF His Majesty's Province of QUEBEC, &c. &c. &c. + +SIR, + +As the scene of so great a part of the following work is laid in +Canada, I flatter myself there is a peculiar propriety in addressing it +to your excellency, to whose probity and enlightened attention the +colony owes its happiness, and individuals that tranquillity of mind, +without which there can be no exertion of the powers of either the +understanding or imagination. + +Were I to say all your excellency has done to diffuse, through this +province, so happy under your command, a spirit of loyalty and +attachment to our excellent Sovereign, of chearful obedience to the +laws, and of that union which makes the strength of government, I +should hazard your esteem by doing you justice. + +I will, therefore, only beg leave to add mine to the general voice +of Canada; and to assure your excellency, that + + I am, + With the utmost esteem + and respect, + Your most obedient servant, + Frances Brooke. + London, + March 22, 1769. + + + +THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE. + + +LETTER 1. + + +To John Temple, Esq; at Paris. + +Cowes, April 10, 1766. + +After spending two or three very agreeable days here, with a party +of friends, in exploring the beauties of the Island, and dropping a +tender tear at Carisbrook Castle on the memory of the unfortunate +Charles the First, I am just setting out for America, on a scheme I +once hinted to you, of settling the lands to which I have a right as a +lieutenant-colonel on half pay. On enquiry and mature deliberation, I +prefer Canada to New-York for two reasons, that it is wilder, and that +the women are handsomer: the first, perhaps, every body will not +approve; the latter, I am sure, _you_ will. + +You may perhaps call my project romantic, but my active temper is +ill suited to the lazy character of a reduc'd officer: besides that I +am too proud to narrow my circle of life, and not quite unfeeling +enough to break in on the little estate which is scarce sufficient to +support my mother and sister in the manner to which they have been +accustom'd. + +What you call a sacrifice, is none at all; I love England, but am +not obstinately chain'd down to any spot of earth; nature has charms +every where for a man willing to be pleased: at my time of life, the +very change of place is amusing; love of variety, and the natural +restlessness of man, would give me a relish for this voyage, even if I +did not expect, what I really do, to become lord of a principality +which will put our large-acred men in England out of countenance. My +subjects indeed at present will be only bears and elks, but in time I +hope to see the _human face divine_ multiplying around me; and, in +thus cultivating what is in the rudest state of nature, I shall taste +one of the greatest of all pleasures, that of creation, and see order +and beauty gradually rise from chaos. + +The vessel is unmoor'd; the winds are fair; a gentle breeze agitates +the bosom of the deep; all nature smiles: I go with all the eager hopes +of a warm imagination; yet friendship casts a lingering look behind. + +Our mutual loss, my dear Temple, will be great. I shall never cease +to regret you, nor will you find it easy to replace the friend of your +youth. You may find friends of equal merit; you may esteem them +equally; but few connexions form'd after five and twenty strike root +like that early sympathy, which united us almost from infancy, and has +increas'd to the very hour of our separation. + +What pleasure is there in the friendships of the spring of life, +before the world, the mean unfeeling selfish world, breaks in on the +gay mistakes of the just-expanding heart, which sees nothing but truth, +and has nothing but happiness in prospect! + +I am not surpriz'd the heathens rais'd altars to friendship: 'twas +natural for untaught superstition to deify the source of every good; +they worship'd friendship, which animates the moral world, on the same +principle as they paid adoration to the sun, which gives life to the +world of nature. + +I am summon'd on board. Adieu! + + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 2. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, June 27. + +I have this moment your letter, my dear; I am happy to hear my +mother has been amus'd at Bath, and not at all surpriz'd to find she +rivals you in your conquests. By the way, I am not sure she is not +handsomer, notwithstanding you tell me you are handsomer than ever: I +am astonish'd she will lead a tall daughter about with her thus, to let +people into a secret they would never suspect, that she is past five +and twenty. + +You are a foolish girl, Lucy: do you think I have not more pleasure +in continuing to my mother, by coming hither, the little indulgencies +of life, than I could have had by enjoying them myself? pray reconcile +her to my absence, and assure her she will make me happier by jovially +enjoying the trifle I have assign'd to her use, than by procuring me +the wealth of a Nabob, in which she was to have no share. + +But to return; you really, Lucy, ask me such a million of questions, +'tis impossible to know which to answer first; the country, the +convents, the balls, the ladies, the beaux--'tis a history, not a +letter, you demand, and it will take me a twelvemonth to satisfy your +curiosity. + +Where shall I begin? certainly with what must first strike a +soldier: I have seen then the spot where the amiable hero expir'd in +the arms of victory; have traced him step by step with equal +astonishment and admiration: 'tis here alone it is possible to form an +adequate idea of an enterprize, the difficulties of which must have +destroy'd hope itself had they been foreseen. + +The country is a very fine one: you see here not only the +_beautiful_ which it has in common with Europe, but the _great +sublime_ to an amazing degree; every object here is magnificent: the +very people seem almost another species, if we compare them with the +French from whom they are descended. + +On approaching the coast of America, I felt a kind of religious +veneration, on seeing rocks which almost touch'd the clouds, cover'd +with tall groves of pines that seemed coeval with the world itself: to +which veneration the solemn silence not a little contributed; from Cape +Rosieres, up the river St. Lawrence, during a course of more than two +hundred miles, there is not the least appearance of a human footstep; +no objects meet the eye but mountains, woods, and numerous rivers, +which seem to roll their waters in vain. + +It is impossible to behold a scene like this without lamenting the +madness of mankind, who, more merciless than the fierce inhabitants of +the howling wilderness, destroy millions of their own species in the +wild contention for a little portion of that earth, the far greater +part of which remains yet unpossest, and courts the hand of labour for +cultivation. + +The river itself is one of the noblest in the world; its breadth is +ninety miles at its entrance, gradually, and almost imperceptibly, +decreasing; interspers'd with islands which give it a variety +infinitely pleasing, and navigable near five hundred miles from the +sea. + +Nothing can be more striking than the view of Quebec as you +approach; it stands on the summit of a boldly-rising hill, at the +confluence of two very beautiful rivers, the St. Lawrence and St. +Charles, and, as the convents and other public buildings first meet the +eye, appears to great advantage from the port. The island of Orleans, +the distant view of the cascade of Montmorenci, and the opposite +village of Beauport, scattered with a pleasing irregularity along the +banks of the river St. Charles, add greatly to the charms of the +prospect. + +I have just had time to observe, that the Canadian ladies have the +vivacity of the French, with a superior share of beauty: as to balls +and assemblies, we have none at present, it being a kind of interregnum +of government: if I chose to give you the political state of the +country, I could fill volumes with the _pours_ and the _contres_; +but I am not one of those sagacious observers, who, by staying a week +in a place, think themselves qualified to give, not only its natural, +but its moral and political history: besides which, you and I are +rather too young to be very profound politicians. We are in +expectation of a successor from whom we hope a new golden age; I shall +then have better subjects for a letter to a lady. + +Adieu! my dear girl! say every thing for me to my mother. Yours, + + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 3. + + +To Col. Rivers, at Quebec. + +London, April 30. + +Indeed! gone to people the wilds of America, Ned, and multiply the +_human face divine?_ 'tis a project worthy a tall handsome colonel of +twenty seven: let me see; five feet, eleven inches, well made, with +fine teeth, speaking eyes, a military air, and the look of a man of +fashion: spirit, generosity, a good understanding, some knowledge, an +easy address, a compassionate heart, a strong inclination for the +ladies, and in short every quality a gentleman should have: excellent +all these for colonization: _prenez garde, mes cheres dames_. You +have nothing against you, Ned, but your modesty; a very useless virtue +on French ground, or indeed on any ground: I wish you had a little more +consciousness of your own merits: remember that _to know one's self_ +the oracle of Apollo has pronounced to be the perfection of human +wisdom. Our fair friend Mrs. H---- says, "Colonel Rivers wants nothing +to make him the most agreeable man breathing but a little dash of the +coxcomb." + +For my part, I hate humility in a man of the world; 'tis worse than +even the hypocrisy of the saints: I am not ignorant, and therefore +never deny, that I am a very handsome fellow; and I have the pleasure +to find all the women of the same opinion. + +I am just arriv'd from Paris: the divine Madame De ---- is as lovely +and as constant as ever; 'twas cruel to leave her, but who can account +for the caprices of the heart? mine was the prey of a young +unexperienc'd English charmer, just come out of a convent, + + "The bloom of opening flowers--" + +Ha, Ned? But I forget; you are for the full-blown rose: 'tis a +happiness, as we are friends, that 'tis impossible we can ever be +rivals; a woman is grown out of my taste some years before she comes up +to yours: absolutely, Ned, you are too nice; for my part, I am not so +delicate; youth and beauty are sufficient for me; give me blooming +seventeen, and I cede to you the whole empire of sentiment. + +This, I suppose, will find you trying the force of your destructive +charms on the savage dames of America; chasing females wild as the +winds thro' woods as wild as themselves: I see you pursuing the stately +relict of some renown'd Indian chief, some plump squaw arriv'd at the +age of sentiment, some warlike queen dowager of the Ottawas or +Tuscaroras. + +And pray, _comment trouvez vous les dames sauvages?_ all pure +and genuine nature, I suppose; none of the affected coyness of Europe: +your attention there will be the more obliging, as the Indian heroes, I +am told, are not very attentive to the charms of the _beau sexe_. + +You are very sentimental on the subject of friendship; no one has +more exalted notions of this species of affection than myself, yet I +deny that it gives life to the moral world; a gallant man, like you, +might have found a more animating principle: + + _O Venus! O Mere de l'Amour!_ + +I am most gloriously indolent this morning, and would not write +another line if the empire of the world (observe I do not mean the +female world) depended on it. + + Adieu! + J. Temple. + + + +LETTER 4. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Quebec, July 1. + +'Tis very true, Jack; I have no relish for _the Misses_; for +puling girls in hanging sleeves, who feel no passion but vanity, and, +without any distinguishing taste, are dying for the first man who tells +them they are handsome. Take your boarding-school girls; but give me +_a woman_; one, in short, who has a soul; not a cold inanimate form, +insensible to the lively impressions of real love, and unfeeling as the +wax baby she has just thrown away. + +You will allow Prior to be no bad judge of female merit; and you may +remember his Egyptian maid, the favorite of the luxurious King +Solomon, is painted in full bloom. + +By the way, Jack, there is generally a certain hoity-toity +inelegance of form and manner at seventeen, which in my opinion is not +balanc'd by freshness of complexion, the only advantage girls have to +boast of. + +I have another objection to girls, which is, that they will +eternally fancy every man they converse with has designs; a coquet and +a prude _in the bud_ are equally disagreeable; the former expects +universal adoration, the latter is alarm'd even at that general +civility which is the right of all their sex; of the two however the +last is, I think, much the most troublesome; I wish these very +apprehensive young ladies knew, their _virtue_ is not half so +often in danger as they imagine, and that there are many male creatures +to whom they may safely shew politeness without being drawn into any +concessions inconsistent with the strictest honor. We are not half such +terrible animals as mammas, nurses, and novels represent us; and, if my +opinion is of any weight, I am inclin'd to believe those tremendous +men, who have designs on the whole sex, are, and ever were, characters +as fabulous as the giants of romance. + +Women after twenty begin to know this, and therefore converse with +us on the footing of rational creatures, without either fearing or +expecting to find every man a lover. + +To do the ladies justice however, I have seen the same absurdity in +my own sex, and have observed many a very good sort of man turn pale at +the politeness of an agreeable woman. + +I lament this mistake, in both sexes, because it takes greatly from +the pleasure of mix'd society, the only society for which I have any +relish. + +Don't, however, fancy that, because I dislike _the Misses_, I +have a taste for their grandmothers; there is a golden mean, Jack, of +which you seem to have no idea. + +You are very ill inform'd as to the manners of the Indian ladies; +'tis in the bud alone these wild roses are accessible; liberal to +profusion of their charms before marriage, they are chastity itself +after: the moment they commence wives, they give up the very idea of +pleasing, and turn all their thoughts to the cares, and those not the +most delicate cares, of domestic life: laborious, hardy, active, they +plough the ground, they sow, they reap; whilst the haughty husband +amuses himself with hunting, shooting, fishing, and such exercises only +as are the image of war; all other employments being, according to his +idea, unworthy the dignity of man. + +I have told you the labors of savage life, but I should observe that +they are only temporary, and when urg'd by the sharp tooth of +necessity: their lives are, upon the whole, idle beyond any thing we +can conceive. If the Epicurean definition of happiness is just, that it +consists in indolence of body, and tranquillity of mind, the Indians of +both sexes are the happiest people on earth; free from all care, they +enjoy the present moment, forget the past, and are without solicitude +for the future: in summer, stretch'd on the verdant turf, they sing, +they laugh, they play, they relate stories of their ancient heroes to +warm the youth to war; in winter, wrap'd in the furs which bounteous +nature provides them, they dance, they feast, and despise the rigors of +the season, at which the more effeminate Europeans tremble. + +War being however the business of their lives, and the first passion +of their souls, their very pleasures take their colors from it: every +one must have heard of the war dance, and their songs are almost all on +the same subject: on the most diligent enquiry, I find but one love +song in their language, which is short and simple, tho' perhaps not +inexpressive: + + "I love you, + I love you dearly, + I love you all day long." + +An old Indian told me, they had also songs of friendship, but I +could never procure a translation of one of them: on my pressing this +Indian to translate one into French for me, he told me with a haughty +air, the Indians were not us'd to make translations, and that if I +chose to understand their songs I must learn their language. By the +way, their language is extremely harmonious, especially as pronounced +by their women, and as well adapted to music as Italian itself. I must +not here omit an instance of their independent spirit, which is, that +they never would submit to have the service of the church, tho' they +profess the Romish religion, in any language but their own; the women, +who have in general fine voices, sing in the choir with a taste and +manner that would surprize you, and with a devotion that might edify +more polish'd nations. + +The Indian women are tall and well shaped; have good eyes, and +before marriage are, except their color, and their coarse greasy black +hair, very far from being disagreeable; but the laborious life they +afterwards lead is extremely unfavorable to beauty; they become coarse +and masculine, and lose in a year or two the power as well as the +desire of pleasing. To compensate however for the loss of their charms, +they acquire a new empire in marrying; are consulted in all affairs of +state, chuse a chief on every vacancy of the throne, are sovereign +arbiters of peace and war, as well as of the fate of those unhappy +captives that have the misfortune to fall into their hands, who are +adopted as children, or put to the most cruel death, as the wives of +the conquerors smile or frown. + +A Jesuit missionary told me a story on this subject, which one +cannot hear without horror: an Indian woman with whom he liv'd on his +mission was feeding her children, when her husband brought in an +English prisoner; she immediately cut off his arm, and gave her +children the streaming blood to drink: the Jesuit remonstrated on the +cruelty of the action, on which, looking sternly at him, "I would have +them warriors," said she, "and therefore feed them with the food of +men." + +This anecdote may perhaps disgust you with the Indian ladies, who +certainly do not excel in female softness. I will therefore turn to the +Canadian, who have every charm except that without which all other +charms are to me insipid, I mean sensibility: they are gay, coquet, and +sprightly; more gallant than sensible; more flatter'd by the vanity of +inspiring passion, than capable of feeling it themselves; and, like +their European countrywomen, prefer the outward attentions of unmeaning +admiration to the real devotion of the heart. There is not perhaps on +earth a race of females, who talk so much, or feel so little, of love +as the French; the very reverse is in general true of the English: my +fair countrywomen seem ashamed of the charming sentiment to which they +are indebted for all their power. + +Adieu! I am going to attend a very handsome French lady, who allows +me the honor to drive her _en calache_ to our Canadian Hyde Park, +the road to St. Foix, where you will see forty or fifty calashes, with +pretty women in them, parading every evening: you will allow the +apology to be admissible. + + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 5. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, July 4. + +What an inconstant animal is man! do you know, Lucy, I begin to be +tir'd of the lovely landscape round me? I have enjoy'd from it all the +pleasure meer inanimate objects can give, and find 'tis a pleasure that +soon satiates, if not relieved by others which are more lively. The +scenery is to be sure divine, but one grows weary of meer scenery: the +most enchanting prospect soon loses its power of pleasing, when the eye +is accustom'd to it: we gaze at first transported on the charms of +nature, and fancy they will please for ever; but, alas! it will not +do; we sigh for society, the conversation of those dear to us; the +more animated pleasures of the heart. There are fine women, and men of +merit here; but, as the affections are not in our power, I have not +yet felt my heart gravitate towards any of them. I must absolutely set +in earnest about my settlement, in order to emerge from the state of +vegetation into which I seem falling. + +But to your last: you ask me a particular account of the convents +here. Have you an inclination, my dear, to turn nun? if you have, you +could not have applied to a properer person; my extreme modesty and +reserve, and my speaking French, having made me already a great +favourite with the older part of all the three communities, who +unanimously declare colonel Rivers to be _un tres aimable homme_, +and have given me an unlimited liberty of visiting them whenever I +please: they now and then treat _me_ with a sight of some of the +young ones, but this is a favor not allow'd to all the world. + +There are three religious houses at Quebec, so you have choice; the +Ursulines, the Hotel Dieu, and the General Hospital. The first is the +severest order in the Romish church, except that very cruel one which +denies its fair votaries the inestimable liberty of speech. The house +is large and handsome, but has an air of gloominess, with which the +black habit, and the livid paleness of the nuns, extremely corresponds. +The church is, contrary to the style of the rest of the convent, +ornamented and lively to the last degree. The superior is an +English-woman of good family, who was taken prisoner by the savages +when a child, and plac'd here by the generosity of a French officer. +She is one of the most amiable women I ever knew, with a benevolence in +her countenance which inspires all who see her with affection: I am +very fond of her conversation, tho' sixty and a nun. + +The Hotel Dieu is very pleasantly situated, with a view of the two +rivers, and the entrance of the port: the house is chearful, airy, and +agreeable; the habit extremely becoming, a circumstance a handsome +woman ought by no means to overlook; 'tis white with a black gauze +veil, which would shew your complexion to great advantage. The order is +much less severe than the Ursulines, and I might add, much more useful, +their province being the care of the sick: the nuns of this house are +sprightly, and have a look of health which is wanting at the Ursulines. + +The General Hospital, situated about a mile out of town, on the +borders of the river St. Charles, is much the most agreeable of the +three. The order and the habit are the same with the Hotel Dieu, except +that to the habit is added the cross, generally worn in Europe by +canonesses only: a distinction procur'd for them by their founder, St. +Vallier, the second bishop of Quebec. The house is, without, a very +noble building; and neatness, elegance and propriety reign within. The +nuns, who are all of the noblesse, are many of them handsome, and all +genteel, lively, and well bred; they have an air of the world, their +conversation is easy, spirited, and polite: with them you almost forget +the recluse in the woman of condition. In short, you have the best +nuns at the Ursulines, the most agreeable women at the General +Hospital: all however have an air of chagrin, which they in vain +endeavour to conceal; and the general eagerness with which they tell +you unask'd they are happy, is a strong proof of the contrary. + +Tho' the most indulgent of all men to the follies of others, +especially such as have their source in mistaken devotion; tho' willing +to allow all the world to play the fool their own way, yet I cannot +help being fir'd with a degree of zeal against an institution equally +incompatible with public good, and private happiness; an institution +which cruelly devotes beauty and innocence to slavery, regret, and +wretchedness; to a more irksome imprisonment than the severest laws +inflict on the worst of criminals. + +Could any thing but experience, my dear Lucy, make it be believ'd +possible that there should be rational beings, who think they are +serving the God of mercy by inflicting on themselves voluntary +tortures, and cutting themselves off from that state of society in +which he has plac'd them, and for which they were form'd? by renouncing +the best affections of the human heart, the tender names of friend, of +wife, of mother? and, as far as in them lies, counter-working creation? +by spurning from them every amusement however innocent, by refusing the +gifts of that beneficent power who made us to be happy, and destroying +his most precious gifts, health, beauty, sensibility, chearfulness, and +peace! + +My indignation is yet awake, from having seen a few days since at +the Ursulines, an extreme lovely young girl, whose countenance spoke a +soul form'd for the most lively, yet delicate, ties of love and +friendship, led by a momentary enthusiasm, or perhaps by a childish +vanity artfully excited, to the foot of those altars, which she will +probably too soon bathe with the bitter tears of repentance and +remorse. + +The ceremony, form'd to strike the imagination, and seduce the heart +of unguarded youth, is extremely solemn and affecting; the procession +of the nuns, the sweetness of their voices in the choir, the dignified +devotion with which the charming enthusiast received the veil, and took +the cruel vow which shut her from the world for ever, struck my heart +in spite of my reason, and I felt myself touch'd even to tears by a +superstition I equally pity and despise. + +I am not however certain it was the ceremony which affected me thus +strongly; it was impossible not to feel for this amiable victim; never +was there an object more interesting; her form was elegance itself; +her air and motion animated and graceful; the glow of pleasure was on +her cheek, the fire of enthusiasm in her eyes, which are the finest I +ever saw: never did I see joy so livelily painted on the countenance of +the happiest bride; she seem'd to walk in air; her whole person look'd +more than human. + +An enemy to every species of superstition, I must however allow it +to be least destructive to true virtue in your gentle sex, and +therefore to be indulg'd with least danger: the superstition of men is +gloomy and ferocious; it lights the fire, and points the dagger of the +assassin; whilst that of women takes its color from the sex; is soft, +mild, and benevolent; exerts itself in acts of kindness and charity, +and seems only substituting the love of God to that of man. + +Who can help admiring, whilst they pity, the foundress of the +Ursuline convent, Madame de la Peltrie, to whom the very colony in some +measure owes its existence? young, rich and lovely; a widow in the +bloom of life, mistress of her own actions, the world was gay before +her, yet she left all the pleasures that world could give, to devote +her days to the severities of a religion she thought the only true one: +she dar'd the dangers of the sea, and the greater dangers of a savage +people; she landed on an unknown shore, submitted to the extremities of +cold and heat, of thirst and hunger, to perform a service she thought +acceptable to the Deity. To an action like this, however mistaken the +motive, bigotry alone will deny praise: the man of candor will only +lament that minds capable of such heroic virtue are not directed to +views more conducive to their own and the general happiness. + +I am unexpectedly call'd this moment, my dear Lucy, on some business +to Montreal, from whence you shall hear from me. + + Adieu! + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 6. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Montreal, July 9. + +I am arriv'd, my dear, and have brought my heart safe thro' such a +continued fire as never poor knight errant was exposed to; waited on at +every stage by blooming country girls, full of spirit and coquetry, +without any of the village bashfulness of England, and dressed like +the shepherdesses of romance. A man of adventure might make a pleasant +journey to Montreal. + +The peasants are ignorant, lazy, dirty, and stupid beyond all +belief; but hospitable, courteous, civil; and, what is particularly +agreeable, they leave their wives and daughters to do the honors of the +house: in which obliging office they acquit themselves with an +attention, which, amidst every inconvenience apparent (tho' I am told +not real) poverty can cause, must please every guest who has a soul +inclin'd to be pleas'd: for my part, I was charm'd with them, and eat +my homely fare with as much pleasure as if I had been feasting on +ortolans in a palace. Their conversation is lively and amusing; all +the little knowledge of Canada is confined to the sex; very few, even +of the seigneurs, being able to write their own names. + +The road from Quebec to Montreal is almost a continued street, the +villages being numerous, and so extended along the banks of the river +St. Lawrence as to leave scarce a space without houses in view; except +where here or there a river, a wood, or mountain intervenes, as if to +give a more pleasing variety to the scene. I don't remember ever having +had a more agreeable journey; the fine prospects of the day so +enliven'd by the gay chat of the evening, that I was really sorry when +I approach'd Montreal. + +The island of Montreal, on which the town stands, is a very lovely +spot; highly cultivated, and tho' less wild and magnificent, more +smiling than the country round Quebec: the ladies, who seem to make +pleasure their only business, and most of whom I have seen this morning +driving about the town in calashes, and making what they call, the +_tour de la ville_, attended by English officers, seem generally +handsome, and have an air of sprightliness with which I am charm'd; I +must be acquainted with them all, for tho' my stay is to be short, I +see no reason why it should be dull. I am told they are fond of little +rural balls in the country, and intend to give one as soon as I have +paid my respects in form. + +Six in the evening. + +I am just come from dining with the ---- regiment, and find I have a +visit to pay I was not aware of, to two English ladies who are a few +miles out of town: one of them is wife to the major of the regiment, +and the other just going to be married to a captain in it, Sir George +Clayton, a young handsome baronet, just come to his title and a very +fine estate, by the death of a distant relation: he is at present at +New York, and I am told they are to be married as soon as he comes +back. + +Eight o'clock. + +I have been making some flying visits to the French ladies; tho' I +have not seen many beauties, yet in general the women are handsome; +their manner is easy and obliging, they make the most of their charms +by their vivacity, and I certainly cannot be displeas'd with their +extreme partiality for the English officers; their own men, who indeed +are not very attractive, have not the least chance for any share in +their good graces. + +Thursday morning. + +I am just setting out with a friend for Major Melmoth's, to pay my +compliments to the two ladies: I have no relish for this visit; I hate +misses that are going to be married; they are always so full of the +dear man, that they have not common civility to other people. I am told +however both the ladies are agreeable. + +14th. Eight in the evening. + +Agreeable, Lucy! she is an angel: 'tis happy for me she is engag'd; +nothing else could secure my heart, of which you know I am very +tenacious: only think of finding beauty, delicacy, sensibility, all +that can charm in woman, hid in a wood in Canada! + +You say I am given to be enthusiastic in my approbations, but she is +really charming. I am resolv'd not only to have a friendship for her +myself, but that _you_ shall, and have told her so; she comes to +England as soon as she is married; you are form'd to love each other. + +But I must tell you; Major Melmoth kept us a week at his house in +the country, in one continued round of rural amusements; by which I do +not mean hunting and shooting, but such pleasures as the ladies could +share; little rustic balls and parties round the neighbouring country, +in which parties we were joined by all the fine women at Montreal. Mrs. +Melmoth is a very pleasing, genteel brunette, but Emily Montague--you +will say I am in love with her if I describe her, and yet I declare to +you I am not: knowing she loves another, to whom she is soon to be +united, I see her charms with the same kind of pleasure I do yours; a +pleasure, which, tho' extremely lively, is by our situation without the +least mixture of desire. + +I have said, she is charming; there are men here who do not think +so, but to me she is loveliness itself. My ideas of beauty are perhaps +a little out of the common road: I hate a woman of whom every man +coldly says, _she is handsome_; I adore beauty, but it is not meer +features or complexion to which I give that name; 'tis life, +'tis spirit, 'tis animation, 'tis--in one word, 'tis Emily +Montague--without being regularly beautiful, she charms every +sensible heart; all other women, however lovely, appear marble statues +near her: fair; pale (a paleness which gives the idea of delicacy +without destroying that of health), with dark hair and eyes, the +latter large and languishing, she seems made to feel to a trembling +excess the passion she cannot fail of inspiring: her elegant form has +an air of softness and languor, which seizes the whole soul in a +moment: her eyes, the most intelligent I ever saw, hold you enchain'd +by their bewitching sensibility. + +There are a thousand unspeakable charms in her conversation; but +what I am most pleas'd with, is the attentive politeness of her manner, +which you seldom see in a person in love; the extreme desire of +pleasing one man generally taking off greatly from the attention due to +all the rest. This is partly owing to her admirable understanding, and +partly to the natural softness of her soul, which gives her the +strongest desire of pleasing. As I am a philosopher in these matters, +and have made the heart my study, I want extremely to see her with her +lover, and to observe the gradual encrease of her charms in his +presence; love, which embellishes the most unmeaning countenance, must +give to her's a fire irresistible: what eyes! when animated by +tenderness! + +The very soul acquires a new force and beauty by loving; a woman of +honor never appears half so amiable, or displays half so many virtues, +as when sensible to the merit of a man who deserves her affection. +Observe, Lucy, I shall never allow you to be handsome till I hear you +are in love. + +Did I tell you Emily Montague had the finest hand and arm in the +world? I should however have excepted yours: her tone of voice too has +the same melodious sweetness, a perfection without which the loveliest +woman could never make the least impression on my heart: I don't think +you are very unlike upon the whole, except that she is paler. You know, +Lucy, you have often told me I should certainly have been in love with +you if I had not been your brother: this resemblance is a proof you +were right. You are really as handsome as any woman can be whose +sensibility has never been put in motion. + +I am to give a ball to-morrow; Mrs. Melmoth is to have the honors of +it, but as she is with child, she does not dance. This circumstance has +produc'd a dispute not a little flattering to my vanity: the ladies are +making interest to dance with me; what a happy exchange have I made! +what man of common sense would stay to be overlook'd in England, who +can have rival beauties contend for him in Canada? This important +point is not yet settled; the _etiquette_ here is rather difficult +to adjust; as to me, I have nothing to do in the consultation; my +hand is destin'd to the longest pedigree; we stand prodigiously on our +noblesse at Montreal. + +Four o'clock. + +After a dispute in which two French ladies were near drawing their +husbands into a duel, the point of honor is yielded by both to Miss +Montague; each insisting only that I should not dance with the other: +for my part, I submit with a good grace, as you will suppose. + +Saturday morning. + +I never passed a more agreeable evening: we have our amusements +here, I assure you: a set of fine young fellows, and handsome women, +all well dress'd, and in humor with themselves, and with each other: my +lovely Emily like Venus amongst the Graces, only multiplied to about +sixteen. Nothing is, in my opinion, so favorable to the display of +beauty as a ball. A state of rest is ungraceful; all nature is most +beautiful in motion; trees agitated by the wind, a ship under sail, a +horse in the course, a fine woman dancing: never any human being had +such an aversion to still life as I have. + +I am going back to Melmoth's for a month; don't be alarm'd, Lucy! I +see all her perfections, but I see them with the cold eye of admiration +only: a woman engaged loses all her attractions as a woman; there is +no love without a ray of hope: my only ambition is to be her friend; I +want to be the confidant of her passion. With what spirit such a mind +as hers must love! + + Adieu! my dear! + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 7. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Montreal, August 15. + +By Heavens, Lucy, this is more than man can bear; I was mad to stay +so long at Melmoth's; there is no resisting this little seducer: 'tis +shameful in such a lovely woman to have understanding too; yet even +this I could forgive, had she not that enchanting softness in her +manner, which steals upon the soul, and would almost make ugliness +itself charm; were she but vain, one had some chance, but she will take +upon her to have no consciousness, at least no apparent consciousness, +of her perfections, which is really intolerable. I told her so last +night, when she put on such a malicious smile--I believe the little +tyrant wants to add me to the list of her slaves; but I was not form'd +to fill up a train. The woman I love must be so far from giving +another the preference, that she must have no soul but for me; I am one +of the most unreasonable men in the world on this head; she may fancy +what she pleases, but I set her and all her attractions at defiance: I +have made my escape, and shall set off for Quebec in an hour. Flying +is, I must acknowledge, a little out of character, and unbecoming a +soldier; but in these cases, it is the very best thing man or woman +either can do, when they doubt their powers of resistance. + +I intend to be ten days going to Quebec. I propose visiting the +priests at every village, and endeavouring to get some knowledge of the +nature of the country, in order to my intended settlement. Idleness +being the root of all evil, and the nurse of love, I am determin'd to +keep myself employed; nothing can be better suited to my temper than +my present design; the pleasure of cultivating lands here is as much +superior to what can be found in the same employment in England, as +watching the expanding rose, and beholding the falling leaves: America +is in infancy, Europe in old age. Nor am I very ill qualified for this +agreable task: I have studied the Georgicks, and am a pretty enough +kind of a husbandman as far as theory goes; nay, I am not sure I shall +not be, even in practice, the best _gentleman_ farmer in the +province. + +You may expect soon to hear of me in the _Museum Rusticum_; I +intend to make amazing discoveries in the rural way: I have already +found out, by the force of my own genius, two very uncommon +circumstances; that in Canada, contrary to what we see every where +else, the country is rich, the capital poor; the hills fruitful, the +vallies barren. You see what excellent dispositions I have to be an +useful member of society: I had always a strong biass to the study of +natural philosophy. + +Tell my mother how well I am employ'd, and she cannot but approve my +voyage: assure her, my dear, of my tenderest regard. + +The chaise is at the door. + + Adieu! + Ed. Rivers. + +The lover is every hour expected; I am not quite sure I should have +lik'd to see him arrive: a third person, you know, on such an occasion, +sinks into nothing; and I love, wherever I am, to be one of the figures +which strike the eye; I hate to appear on the back ground of the +picture. + + + +LETTER 8. + + +To Miss Rivers. + +Quebec, Aug. 24. + +You can't think, my dear, what a fund of useful knowledge I have +treasur'd up during my journey from Montreal. This colony is a rich +mine yet unopen'd; I do not mean of gold and silver, but of what are +of much more real value, corn and cattle. Nothing is wanting but +encouragement and cultivation; the Canadians are at their ease even +without labor; nature is here a bounteous mother, who pours forth her +gifts almost unsolicited: bigotry, stupidity, and laziness, united, +have not been able to keep the peasantry poor. I rejoice to find such +admirable capabilities where I propose to fix my dominion. + +I was hospitably entertained by the curés all the way down, tho' +they are in general but ill provided for: the parochial clergy are +useful every where, but I have a great aversion to monks, those drones +in the political hive, whose whole study seems to be to make themselves +as useless to the world as possible. Think too of the shocking +indelicacy of many of them, who make it a point of religion to abjure +linen, and wear their habits till they drop off. How astonishing that +any mind should suppose the Deity an enemy to cleanliness! the Jewish +religion was hardly any thing else. + +I paid my respects wherever I stopped, to the _seigneuress_ of +the village; for as to the seigneurs, except two or three, if they had +not wives, they would not be worth visiting. + +I am every day more pleased with the women here; and, if I was +gallant, should be in danger of being a convert to the French stile of +gallantry; which certainly debases the mind much less than ours. + +But what is all this to my Emily? How I envy Sir George! what +happiness has Heaven prepared for him, if he has a soul to taste it! + +I really must not think of her; I found so much delight in her +conversation, it was quite time to come away; I am almost ashamed to +own how much difficulty I found in leaving her: do you know I have +scarce slept since? This is absurd, but I cannot help it; which by the +way is an admirable excuse for any thing. + +I have been come but two hours, and am going to Silleri, to pay my +compliments to your friend Miss Fermor, who arrived with her father, +who comes to join his regiment, since I left Quebec. I hear there has +been a very fine importation of English ladies during my absence. I am +sorry I have not time to visit the rest, but I go to-morrow morning to +the Indian village for a fortnight, and have several letters to write +to-night. + + Adieu! I am interrupted, + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 9. + + +To Mrs. Melmoth, at Montreal. + +Quebec, August 24. + +I cannot, Madam, express my obligation to you for having added a +postscript to Major Melmoth's letter: I am sure he will excuse my +answering the whole to you; if not, I beg he may know that I shall be +very pert about it, being much more solicitous to please you than him, +for a thousand reasons too tedious to mention. + +I thought you had more penetration than to suppose me indifferent: +on the contrary, sensibility is my fault; though it is not your little +every-day beauties who can excite it: I have admirable dispositions to +love, though I am hard to please: in short, _I am not cruel, I am +only nice_: do but you, or your divine friend, give me leave to wear +your chains, and you shall soon be convinced I can love _like an +angel_, when I set in earnest about it. But, alas! you are married, +and in love with your husband; and your friend is in a situation still +more unfavorable to a lover's hopes. This is particularly unfortunate, +as you are the only two of your bewitching sex in Canada, for whom my +heart feels the least sympathy. To be plain, but don't tell the little +Major, I am more than half in love with you both, and, if I was the +grand Turk, should certainly fit out a fleet, to seize, and bring you +to my seraglio. + +There is one virtue I admire extremely in you both; I mean, that +humane and tender compassion for the poor men, which prompts you to be +always seen together; if you appeared separate, where is the hero who +could resist either of you? + +You ask me how I like the French ladies at Montreal: I think them +extremely pleasing; and many of them handsome; I thought Madame +L---- so, even near you and Miss Montague; which is, I think, saying as +much as can be said on the subject. + +I have just heard by accident that Sir George is arrived at +Montreal. Assure Miss Montague, no one can be more warmly interested in +her happiness than I am: she is the most perfect work of Heaven; may +she be the happiest! I feel much more on this occasion than I can +express: a mind like hers must, in marriage, be exquisitely happy or +miserable: my friendship makes me tremble for her, notwithstanding the +worthy character I have heard of Sir George. + +I will defer till another time what I had to say to Major Melmoth. + + I have the honour to be, + Madam, + Yours &c. + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 10. + + +Silleri, August 24. + +I have been a month arrived, my dear, without having seen your +brother, who is at Montreal, but I am told is expected to-day. I have +spent my time however very agreably. I know not what the winter may be, +but I am enchanted with the beauty of this country in summer; bold, +picturesque, romantic, nature reigns here in all her wanton +luxuriance, adorned by a thousand wild graces which mock the cultivated +beauties of Europe. The scenery about the town is infinitely lovely; +the prospect extensive, and diversified by a variety of hills, woods, +rivers, cascades, intermingled with smiling farms and cottages, and +bounded by distant mountains which seem to scale the very Heavens. + +The days are much hotter here than in England, but the heat is more +supportable from the breezes which always spring up about noon; and the +evenings are charming beyond expression. We have much thunder and +lightening, but very few instances of their being fatal: the thunder is +more magnificent and aweful than in Europe, and the lightening brighter +and more beautiful; I have even seen it of a clear pale purple, +resembling the gay tints of the morning. + +The verdure is equal to that of England, and in the evening acquires +an unspeakable beauty from the lucid splendor of the fire-flies +sparkling like a thousand little stars on the trees and on the grass. + +There are two very noble falls of water near Quebec, la Chaudiere +and Montmorenci: the former is a prodigious sheet of water, rushing +over the wildest rocks, and forming a scene grotesque, irregular, +astonishing: the latter, less wild, less irregular, but more pleasing +and more majestic, falls from an immense height, down the side of a +romantic mountain, into the river St. Lawrence, opposite the most +smiling part of the island of Orleans, to the cultivated charms of +which it forms the most striking and agreeable contrast. + +The river of the same name, which supplies the cascade of +Montmorenci, is the most lovely of all inanimate objects: but why do +I call it inanimate? It almost breathes; I no longer wonder at the +enthusiasm of Greece and Rome; 'twas from objects resembling this their +mythology took its rise; it seems the residence of a thousand deities. + +Paint to yourself a stupendous rock burst as it were in sunder by +the hands of nature, to give passage to a small, but very deep and +beautiful river; and forming on each side a regular and magnificent +wall, crowned with the noblest woods that can be imagined; the sides of +these romantic walls adorned with a variety of the gayest flowers, and +in many places little streams of the purest water gushing through, and +losing themselves in the river below: a thousand natural grottoes in +the rock make you suppose yourself in the abode of the Nereids; as a +little island, covered with flowering shrubs, about a mile above the +falls, where the river enlarges itself as if to give it room, seems +intended for the throne of the river goddess. Beyond this, the rapids, +formed by the irregular projections of the rock, which in some places +seem almost to meet, rival in beauty, as they excel in variety, the +cascade itself, and close this little world of enchantment. + +In short, the loveliness of this fairy scene alone more than pays +the fatigues of my voyage; and, if I ever murmur at having crossed the +Atlantic, remind me that I have seen the river Montmorenci. + +I can give you a very imperfect account of the people here; I have +only examined the landscape about Quebec, and have given very little +attention to the figures; the French ladies are handsome, but as to the +beaux, they appear to me not at all dangerous, and one might safely +walk in a wood by moonlight with the most agreeable Frenchman here. I +am not surprized the Canadian ladies take such pains to seduce our men +from us; but I think it a little hard we have no temptation to make +reprisals. + +I am at present at an extreme pretty farm on the banks of the river +St. Lawrence; the house stands at the foot of a steep mountain covered +with a variety of trees, forming a verdant sloping wall, which rises in +a kind of regular confusion, "Shade above shade, a woody theatre," and +has in front this noble river, on which the ships continually passing +present to the delighted eye the most charming moving picture +imaginable; I never saw a place so formed to inspire that pleasing +lassitude, that divine inclination to saunter, which may not improperly +be called, the luxurious indolence of the country. I intend to build a +temple here to the charming goddess of laziness. + +A gentleman is just coming down the winding path on the side of the +hill, whom by his air I take to be your brother. Adieu! I must receive +him: my father is at Quebec. + + Yours, + Arabella Fermor. + +Your brother has given me a very pleasing piece of intelligence: my +friend Emily Montague is at Montreal, and is going to be married to +great advantage; I must write to her immediately, and insist on her +making me a visit before she marries. She came to America two years +ago, with her uncle Colonel Montague, who died here, and I imagined was +gone back to England; she is however at Montreal with Mrs. Melmoth, a +distant relation of her mother's. Adieu! _ma tres chere!_ + + + +LETTER 11. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, Sept. 10. + +I find, my dear, that absence and amusement are the best remedies +for a beginning passion; I have passed a fortnight at the Indian +village of Lorette, where the novelty of the scene, and the enquiries I +have been led to make into their antient religion and manners, have +been of a thousand times more service to me than all the reflection in +the world would have been. + +I will own to you that I staid too long at Montreal, or rather at +Major Melmoth's; to be six weeks in the same house with one of the +most amiable, most pleasing of women, was a trying situation to a heart +full of sensibility, and of a sensibility which has been hitherto, +from a variety of causes, a good deal restrained. I should have avoided +the danger from the first, had it appeared to me what it really was; +but I thought myself secure in the consideration of her engagements, a +defence however which I found grow weaker every day. + +But to my savages: other nations talk of liberty, they possess it; +nothing can be more astonishing than to see a little village of about +thirty or forty families, the small remains of the Hurons, almost +exterminated by long and continual war with the Iroquoise, preserve +their independence in the midst of an European colony consisting of +seventy thousand inhabitants; yet the fact is true of the savages of +Lorette; they assert and they maintain that independence with a spirit +truly noble. One of our company having said something which an Indian +understood as a supposition that they had been _subjects_ of +France, his eyes struck fire, he stop'd him abruptly, contrary to +their respectful and sensible custom of never interrupting the person +who speaks, "You mistake, brother," said he; "we are subjects to no +prince; a savage is free all over the world." And he spoke only truth; +they are not only free as a people, but every individual is perfectly +so. Lord of himself, at once subject and master, a savage knows no +superior, a circumstance which has a striking effect on his behaviour; +unawed by rank or riches, distinctions unknown amongst his own nation, +he would enter as unconcerned, would possess all his powers as freely +in the palace of an oriental monarch, as in the cottage of the meanest +peasant: 'tis the species, 'tis man, 'tis his equal he respects, +without regarding the gaudy trappings, the accidental advantages, to +which polished nations pay homage. + +I have taken some pains to develop their present, as well as past, +religious sentiments, because the Jesuit missionaries have boasted so +much of their conversion; and find they have rather engrafted a few of +the most plain and simple truths of Christianity on their ancient +superstitions, than exchanged one faith for another; they are baptized, +and even submit to what they themselves call the _yoke_ of +confession, and worship according to the outward forms of the Romish +church, the drapery of which cannot but strike minds unused to +splendor; but their belief is very little changed, except that the +women seem to pay great reverence to the Virgin, perhaps because +flattering to the sex. They anciently believed in one God, the ruler +and creator of the universe, whom they called _the Great Spirit_ +and the _Master of Life_; in the sun as his image and representative; +in a multitude of inferior spirits and demons; and in a future +state of rewards and punishments, or, to use their own phrase, +in _a country of souls_. They reverenced the spirits of their +departed heroes, but it does not appear that they paid them any +religious adoration. Their morals were more pure, their manners more +simple, than those of polished nations, except in what regarded the +intercourse of the sexes: the young women before marriage were indulged +in great libertinism, hid however under the most reserved and decent +exterior. They held adultery in abhorrence, and with the more reason +as their marriages were dissolvable at pleasure. The missionaries are +said to have found no difficulty so great in gaining them to +Christianity, as that of persuading them to marry for life: they +regarded the Christian system of marriage as contrary to the laws of +nature and reason; and asserted that, as the _Great Spirit_ formed +us to be happy, it was opposing his will, to continue together when +otherwise. + +The sex we have so unjustly excluded from power in Europe have a +great share in the Huron government; the chief is chose by the matrons +from amongst the nearest male relations, by the female line, of him he +is to succeed; and is generally an aunt's or sister's son; a custom +which, if we examine strictly into the principle on which it is +founded, seems a little to contradict what we are told of the extreme +chastity of the married ladies. + +The power of the chief is extremely limited; he seems rather to +advise his people as a father than command them as a master: yet, as +his commands are always reasonable, and for the general good, no prince +in the world is so well obeyed. They have a supreme council of +ancients, into which every man enters of course at an age fixed, and +another of assistants to the chief on common occasions, the members of +which are like him elected by the matrons: I am pleased with this last +regulation, as women are, beyond all doubt, the best judges of the +merit of men; and I should be extremely pleased to see it adopted in +England: canvassing for elections would then be the most agreeable +thing in the world, and I am sure the ladies would give their votes on +much more generous principles than we do. In the true sense of the +word, _we_ are the savages, who so impolitely deprive you of the +common rights of citizenship, and leave you no power but that of which +we cannot deprive you, the resistless power of your charms. By the way, +I don't think you are obliged in conscience to obey laws you have had +no share in making; your plea would certainly be at least as good as +that of the Americans, about which we every day hear so much. + +The Hurons have no positive laws; yet being a people not numerous, +with a strong sense of honor, and in that state of equality which gives +no food to the most tormenting passions of the human heart, and the +council of ancients having a power to punish atrocious crimes, which +power however they very seldom find occasion to use, they live together +in a tranquillity and order which appears to us surprizing. + +In more numerous Indian nations, I am told, every village has its +chief and its councils, and is perfectly independent on the rest; but +on great occasions summon a general council, to which every village +sends deputies. + +Their language is at once sublime and melodious; but, having much +fewer ideas, it is impossible it can be so copious as those of Europe: +the pronunciation of the men is guttural, but that of the women +extremely soft and pleasing; without understanding one word of the +language, the sound of it is very agreeable to me. Their style even in +speaking French is bold and metaphorical: and I am told is on important +occasions extremely sublime. Even in common conversation they speak in +figures, of which I have this moment an instance. A savage woman was +wounded lately in defending an English family from the drunken rage of +one of her nation. I asked her after her wound; "It is well," said she; +"my sisters at Quebec (meaning the English ladies) have been kind to +me; and piastres, you know, are very healing." + +They have no idea of letters, no alphabet, nor is their language +reducible to rules: 'tis by painting they preserve the memory of the +only events which interest them, or that they think worth recording, +the conquests gained over their enemies in war. + +When I speak of their paintings, I should not omit that, though +extremely rude, they have a strong resemblance to the Chinese, a +circumstance which struck me the more, as it is not the stile of +nature. Their dances also, the most lively pantomimes I ever saw, +and especially the dance of peace, exhibit variety of attitudes +resembling the figures on Chinese fans; nor have their features and +complexion less likeness to the pictures we see of the Tartars, as +their wandering manner of life, before they became christians, was +the same. + +If I thought it necessary to suppose they were not natives of the +country, and that America was peopled later than the other quarters of +the world, I should imagine them the descendants of Tartars; as nothing +can be more easy than their passage from Asia, from which America is +probably not divided; or, if it is, by a very narrow channel. But I +leave this to those who are better informed, being a subject on which I +honestly confess my ignorance. + +I have already observed, that they retain most of their antient +superstitions. I should particularize their belief in dreams, of which +folly even repeated disappointments cannot cure them: they have also an +unlimited faith in their _powawers_, or conjurers, of whom there +is one in every Indian village, who is at once physician, orator, and +divine, and who is consulted as an oracle on every occasion. As I +happened to smile at the recital a savage was making of a prophetic +dream, from which he assured us of the death of an English officer whom +I knew to be alive, "You Europeans," said he, "are the most +unreasonable people in the world; you laugh at our belief in dreams, +and yet expect us to believe things a thousand times more incredible." + +Their general character is difficult to describe; made up of +contrary and even contradictory qualities, they are indolent, tranquil, +quiet, humane in peace; active, restless, cruel, ferocious in war: +courteous, attentive, hospitable, and even polite, when kindly treated; +haughty, stern, vindictive, when they are not; and their resentment is +the more to be dreaded, as they hold it a point of honor to dissemble +their sense of an injury till they find an opportunity to revenge it. + +They are patient of cold and heat, of hunger and thirst, even beyond +all belief when necessity requires, passing whole days, and often +three or four days together, without food, in the woods, when on the +watch for an enemy, or even on their hunting parties; yet indulging +themselves in their feasts even to the most brutal degree of +intemperance. They despise death, and suffer the most excruciating +tortures not only without a groan, but with an air of triumph; singing +their death song, deriding their tormentors, and threatening them with +the vengeance of their surviving friends: yet hold it honorable to fly +before an enemy that appears the least superior in number or force. + +Deprived by their extreme ignorance, and that indolence which +nothing but their ardor for war can surmount, of all the +conveniencies, as well as elegant refinements of polished life; +strangers to the softer passions, love being with them on the same +footing as amongst their fellow-tenants of the woods, their lives +appear to me rather tranquil than happy: they have fewer cares, but +they have also much fewer enjoyments, than fall to our share. I am +told, however, that, though insensible to love, they are not without +affections; are extremely awake to friendship, and passionately fond of +their children. + +They are of a copper color, which is rendered more unpleasing by a +quantity of coarse red on their cheeks; but the children, when born, +are of a pale silver white; perhaps their indelicate custom of +greasing their bodies, and their being so much exposed to the air and +sun even from infancy, may cause that total change of complexion, which +I know not how otherwise to account for: their hair is black and +shining, the women's very long, parted at the top, and combed back, +tied behind, and often twisted with a thong of leather, which they +think very ornamental: the dress of both sexes is a close jacket, +reaching to their knees, with spatterdashes, all of coarse blue cloth, +shoes of deer-skin, embroidered with porcupine quills, and sometimes +with silver spangles; and a blanket thrown across their shoulders, and +fastened before with a kind of bodkin, with necklaces, and other +ornaments of beads or shells. + +They are in general tall, well made, and agile to the last degree; +have a lively imagination, a strong memory; and, as far as their +interests are concerned, are very dextrous politicians. + +Their address is cold and reserved; but their treatment of +strangers, and the unhappy, infinitely kind and hospitable. A very +worthy priest, with whom I am acquainted at Quebec, was some years +since shipwrecked in December on the island of Anticosti: after a +variety of distresses, not difficult to be imagined on an island +without inhabitants, during the severity of a winter even colder than +that of Canada; he, with the small remains of his companions who +survived such complicated distress, early in the spring, reached the +main land in their boat, and wandered to a cabbin of savages; the +ancient of which, having heard his story, bid him enter, and liberally +supplied their wants: "Approach, brother," said he; "the unhappy have +a right to our assistance; we are men, and cannot but feel for the +distresses which happen to men;" a sentiment which has a strong +resemblance to a celebrated one in a Greek tragedy. + +You will not expect more from me on this subject, as my residence +here has been short, and I can only be said to catch a few marking +features flying. I am unable to give you a picture at full length. + +Nothing astonishes me so much as to find their manners so little +changed by their intercourse with the Europeans; they seem to have +learnt nothing of us but excess in drinking. + +The situation of the village is very fine, on an eminence, gently +rising to a thick wood at some distance, a beautiful little serpentine +river in front, on which are a bridge, a mill, and a small cascade, at +such a distance as to be very pleasing objects from their houses; and a +cultivated country, intermixed with little woods lying between them and +Quebec, from which they are distant only nine very short miles. + +What a letter have I written! I shall quit my post of historian to +your friend Miss Fermor; the ladies love writing much better than we +do; and I should perhaps be only just, if I said they write better. + + Adieu! + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 12. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, Sept. 12. + +I yesterday morning received a letter from Major Melmoth, to +introduce to my acquaintance Sir George Clayton, who brought it; he +wanted no other introduction to me than his being dear to the most +amiable woman breathing; in virtue of that claim, he may command every +civility, every attention in my power. He breakfasted with me +yesterday: we were two hours alone, and had a great deal of +conversation; we afterwards spent the day together very agreably, on a +party of pleasure in the country. + +I am going with him this afternoon to visit Miss Fermor, to whom he +has a letter from the divine Emily, which he is to deliver himself. + +He is very handsome, but not of my favorite stile of beauty: +extremely fair and blooming, with fine features, light hair and eyes; +his countenance not absolutely heavy, but inanimate, and to my taste +insipid: finely made, not ungenteel, but without that easy air of the +world which I prefer to the most exact symmetry without it. In short, +he is what the country ladies in England call _a sweet pretty man_. +He dresses well, has the finest horses and the handsomest liveries I +have seen in Canada. His manner is civil but cold, his conversation +sensible but not spirited; he seems to be a man rather to approve than +to love. Will you excuse me if I say, he resembles the form my +imagination paints of Prometheus's man of clay, before he stole the +celestial fire to animate him? + +Perhaps I scrutinize him too strictly; perhaps I am prejudiced in +my judgment by the very high idea I had form'd of the man whom Emily +Montague could love. I will own to you, that I thought it impossible +for her to be pleased with meer beauty; and I cannot even now change +my opinion; I shall find some latent fire, some hidden spark, when we +are better acquainted. + +I intend to be very intimate with him, to endeavour to see into his +very soul; I am hard to please in a husband for my Emily; he must have +spirit, he must have sensibility, or he cannot make her happy. + +He thank'd me for my civility to Miss Montague: do you know I +thought him impertinent? and I am not yet sure he was not so, though I +saw he meant to be polite. + +He comes: our horses are at the door. Adieu! + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + +Eight in the evening. + +We are return'd: I every hour like him less. There were several +ladies, French and English, with Miss Fermor, all on the rack to engage +the Baronet's attention; you have no notion of the effect of a title +in America. To do the ladies justice however, he really look'd very +handsome; the ride, and the civilities he receiv'd from a circle of +pretty women, for they were well chose, gave a glow to his complexion +extremely favorable to his desire of pleasing, which, through all his +calmness, it was impossible not to observe; he even attempted once or +twice to be lively, but fail'd: vanity itself could not inspire him +with vivacity; yet vanity is certainly his ruling passion, if such a +piece of still life can be said to have any passions at all. + +What a charm, my dear Lucy, is there in sensibility! 'Tis the magnet +which attracts all to itself: virtue may command esteem, understanding +and talents admiration, beauty a transient desire; but 'tis sensibility +alone which can inspire love. + +Yet the tender, the sensible Emily Montague--no, my dear, 'tis +impossible: she may fancy she loves him, but it is not in nature; +unless she extremely mistakes his character. His _approbation_ of +her, for he cannot feel a livelier sentiment, may at present, when with +her, raise him a little above his natural vegetative state, but after +marriage he will certainly sink into it again. + +If I have the least judgment in men, he will be a cold, civil, +inattentive husband; a tasteless, insipid, silent companion; a +tranquil, frozen, unimpassion'd lover; his insensibility will secure +her from rivals, his vanity will give her all the drapery of happiness; +her friends will congratulate her choice; she will be the envy of her +own sex: without giving positive offence, he will every moment wound, +because he is a stranger to, all the fine feelings of a heart like +hers; she will seek in vain the friend, the lover, she expected; yet, +scarce knowing of what to complain, she will accuse herself of caprice, +and be astonish'd to find herself wretched with _the best husband in +the world_. + +I tremble for her happiness; I know how few of my own sex are to be +found who have the lively sensibility of yours, and of those few how +many wear out their hearts by a life of gallantry and dissipation, and +bring only apathy and disgust into marriage. I know few men capable of +making her happy; but this Sir George--my Lucy, I have not patience. + +Did I tell you all the men here are in love with your friend Bell +Fermor? The women all hate her, which is an unequivocal proof that she +pleases the other sex. + + + +LETTER 13. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Montreal, Sept. 2. + +My dearest Bell will better imagine than I can describe, the +pleasure it gave me to hear of her being in Canada; I am impatient to +see her, but as Mrs. Melmoth comes in a fortnight to Quebec, I know she +will excuse my waiting to come with her. My visit however is to +Silleri; I long to see my dear girl, to tell her a thousand little +trifles interesting only to friendship. + +You congratulate me, my dear, on the pleasing prospect I have before +me; on my approaching marriage with a man young, rich, lovely, +enamor'd, and of an amiable character. + +Yes, my dear, I am oblig'd to my uncle for his choice; Sir George is +all you have heard; and, without doubt, loves me, as he marries me with +such an inferiority of fortune. I am very happy certainly; how is it +possible I should be otherwise? + +I could indeed wish my tenderness for him more lively, but perhaps +my wishes are romantic. I prefer him to all his sex, but wish my +preference was of a less languid nature; there is something in it more +like friendship than love; I see him with pleasure, but I part from him +without regret; yet he deserves my affection, and I can have no +objection to him which is not founded in caprice. + +You say true; Colonel Rivers is very amiable; he pass'd six weeks +with us, yet we found his conversation always new; he is the man on +earth of whom one would wish to make a friend; I think I could already +trust him with every sentiment of my soul; I have even more confidence +in him than in Sir George whom I love; his manner is soft, attentive, +insinuating, and particularly adapted to please women. Without +designs, without pretensions; he steals upon you in the character of a +friend, because there is not the least appearance of his ever being a +lover: he seems to take such an interest in your happiness, as gives +him a right to know your every thought. Don't you think, my dear, +these kind of men are dangerous? Take care of yourself, my dear Bell; +as to me, I am secure in my situation. + +Sir George is to have the pleasure of delivering this to you, and +comes again in a few days; love him for my sake, though he deserves it +for his own. I assure you, he is extremely worthy. + + Adieu! my dear. + Your affectionate + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 14. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Quebec, Sept. 15. + +Believe me, Jack, you are wrong; this vagrant taste is unnatural, +and does not lead to happiness; your eager pursuit of pleasure defeats +itself; love gives no true delight but where the heart is attach'd, and +you do not give yours time to fix. Such is our unhappy frailty, that +the tenderest passion may wear out, and another succeed, but the love +of change merely as change is not in nature; where it is a real taste, +'tis a depraved one. Boys are inconstant from vanity and affectation, +old men from decay of passion; but men, and particularly men of sense, +find their happiness only in that lively attachment of which it is +impossible for more than one to be the object. Love is an intellectual +pleasure, and even the senses will be weakly affected where the heart +is silent. + +You will find this truth confirmed even within the walls of the +seraglio; amidst this crowd of rival beauties, eager to please, one +happy fair generally reigns in the heart of the sultan; the rest serve +only to gratify his pride and ostentation, and are regarded by him with +the same indifference as the furniture of his superb palace, of which +they may be said to make a part. + +With your estate, you should marry; I have as many objections to the +state as you can have; I mean, on the footing marriage is at present. +But of this I am certain, that two persons at once delicate and +sensible, united by friendship, by taste, by a conformity of sentiment, +by that lively ardent tender inclination which alone deserves the name +of love, will find happiness in marriage, which is in vain sought in +any other kind of attachment. + +You are so happy as to have the power of chusing; you are rich, and +have not the temptation to a mercenary engagement. Look round you for +a companion, a confidente; a tender amiable friend, with all the +charms of a mistress: above all, be certain of her affection, that you +engage, that you fill her whole soul. Find such a woman, my dear +Temple, and you cannot make too much haste to be happy. + +I have a thousand things to say to you, but am setting off +immediately with Sir George Clayton, to meet the lieutenant governor at +Montreal; a piece of respect which I should pay with the most lively +pleasure, if it did not give me the opportunity of seeing the woman in +the world I most admire. I am not however going to set you the example +of marrying: I am not so happy; she is engaged to the gentleman who +goes up with me. Adieu! + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 15. + + +To Miss Montague, at Montreal. + +Silleri, Sept. 16. + +Take care, my dear Emily, you do not fall into the common error of +sensible and delicate minds, that of refining away your happiness. + +Sir George is handsome as an Adonis; you allow him to be of an +amiable character; he is rich, young, well born, and loves you; you +will have fine cloaths, fine jewels, a fine house, a coach and six; all +the _douceurs_ of marriage, with an extreme pretty fellow, who is +fond of you, whom _you see with pleasure, and prefer to all his sex_; +and yet you are discontented, because you have not for him at +twenty-four the romantic passion of fifteen, or rather that ideal +passion which perhaps never existed but in imagination. + +To be happy in this world, it is necessary not to raise one's ideas +too high: if I loved a man of Sir George's fortune half as well as by +your own account you love him, I should not hesitate one moment about +marrying; but sit down contented with ease, affluence, and an +agreeable man, without expecting to find life what it certainly is not, +a state of continual rapture. 'Tis, I am afraid, my dear, your +misfortune to have too much sensibility to be happy. + +I could moralize exceedingly well this morning on the vanity of +human wishes and expectations, and the folly of hoping for felicity in +this vile sublunary world: but the subject is a little exhausted, and I +have a passion for being original. I think all the moral writers, who +have set off with promising to shew us the road to happiness, have +obligingly ended with telling us there is no such thing; a conclusion +extremely consoling, and which if they had drawn before they set pen to +paper, would have saved both themselves and their readers an infinity +of trouble. This fancy of hunting for what one knows is not to be +found, is really an ingenious way of amusing both one's self and the +world: I wish people would either write to some purpose, or be so good +as not to write at all. + +I believe I shall set about writing a system of ethics myself, which +shall be short, clear, and comprehensive; nearer the Epicurean perhaps +than the Stoic; but rural, refined, and sentimental; rural by all +means; for who does not know that virtue is a country gentlewoman? all +the good mammas will tell you, there is no such being to be heard of in +town. + +I shall certainly be glad to see you, my dear; though I foresee +strange revolutions _in the state of Denmark_ from this event; at +present I have all the men to myself, and you must know I have a +prodigious aversion to divided empire: however, 'tis some comfort they +all know you are going to be married. You may come, Emily; only be so +obliging to bring Sir George along with you: in your present situation, +you are not so very formidable. + +The men here, as I said before, are all dying for me; there are many +handsomer women, but I flatter them, and the dear creatures cannot +resist it. I am a very good girl to women, but naturally artful (if you +will allow the expression) to the other sex; I can blush, look down, +stifle a sigh, flutter my fan, and seem so agreeably confused--you +have no notion, my dear, what fools men are. If you had not got the +start of me, I would have had your little white-haired baronet in a +week, and yet I don't take him to be made of very combustible +materials; rather mild, composed, and pretty, I believe; but he has +vanity, which is quite enough for my purpose. + +Either your love or Colonel Rivers will have the honor to deliver +this letter; 'tis rather cruel to take them both from us at once; +however, we shall soon be made amends; for we shall have a torrent of +beaux with the general. + +Don't you think the sun in this country vastly more chearing than in +England? I am charmed with the sun, to say nothing of the moon, though +to be sure I never saw a moon-light night that deserved the name till I +came to America. + +_Mon cher pere_ desires a thousand compliments; you know he +has been in love with you ever since you were seven years old: he is +vastly better for his voyage, and the clear air of Canada, and looks +ten years younger than before he set out. + +Adieu! I am going to ramble in the woods, and pick berries, with a +little smiling civil captain, who is enamoured of me: a pretty rural +amusement for lovers! + +Good morrow, my dear Emily, + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 16. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Sept. 18. + +Your brother, my dear, is gone to Montreal with Sir George Clayton, +of whom I suppose you have heard, and who is going to marry a friend of +mine, to pay a visit to _Monsieur le General_, who is arrived +there. The men in Canada, the English I mean, are eternally changing +place, even when they have not so pleasing a call; travelling is cheap +and amusing, the prospects lovely, the weather inviting; and there are +no very lively pleasures at present to attach them either to Quebec or +Montreal, so that they divide themselves between both. + +This fancy of the men, which is extremely the mode, makes an +agreable circulation of inamoratoes, which serves to vary the amusement +of the ladies; so that upon the whole 'tis a pretty fashion, and +deserves encouragement. + +You expect too much of your brother, my dear; the summer is charming +here, but with no such very striking difference from that of England, +as to give room to say a vast deal on the subject; though I believe, if +you will please to compare our letters, you will find, putting us +together, we cut a pretty figure in the descriptive way; at least if +your brother tells me truth. + +You may expect a very well painted frost-piece from me in the +winter; as to the present season, it is just like any fine autumn in +England: I may add, that the beauty of the nights is much beyond my +power of description: a constant _Aurora borealis_, without a +cloud in the heavens; and a moon so resplendent that you may see to +read the smallest print by its light; one has nothing to wish but that +it was full moon every night. Our evening walks are delicious, +especially at Silleri, where 'tis the pleasantest thing in the world to +listen to soft nonsense, + + "Whilst the moon dances through the trembling leaves" + +(A line I stole from Philander and Sylvia): But to return: + +The French ladies never walk but at night, which shews their good +taste; and then only within the walls of Quebec, which does not: they +saunter slowly, after supper, on a particular battery, which is a kind +of little Mall: they have no idea of walking in the country, nor the +least feeling of the lovely scene around them; there are many of them +who never saw the falls of Montmorenci, though little more than an +hour's drive from the town. They seem born without the smallest portion +of curiosity, or any idea of the pleasures of the imagination, or +indeed any pleasure but that of being admired; love, or rather +coquetry, dress, and devotion, seem to share all their hours: yet, as +they are lively, and in general handsome, the men are very ready to +excuse their want of knowledge. + +There are two ladies in the province, I am told, who read; but both +of them are above fifty, and they are regarded as prodigies of +erudition. + +Eight in the evening. + +Absolutely, Lucy, I will marry a savage, and turn squaw (a pretty soft +name for an Indian princess!): never was any thing so delightful as +their lives; they talk of French husbands, but commend me to an Indian +one, who lets his wife ramble five hundred miles, without asking where +she is going. + +I was sitting after dinner with a book, in a thicket of hawthorn +near the beach, when a loud laugh called my attention to the river, +where I saw a canoe of savages making to the shore; there were six +women, and two or three children, without one man amongst them: they +landed, tied the canoe to the root of a tree, and finding out the most +agreable shady spot amongst the bushes with which the beach was +covered, which happened to be very near me, made a fire, on which they +laid some fish to broil, and, fetching water from the river, sat down +on the grass to their frugal repast. + +I stole softly to the house, and, ordering a servant to bring some +wine and cold provisions, returned to my squaws: I asked them in French +if they were of Lorette; they shook their heads: I repeated the +question in English, when the oldest of the women told me, they were +not; that their country was on the borders of New England; that, their +husbands being on a hunting party in the woods, curiosity, and the +desire of seeing their brethren the English who had conquered Quebec, +had brought them up the great river, down which they should return as +soon as they had seen Montreal. She courteously asked me to sit down, +and eat with them, which I complied with, and produced my part of the +feast. We soon became good company, and _brighten'd the chain +of friendship_ with two bottles of wine, which put them into such +spirits, that they danced, sung, shook me by the hand, and grew so very +fond of me, that I began to be afraid I should not easily get rid of +them. They were very unwilling to part with me; but, after two or three +very ridiculous hours, I with some difficulty prevailed on the ladies +to pursue their voyage, having first replenished their canoe with +provisions and a few bottles of wine, and given them a letter of +recommendation to your brother, that they might be in no distress at +Montreal. + +Adieu! my father is just come in, and has brought some company with +him from Quebec to supper. + + Yours ever, + A. Fermor. + +Don't you think, my dear, my good sisters the squaws seem to live +something the kind of life of our gypsies? The idea struck me as they +were dancing. I assure you, there is a good deal of resemblance in +their persons: I have seen a fine old seasoned female gypsey, of as +dark a complexion as a savage: they are all equally marked as children +of the sun. + + + +LETTER 17. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Repentigny, Sept. 18, ten at night. + +I study my fellow traveller closely; his character, indeed, is not +difficult to ascertain; his feelings are dull, nothing makes the +least impression on him; he is as insensible to the various beauties of +the charming country through which we have travelled, as the very +Canadian peasants themselves who inhabit it. I watched his eyes at some +of the most beautiful prospects, and saw not the least gleam of +pleasure there: I introduced him here to an extreme handsome French +lady, and as lively as she is handsome, the wife of an officer who is +of my acquaintance; the same tasteless composure prevailed; he +complained of fatigue, and retired to his apartment at eight: the +family are now in bed, and I have an hour to give to my dear Lucy. + +He admires Emily because he has seen her admired by all the world, +but he cannot taste her charms of himself; they are not of a stile to +please him: I cannot support the thought of such a woman's being so +lost; there are a thousand insensible good young women to be found, who +would doze away life with him and be happy. + +A rich, sober, sedate, presbyterian citizen's daughter, educated by +her grandmother in the country, who would roll about with him in +unweildy splendor, and dream away a lazy existence, would be the proper +wife for him. Is it for him, a lifeless composition of earth and water, +to unite himself to the active elements which compose my divine Emily? + +Adieu! my dear! we set out early in the morning for Montreal. + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 18. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Montreal, Sept. 19, eleven o'clock. + +No, my dear, it is impossible she can love him; his dull soul is ill +suited to hers; heavy, unmeaning, formal; a slave to rules, to +ceremony, to _etiquette_, he has not an idea above those of a +gentleman usher. He has been three hours in town without seeing her; +dressing, and waiting to pay his compliments first to the general, who +is riding, and every minute expected back. I am all impatience, though +only her friend, but think it would be indecent in me to go without +him, and look like a design of reproaching his coldness. How +differently are we formed! I should have stole a moment to see the +woman I loved from the first prince in the universe. + +The general is returned. Adieu! till our visit is over; we go from +thence to Major Melmoth's, whose family I should have told you are in +town, and not half a street from us. What a soul of fire has this +_lover!_ 'Tis to profane the word to use it in speaking of him. + +One o'clock. + +I am mistaken, Lucy; astonishing as it is, she loves him; this dull +clod of uninformed earth has touched the lively soul of my Emily. Love +is indeed the child of caprice; I will not say of sympathy, for what +sympathy can there be between two hearts so different? I am hurt, she +is lowered in my esteem; I expected to find in the man she loved, a +mind sensible and tender as her own. + +I repeat it, my dear Lucy, she loves him; I observed her when we +entered the room; she blushed, she turned pale, she trembled, her +voice faltered; every look spoke the strong emotion of her soul. + +She is paler than when I saw her last; she is, I think, less +beautiful, but more touching than ever; there is a languor in her air, +a softness in her countenance, which are the genuine marks of a heart +in love; all the tenderness of her soul is in her eyes. + +Shall I own to you all my injustice? I hate this man for having the +happiness to please her: I cannot even behave to him with the +politeness due to every gentleman. + +I begin to fear my weakness is greater than I supposed. + +22d in the evening. + +I am certainly mad, Lucy; what right have I to expect!--you will +scarce believe the excess of my folly. I went after dinner to Major +Melmoth's; I found Emily at piquet with Sir George: can you conceive +that I fancied myself ill used, that I scarce spoke to her, and +returned immediately home, though strongly pressed to spend the evening +there. I walked two or three times about my room, took my hat, and went +to visit the handsomest Frenchwoman at Montreal, whose windows are +directly opposite to Major Melmoth's; in the excess of my anger, I +asked this lady to dance with me to-morrow at a little ball we are to +have out of town. Can you imagine any behaviour more childish? It would +have been scarce pardonable at sixteen. + +Adieu! my letter is called for. I will write to you again in a few +days. + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + +Major Melmoth tells me, they are to be married in a month at +Quebec, and to embark immediately for England. I will not be there; I +cannot bear to see her devote herself to wretchedness: she will be the +most unhappy of her sex with this man; I see clearly into his +character; his virtue is the meer absence of vice; his good qualities +are all of the negative kind. + + + +LETTER 19. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Montreal, Sept. 24. + +I have but a moment, my dear, to acknowledge your last; this week +has been a continual hurry. + +You mistake me; it is not the romantic passion of fifteen I wish to +feel, but that tender lively friendship which alone can give charms to +so intimate an union as that of marriage. I wish a greater conformity +in our characters, in our sentiments, in our tastes. + +But I will say no more on this subject till I have the pleasure of +seeing you at Silleri. Mrs. Melmoth and I come in a ship which sails +in a day or two; they tell us, it is the most agreeable way of coming: +Colonel Rivers is so polite, as to stay to accompany us down: Major +Melmoth asked Sir George, but he preferred the pleasure of parading +into Quebec, and shewing his fine horses and fine person to advantage, +to that of attending his mistress: shall I own to you that I am hurt at +this instance of his neglect, as I know his attendance on the general +was not expected? His situation was more than a sufficient excuse; it +was highly improper for two women to go to Quebec alone; it is in some +degree so that any other man should accompany me at this time: my pride +is extremely wounded. I expect a thousand times more attention from +him since his acquisition of fortune; it is with pain I tell you, my +dear friend, he seems to shew me much less. I will not descend to +suppose he presumes on this increase of fortune, but he presumes on the +inclination he supposes I have for him; an inclination, however, not +violent enough to make me submit to the least ill treatment from him. + +In my present state of mind, I am extremely hard to please; either +his behaviour or my temper have suffered a change. I know not how it +is, but I see his faults in a much stronger light than I have ever seen +them before. I am alarmed at the coldness of his disposition, so ill +suited to the sensibility of mine; I begin to doubt his being of the +amiable character I once supposed: in short, I begin to doubt of the +possibility of his making me happy. + +You will, perhaps, call it an excess of pride, when I say, I am much +less inclined to marry him than when our situations were equal. I +certainly love him; I have a habit of considering him as the man I am +to marry, but my affection is not of that kind which will make me easy +under the sense of an obligation. + +I will open all my heart to you when we meet: I am not so happy as +you imagine: do not accuse me of caprice; can I be too cautious, where +the happiness of my whole life is at stake? + + Adieu! + Your faithful + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 20. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Sept. 24. + +I declare off at once; I will not be a squaw; I admire their talking +of the liberty of savages; in the most essential point, they are +slaves: the mothers marry their children without ever consulting their +inclinations, and they are obliged to submit to this foolish tyranny. +Dear England! where liberty appears, not as here among these odious +savages, wild and ferocious like themselves, but lovely, smiling, led +by the hand of the Graces. There is no true freedom any where else. +They may talk of the privilege of chusing a chief; but what is that to +the dear English privilege of chusing a husband? + +I have been at an Indian wedding, and have no patience. Never did I +see so vile an assortment. + +Adieu! I shall not be in good humor this month. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 21. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Montreal, Sept. 24. + +What you say, my dear friend, is more true than I wish it was; our +English women of character are generally too reserved; their manner is +cold and forbidding; they seem to think it a crime to be too +attractive; they appear almost afraid to please. + +'Tis to this ill-judged reserve I attribute the low profligacy of +too many of our young men; the grave faces and distant behaviour of +the generality of virtuous women fright them from their acquaintance, +and drive them into the society of those wretched votaries of vice, +whose conversation debases every sentiment of their souls. + +With as much beauty, good sense, sensibility, and softness, at +least, as any women on earth, no women please so little as the English: +depending on their native charms, and on those really amiable qualities +which envy cannot deny them, they are too careless in acquiring those +enchanting nameless graces, which no language can define, which give +resistless force to beauty, and even supply its place where it is +wanting. + +They are satisfied with being good, without considering that +unadorned virtue may command esteem, but will never excite love; and +both are necessary in marriage, which I suppose to be the state every +woman of honor has in prospect; for I own myself rather incredulous as +to the assertions of maiden aunts and cousins to the contrary. I wish +my amiable countrywomen would consider one moment, that virtue is +never so lovely as when dressed in smiles: the virtue of women should +have all the softness of the sex; it should be gentle, it should be +even playful, to please. + +There is a lady here, whom I wish you to see, as the shortest way of +explaining to you all I mean; she is the most pleasing woman I ever +beheld, independently of her being one of the handsomest; her manner is +irresistible: she has all the smiling graces of France, all the +blushing delicacy and native softness of England. + +Nothing can be more delicate, my dear Temple, than the manner in +which you offer me your estate in Rutland, by way of anticipating your +intended legacy: it is however impossible for me to accept it; my +father, who saw me naturally more profuse than became my expectations, +took such pains to counterwork it by inspiring me with the love of +independence, that I cannot have such an obligation even to you. + +Besides, your legacy is left on the supposition that you are not to +marry, and I am absolutely determined you shall; so that, by accepting +this mark of your esteem, I should be robbing your younger children. + +I have not a wish to be richer whilst I am a batchelor, and the only +woman I ever wished to marry, the only one my heart desires, will be in +three weeks the wife of another; I shall spend less than my income +here: shall I not then be rich? To make you easy, know I have four +thousand pounds in the funds; and that, from the equality of living +here, an ensign is obliged to spend near as much as I am; he is +inevitably ruined, but I save money. + +I pity you, my friend; I am hurt to hear you talk of happiness in +the life you at present lead; of finding pleasure in possessing venal +beauty; you are in danger of acquiring a habit which will vitiate your +taste, and exclude you from that state of refined and tender friendship +for which nature formed a heart like yours, and which is only to be +found in marriage: I need not add, in a marriage of choice. + +It has been said that love marriages are generally unhappy; nothing +is more false; marriages of meer inclination will always be so: +passion alone being concerned, when that is gratified, all tenderness +ceases of course: but love, the gay child of sympathy and esteem, is, +when attended by delicacy, the only happiness worth a reasonable man's +pursuit, and the choicest gift of heaven: it is a softer, tenderer +friendship, enlivened by taste, and by the most ardent desire of +pleasing, which time, instead of destroying, will render every hour +more dear and interesting. + +If, as you possibly will, you should call me romantic, hear a man of +pleasure on the subject, the Petronius of the last age, the elegant, +but voluptuous St. Evremond, who speaks in the following manner of the +friendship between married persons: + +"I believe it is this pleasing intercourse of tenderness, this +reciprocation of esteem, or, if you will, this mutual ardor of +preventing each other in every endearing mark of affection, in which +consists the sweetness of this second species of friendship. + +"I do not speak of other pleasures, which are not so much in +themselves as in the assurance they give of the intire possession of +those we love: this appears to me so true, that I am not afraid to +assert, the man who is by any other means certainly assured of the +tenderness of her he loves, may easily support the privation of those +pleasures; and that they ought not to enter into the account of +friendship, but as proofs that it is without reserve. + +"'Tis true, few men are capable of the purity of these sentiments, +and 'tis for that reason we so very seldom see perfect friendship in +marriage, at least for any long time: the object which a sensual +passion has in view cannot long sustain a commerce so noble as that of +friendship." + +You see, the pleasures you so much boast are the least of those +which true tenderness has to give, and this in the opinion of a +voluptuary. + +My dear Temple, all you have ever known of love is nothing to that +sweet consent of souls in unison, that harmony of minds congenial to +each other, of which you have not yet an idea. + +You have seen beauty, and it has inspired a momentary emotion, but +you have never yet had a real attachment; you yet know nothing of that +irresistible tenderness, that delirium of the soul, which, whilst it +refines, adds strength to passion. + +I perhaps say too much, but I wish with ardor to see you happy; in +which there is the more merit, as I have not the least prospect of +being so myself. + +I wish you to pursue the plan of life which I myself think most +likely to bring happiness, because I know our souls to be of the same +frame: we have taken different roads, but you will come back to mine. +Awake to delicate pleasures, I have no taste for any other; there are +no other for sensible minds. My gallantries have been few, rather (if +it is allowed to speak thus of one's self even to a friend) from +elegance of taste than severity of manners; I have loved seldom, +because I cannot love without esteem. + +Believe me, Jack, the meer pleasure of loving, even without a +return, is superior to all the joys of sense where the heart is +untouched: the French poet does not exaggerate when he says, + + --Amour; + Tous les autres plaisirs ne valent pas tes peines. + +You will perhaps call me mad; I am just come from a woman who is +capable of making all mankind so. Adieu! + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 22. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Sept. 25. + +I have been rambling about amongst the peasants, and asking them a +thousand questions, in order to satisfy your inquisitive friend. As to +my father, though, properly speaking, your questions are addressed to +him, yet, being upon duty, he begs that, for this time, you will accept +of an answer from me. + +The Canadians live a good deal like the ancient patriarchs; the +lands were originally settled by the troops, every officer became a +seigneur, or lord of the manor, every soldier took lands under his +commander; but, as avarice is natural to mankind, the soldiers took a +great deal more than they could cultivate, by way of providing for a +family: which is the reason so much land is now waste in the finest +part of the province: those who had children, and in general they have +a great number, portioned out their lands amongst them as they married, +and lived in the midst of a little world of their descendants. + +There are whole villages, and there is even a large island, that of +Coudre, where the inhabitants are all the descendants of one pair, if +we only suppose that their sons went to the next village for wives, for +I find no tradition of their having had a dispensation to marry their +sisters. + +The corn here is very good, though not equal to ours; the harvest +not half so gay as in England, and for this reason, that the lazy +creatures leave the greatest part of their land uncultivated, only +sowing as much corn of different sorts as will serve themselves; and +being too proud and too idle to work for hire, every family gets in +its own harvest, which prevents all that jovial spirit which we find +when the reapers work together in large parties. + +Idleness is the reigning passion here, from the peasant to his lord; +the gentlemen never either ride on horseback or walk, but are driven +about like women, for they never drive themselves, lolling at their +ease in a calache: the peasants, I mean the masters of families, are +pretty near as useless as their lords. + +You will scarce believe me, when I tell you, that I have seen, at +the farm next us, two children, a very beautiful boy and girl, of about +eleven years old, assisted by their grandmother, reaping a field of +oats, whilst the lazy father, a strong fellow of thirty two, lay on the +grass, smoaking his pipe, about twenty yards from them: the old people +and children work here; those in the age of strength and health only +take their pleasure. + +_A propos_ to smoaking, 'tis common to see here boys of three +years old, sitting at their doors, smoaking their pipes, as grave and +composed as little old Chinese men on a chimney. + +You ask me after our fruits: we have, as I am told, an immensity of +cranberries all the year; when the snow melts away in spring, they are +said to be found under it as fresh and as good as in autumn: +strawberries and rasberries grow wild in profusion; you cannot walk a +step in the fields without treading on the former: great plenty of +currants, plumbs, apples, and pears; a few cherries and grapes, but not +in much perfection: excellent musk melons, and water melons in +abundance, but not so good in proportion as the musk. Not a peach, nor +any thing of the kind; this I am however convinced is less the fault +of the climate than of the people, who are too indolent to take pains +for any thing more than is absolutely necessary to their existence. +They might have any fruit here but gooseberries, for which the summer +is too hot; there are bushes in the woods, and some have been brought +from England, but the fruit falls off before it is ripe. The wild +fruits here, especially those of the bramble kind, are in much greater +variety and perfection than in England. + +When I speak of the natural productions of the country, I should not +forget that hemp and hops grow every where in the woods; I should +imagine the former might be cultivated here with great success, if the +people could be persuaded to cultivate any thing. + +A little corn of every kind, a little hay, a little tobacco, half a +dozen apple trees, a few onions and cabbages, make the whole of a +Canadian plantation. There is scarce a flower, except those in the +woods, where there is a variety of the most beautiful shrubs I ever +saw; the wild cherry, of which the woods are full, is equally charming +in flower and in fruit; and, in my opinion, at least equals the +arbutus. + +They sow their wheat in spring, never manure the ground, and plough +it in the slightest manner; can it then be wondered at that it is +inferior to ours? They fancy the frost would destroy it if sown in +autumn; but this is all prejudice, as experience has shewn. I myself +saw a field of wheat this year at the governor's farm, which was +manured and sown in autumn, as fine as I ever saw in England. + +I should tell you, they are so indolent as never to manure their +lands, or even their gardens; and that, till the English came, all the +manure of Quebec was thrown into the river. + +You will judge how naturally rich the soil must be, to produce good +crops without manure, and without ever lying fallow, and almost without +ploughing; yet our political writers in England never speak of Canada +without the epithet of _barren_. They tell me this extreme +fertility is owing to the snow, which lies five or six months on the +ground. Provisions are dear, which is owing to the prodigious number of +horses kept here; every family having a carriage, even the poorest +peasant; and every son of that peasant keeping a horse for his little +excursions of pleasure, besides those necessary for the business of the +farm. The war also destroyed the breed of cattle, which I am told +however begins to encrease; they have even so far improved in corn, as +to export some this year to Italy and Spain. + +Don't you think I am become an excellent farmeress? 'Tis intuition; +some people are born learned: are you not all astonishment at my +knowledge? I never was so vain of a letter in my life. + +Shall I own the truth? I had most of my intelligence from old John, +who lived long with my grandfather in the country; and who, having +little else to do here, has taken some pains to pick up a competent +knowledge of the state of agriculture five miles round Quebec. + +Adieu! I am tired of the subject. + + Your faithful, + A. Fermor. + +Now I think of it, why did you not write to your brother? Did you +chuse me to expose my ignorance? If so, I flatter myself you are a +little taken in, for I think John and I figure in the rural way. + + + +LETTER 23. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Sept. 29, 10 o'clock. + +O to be sure! we are vastly to be pitied: no beaux at all with the +general; only about six to one; a very pretty proportion, and what I +hope always to see. We, the ladies I mean, drink chocolate with the +general to-morrow, and he gives us a ball on Thursday; you would not +know Quebec again; nothing but smiling faces now; all so gay as never +was, the sweetest country in the world; never expect to see me in +England again; one is really somebody here: I have been asked to dance +by only twenty-seven. + +On the subject of dancing, I am, as it were, a little embarrassed: +you will please to observe that, in the time of scarcity, when all the +men were at Montreal, I suffered a foolish little captain to sigh and +say civil things to me, _pour passer le tems_, and the creature +takes the airs of a lover, to which he has not the least pretensions, +and chuses to be angry that I won't dance with him on Thursday, and I +positively won't. + +It is really pretty enough that every absurd animal, who takes upon +him to make love to one, is to fancy himself entitled to a return: I +have no patience with the men's ridiculousness: have you, Lucy? + +But I see a ship coming down under full sail; it may be Emily and +her friends: the colours are all out, they slacken sail; they drop +anchor opposite the house; 'tis certainly them; I must fly to the +beach: music as I am a person, and an awning on the deck: the boat puts +off with your brother in it. Adieu for a moment: I must go and invite +them on shore. + +2 o'clock. + +'Twas Emily and Mrs. Melmoth, with two or three very pretty French +women; your brother is a happy man: I found tea and coffee under the +awning, and a table loaded with Montreal fruit, which is vastly better +than ours; by the way, the colonel has brought me an immensity; he is +so gallant and all that: we regaled ourselves, and landed; they dine +here, and we dance in the evening; we are to have a syllabub in the +wood: my father has sent for Sir George and Major Melmoth, and half a +dozen of the most agreable men, from Quebec: he is enchanted with his +little Emily, he loved her when she was a child. I cannot tell you how +happy I am; my Emily is handsomer than ever; you know how partial I am +to beauty: I never had a friendship for an ugly woman in my life. + + Adieu! _ma tres chere_. + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + +Your brother looks like an angel this morning; he is not drest, he +is not undrest, but somehow, easy, elegant and enchanting: he has no +powder, and his hair a little _degagée_, blown about by the wind, +and agreably disordered; such fire in his countenance; his eyes say a +thousand agreable things; he is in such spirits as I never saw him: +not a man of them has the least chance to-day. I shall be in love with +him if he goes on at this rate: not that it will be to any purpose in +the world; he never would even flirt with me, though I have made him a +thousand advances. + +My heart is so light, Lucy, I cannot describe it: I love Emily at my +soul: 'tis three years since I saw her, and there is something so +romantic in finding her in Canada: there is no saying how happy I am: I +want only you, to be perfectly so. + +3 o'clock. + +The messenger is returned; Sir George is gone with a party of French +ladies to Lake Charles: Emily blushed when the message was delivered; +he might reasonably suppose they would be here to-day, as the wind was +fair: your brother dances with my sweet friend; she loses nothing by +the exchange; she is however a little piqued at this appearance of +disrespect. + +12 o'clock. + +Sir George came just as we sat down to supper; he did right, he +complained first, and affected to be angry she had not sent an express +from _Point au Tremble_. He was however gayer than usual, and very +attentive to his mistress; your brother seemed chagrined at his +arrival; Emily perceived it, and redoubled her politeness to him, which +in a little time restored part of his good humor: upon the whole, it +was an agreable evening, but it would have been more so, if Sir George +had come at first, or not at all. + +The ladies lie here, and we go all together in the morning to +Quebec; the gentlemen are going. + +I steal a moment to seal, and give this to the colonel, who will put +it in his packet to-morrow. + + + +LETTER 24. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, Sept. 30. + +Would you believe it possible, my dear, that Sir George should +decline attending Emily Montague from Montreal, and leave the pleasing +commission to me? I am obliged to him for the three happiest days of my +life, yet am piqued at his chusing me for a _cecisbeo_ to his +mistress: he seems to think me a man _sans consequence_, with whom +a lady may safely be trusted; there is nothing very flattering in such +a kind of confidence: let him take care of himself, if he is +impertinent, and sets me at defiance; I am not vain, but set our +fortunes aside, and I dare enter the lists with Sir George Clayton. I +cannot give her a coach and six; but I can give her, what is more +conducive to happiness, a heart which knows how to value her +perfections. + +I never had so pleasing a journey; we were three days coming down, +because we made it a continual party of pleasure, took music with us, +landed once or twice a day, visited the French families we knew, lay +both nights on shore, and danced at the seigneur's of the village. + +This river, from Montreal to Quebec, exhibits a scene perhaps not to +be matched in the world: it is settled on both sides, though the +settlements are not so numerous on the south shore as on the other: the +lovely confusion of woods, mountains, meadows, corn fields, rivers (for +there are several on both sides, which lose themselves in the St. +Lawrence), intermixed with churches and houses breaking upon you at a +distance through the trees, form a variety of landscapes, to which it +is difficult to do justice. + +This charming scene, with a clear serene sky, a gentle breeze in our +favor, and the conversation of half a dozen fine women, would have made +the voyage pleasing to the most insensible man on earth: my Emily too +of the party, and most politely attentive to the pleasure she saw I had +in making the voyage agreable to her. + +I every day love her more; and, without considering the impropriety +of it, I cannot help giving way to an inclination, in which I find such +exquisite pleasure; I find a thousand charms in the least trifle I can +do to oblige her. + +Don't reason with me on this subject: I know it is madness to +continue to see her; but I find a delight in her conversation, which I +cannot prevail on myself to give up till she is actually married. + +I respect her engagements, and pretend to no more from her than her +friendship; but, as to myself, will love her in whatever manner I +please: to shew you my prudence, however, I intend to dance with the +handsomest unmarried Frenchwoman here on Thursday, and to shew her an +attention which shall destroy all suspicion of my tenderness for Emily. +I am jealous of Sir George, and hate him; but I dissemble it better +than I thought it possible for me to do. + +My Lucy, I am not happy; my mind is in a state not to be described; +I am weak enough to encourage a hope for which there is not the least +foundation; I misconstrue her friendship for me every moment; and that +attention which is meerly gratitude for my apparent anxiety to oblige. +I even fancy her eyes understand mine, which I am afraid speak too +plainly the sentiments of my heart. + +I love her, my dear girl, to madness; these three days-- + +I am interrupted. Adieu! + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + +'Tis Capt. Fermor, who insists on my dining at Silleri. They will +eternally throw me in the way of this lovely woman: of what materials +do they suppose me formed? + + + +LETTER 25. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Oct. 3, Twelve o'clock. + +An enchanting ball, my dear; your little friend's head is turned. I +was more admired than Emily, which to be sure did not flatter my vanity +at all: I see she must content herself with being beloved, for without +coquetry 'tis in vain to expect admiration. + +We had more than three hundred persons at the ball; above three +fourths men; all gay and well dressed, an elegant supper; in short, +it was charming. + +I am half inclined to marry; I am not at all acquainted with the man +I have fixed upon, I never spoke to him till last night, nor did he +take the least notice of me, more than of other ladies, but that is +nothing; he pleases me better than any man I have seen here; he is not +handsome, but well made, and looks like a gentleman; he has a good +character, is heir to a very pretty estate. I will think further of it: +there is nothing more easy than to have him if I chuse it: 'tis only +saying to some of his friends, that I think Captain Fitzgerald the most +agreable fellow here, and he will immediately be astonished he did not +sooner find out I was the handsomest woman. I will consider this affair +seriously; one must marry, 'tis the mode; every body marries; why +don't you marry, Lucy? + +This brother of yours is always here; I am surprized Sir George is +not jealous, for he pays no sort of attention to me, 'tis easy to see +why he comes; I dare say I shan't see him next week: Emily is going to +Mrs. Melmoth's, where she stays till to-morrow sevennight; she goes +from hence as soon as dinner is over. + +Adieu! I am fatigued; we danced till morning; I am but this moment +up. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + +Your brother danced with Mademoiselle Clairaut; do you know I was +piqued he did not give me the preference, as Emily danced with her +lover? not but that I had perhaps a partner full as agreable, at least +I have a mind to think so. + +I hear it whispered that the whole affair of the wedding is to be +settled next week; my father is in the secret, I am not. Emily looks +ill this morning; she was not gay at the ball. I know not why, but she +is not happy. I have my fancies, but they are yet only fancies. + +Adieu! my dear girl; I can no more. + + + +LETTER 26. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, Oct. 6. + +I am going, my Lucy.--I know not well whither I am going, but I +will not stay to see this marriage. Could you have believed it +possible--But what folly! Did I not know her situation from the first? +Could I suppose she would break off an engagement of years, with a man +who gives so clear a proof that he prefers her to all other women, to +humor the frenzy of one who has never even told her he loved her? + +Captain Fermor assures me all is settled but the day, and that she +has promised to name that to-morrow. + +I will leave Quebec to-night; no one shall know the road I take: I +do not yet know it myself; I will cross over to Point Levi with my +valet de chambre, and go wherever chance directs me. I cannot bear even +to hear the day named. I am strongly inclined to write to her; but what +can I say? I should betray my tenderness in spite of myself, and her +compassion would perhaps disturb her approaching happiness: were it +even possible she should prefer me to Sir George, she is too far gone +to recede. + +My Lucy, I never till this moment felt to what an excess I loved +her. + +Adieu! I shall be about a fortnight absent: by that time she will be +embarked for England. I cannot bring myself to see her the wife of +another. Do not be alarmed for me; reason and the impossibility of +success will conquer my passion for this angelic woman; I have been to +blame in allowing myself to see her so often. + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 27. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Beaumont, Oct. 7. + +I think I breathe a freer air now I am out of Quebec. I cannot bear +wherever I go to meet this Sir George; his triumphant air is +insupportable; he has, or I fancy he has, all the insolence of a happy +rival; 'tis unjust, but I cannot avoid hating him; I look on him as a +man who has deprived me of a good to which I foolishly fancy I had +pretensions. + +My whole behaviour has been weak to the last degree: I shall grow +more reasonable when I no longer see this charming woman; I ought +sooner to have taken this step. + +I have found here an excuse for my excursion; I have heard of an +estate to be sold down the river; and am told the purchase will be +less expence than clearing any lands I might take up. I will go and see +it; it is an object, a pursuit, and will amuse me. + +I am going to send my servant back to Quebec; my manner of leaving +it must appear extraordinary to my friends; I have therefore made this +estate my excuse. I have written to Miss Fermor that I am going to make +a purchase; have begged my warmest wishes to her lovely friend, for +whose happiness no one on earth is more anxious; but have told her Sir +George is too much the object of my envy, to expect from me very +sincere congratulations. + +Adieu! my servant waits for this. You shall hear an account of my +adventures when I return to Quebec. + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 28. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Quebec, Oct. 7, twelve o'clock. + +I must see you, my dear, this evening; my mind is in an agitation +not to be expressed; a few hours will determine my happiness or misery +for ever; I am displeased with your father for precipitating a +determination which cannot be made with too much caution. + +I have a thousand things to say to you, which I can say to no one +else. + +Be at home, and alone; I will come to you as soon as dinner is over. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 29. + + +To Miss Montague, at Quebec. + +I will be at home, my dear, and denied to every body but you. + +I pity you, my dear Emily; but I am unable to give you advice. + +The world would wonder at your hesitating a moment. + + Your faithful + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 30. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Quebec, Oct. 7, three o'clock. + +My visit to you is prevented by an event beyond my hopes. Sir George +has this moment a letter from his mother, desiring him earnestly to +postpone his marriage till spring, for some reasons of consequence to +his fortune, with the particulars of which she will acquaint him by the +next packet. + +He communicated this intelligence to me with a grave air, but with a +tranquillity not to be described, and I received it with a joy I found +it impossible wholly to conceal. + +I have now time to consult both my heart and my reason at leisure, +and to break with him, if necessary, by degrees. + +What an escape have I had! I was within four and twenty hours of +either determining to marry a man with whom I fear I have little chance +to be happy, or of breaking with him in a manner that would have +subjected one or both of us to the censures of a prying impertinent +world, whose censures the most steady temper cannot always contemn. + +I will own to you, my dear, I every hour have more dread of this +marriage: his present situation has brought his faults into full light. +Captain Clayton, with little more than his commission, was modest, +humble, affable to his inferiors, polite to all the world; and I +fancied him possessed of those more active virtues, which I supposed +the smallness of his fortune prevented from appearing. 'Tis with pain I +see that Sir George, with a splendid income, is avaricious, selfish, +proud, vain, and profuse; lavish to every caprice of vanity and +ostentation which regards himself, coldly inattentive to the real +wants of others. + +Is this a character to make your Emily happy? We were not formed for +each other: no two minds were ever so different; my happiness is in +friendship, in the tender affections, in the sweets of dear domestic +life; his in the idle parade of affluence, in dress, in equipage, in +all that splendor, which, whilst it excites envy, is too often the mark +of wretchedness. + +Shall I say more? Marriage is seldom happy where there is a great +disproportion of fortune. The lover, after he loses that endearing +character in the husband, which in common minds I am afraid is not +long, begins to reflect how many more thousands he might have expected; +and perhaps suspects his mistress of those interested motives in +marrying, of which he now feels his own heart capable. Coldness, +suspicion, and mutual want of esteem and confidence, follow of course. + +I will come back with you to Silleri this evening; I have no +happiness but when I am with you. Mrs. Melmoth is so fond of Sir +George, she is eternally persecuting me with his praises; she is +extremely mortified at this delay, and very angry at the manner in +which I behave upon it. + +Come to us directly, my dear Bell, and rejoice with your faithful + + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 31. + + +To Miss Montague, at Quebec. + +I congratulate you, my dear; you will at least have the pleasure of +being five or six months longer your own mistress; which, in my +opinion, when one is not violently in love, is a consideration worth +attending to. You will also have time to see whether you like any body +else better; and you know you can take him if you please at last. + +Send him up to his regiment at Montreal with the Melmoths; stay the +winter with me, flirt with somebody else to try the strength of your +passion, and, if it holds out against six months absence, and the +attention of an agreable fellow, I think you may safely venture to +marry him. + +_A propos_ to flirting, have you seen Colonel Rivers? He has +not been here these two days. I shall begin to be jealous of this +little impertinent Mademoiselle Clairaut. Adieu! + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + +Rivers is absurd. I have a mighty foolish letter from him; he is +rambling about the country, buying estates: he had better have been +here, playing the fool with us; if I knew how to write to him I would +tell him so, but he is got out of the range of human beings, down the +river, Heaven knows where; he says a thousand civil things to you, but +I will bring the letter with me to save the trouble of repeating them. + +I have a sort of an idea he won't be very unhappy at this delay; I +want vastly to send him word of it. + + Adieu! _ma chere_. + + + +LETTER 32. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Kamaraskas, Oct. 10. + +I am at present, my dear Lucy, in the wildest country on earth; I +mean of those which are inhabited at all: 'tis for several leagues +almost a continual forest, with only a few straggling houses on the +river side; 'tis however of not the least consequence to me, all places +are equal to me where Emily is not. + +I seek amusement, but without finding it: she is never one moment +from my thoughts; I am every hour on the point of returning to Quebec; +I cannot support the idea of her leaving the country without my seeing +her. + +'Tis a lady who has this estate to sell: I am at present at her +house; she is very amiable; a widow about thirty, with an agreable +person, great vivacity, an excellent understanding, improved by +reading, to which the absolute solitude of her situation has obliged +her; she has an open pleasing countenance, with a candor and sincerity +in her conversation which would please me, if my mind was in a state to +be pleased with any thing. Through all the attention and civility I +think myself obliged to shew her, she seems to perceive the melancholy +which I cannot shake off: she is always contriving some little party +for me, as if she knew how much I am in want of amusement. + +Oct. 12. + +Madame Des Roches is very kind; she sees my chagrin, and takes every +method to divert it: she insists on my going in her shallop to see the +last settlement on the river, opposite the Isle of Barnaby; she does me +the honor to accompany me, with a gentleman and lady who live about a +mile from her. + +Isle Barnaby, Oct. 13. + +I have been paying a very singular visit; 'tis to a hermit, who has +lived sixty years alone on this island; I came to him with a strong +prejudice against him; I have no opinion of those who fly society; who +seek a state of all others the most contrary to our nature. Were I a +tyrant, and wished to inflict the most cruel punishment human nature +could support, I would seclude criminals from the joys of society, and +deny them the endearing sight of their species. + +I am certain I could not exist a year alone: I am miserable even in +that degree of solitude to which one is confined in a ship; no words +can speak the joy which I felt when I came to America, on the first +appearance of something like the chearful haunts of men; the first man, +the first house, nay the first Indian fire of which I saw the smoke +rise above the trees, gave me the most lively transport that can be +conceived; I felt all the force of those ties which unite us to each +other, of that social love to which we owe all our happiness here. + +But to my hermit: his appearance disarmed my dislike; he is a tall +old man, with white hair and beard, the look of one who has known +better days, and the strongest marks of benevolence in his countenance. +He received me with the utmost hospitality, spread all his little +stores of fruit before me, fetched me fresh milk, and water from a +spring near his house. + +After a little conversation, I expressed my astonishment, that a man +of whose kindness and humanity I had just had such proof, could find +his happiness in flying mankind: I said a good deal on the subject, to +which he listened with the politest attention. + +"You appear," said he, "of a temper to pity the miseries of others. +My story is short and simple: I loved the most amiable of women; I was +beloved. The avarice of our parents, who both had more gainful views +for us, prevented an union on which our happiness depended. My Louisa, +who was threatened with an immediate marriage with a man she detested, +proposed to me to fly the tyranny of our friends: she had an uncle at +Quebec, to whom she was dear. The wilds of Canada, said she, may afford +us that refuge our cruel country denies us. After a secret marriage, +we embarked. Our voyage was thus far happy; I landed on the opposite +shore, to seek refreshments for my Louisa; I was returning, pleased +with the thought of obliging the object of all my tenderness, when a +beginning storm drove me to seek shelter in this bay. The storm +encreased, I saw its progress with agonies not to be described; the +ship, which was in sight, was unable to resist its fury; the sailors +crowded into the boat; they had the humanity to place my Louisa there; +they made for the spot where I was, my eyes were wildly fixed on them; +I stood eagerly on the utmost verge of the water, my arms stretched out +to receive her, my prayers ardently addressed to Heaven, when an +immense wave broke over the boat; I heard a general shriek; I even +fancied I distinguished my Louisa's cries; it subsided, the sailors +again exerted all their force; a second wave--I saw them no more. + +"Never will that dreadful scene be absent one moment from my memory: +I fell senseless on the beach; when I returned to life, the first +object I beheld was the breathless body of my Louisa at my feet. Heaven +gave me the wretched consolation of rendering to her the last sad +duties. In that grave all my happiness lies buried. I knelt by her, and +breathed a vow to Heaven, to wait here the moment that should join me +to all I held dear. I every morning visit her loved remains, and +implore the God of mercy to hasten my dissolution. I feel that we shall +not long be separated; I shall soon meet her, to part no more." + +He stopped, and, without seeming to remember he was not alone, +walked hastily towards a little oratory he has built on the beach, near +which is the grave of his Louisa; I followed him a few steps, I saw +him throw himself on his knees; and, respecting his sorrow, returned +to the house. + +Though I cannot absolutely approve, yet I more than forgive, I +almost admire, his renouncing the world in his situation. Devotion is +perhaps the only balm for the wounds given by unhappy love; the heart +is too much softened by true tenderness to admit any common cure. + +Seven in the evening. + +I am returned to Madame Des Roches and her friends, who declined +visiting the hermit. I found in his conversation all which could have +adorned society; he was pleased with the sympathy I shewed for his +sufferings; we parted with regret. I wished to have made him a +present, but he will receive nothing. + +A ship for England is in sight. Madame Des Roches is so polite to +send off this letter; we return to her house in the morning. + + Adieu! my Lucy. + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 33. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, Oct. 12. + +I have no patience with this foolish brother of yours; he is +rambling about in the woods when we want him here: we have a most +agreeable assembly every Thursday at the General's, and have had +another ball since he has been gone on this ridiculous ramble; I miss +the dear creature wherever I go. We have nothing but balls, cards, and +parties of pleasure; but they are nothing without my little Rivers. + +I have been making the tour of the three religions this morning, +and, as I am the most constant creature breathing; am come back only a +thousand times more pleased with my own. I have been at mass, at +church, and at the presbyterian meeting: an idea struck me at the last, +in regard to the drapery of them all; that the Romish religion is like +an over-dressed, tawdry, rich citizen's wife; the presbyterian like a +rude aukward country girl; the church of England like an elegant +well-dressed woman of quality, "plain in her neatness" (to quote +Horace, who is my favorite author). There is a noble, graceful +simplicity both in the worship and the ceremonies of the church of +England, which, even if I were a stranger to her doctrines, would +prejudice me strongly in her favor. + +Sir George sets out for Montreal this evening, so do the house of +Melmoth; I have however prevailed on Emily to stay a month or two +longer with me. I am rejoiced Sir George is going away; I am tired of +seeing that eternal smile, that countenance of his, which attempts to +speak, and says nothing. I am in doubt whether I shall let Emily marry +him; she will die in a week, of no distemper but his conversation. + +They dine with us. I am called down. Adieu! + +Eight at night. + +Heaven be praised, our lover is gone; they parted with great +philosophy on both sides: they are the prettiest mild pair of +inamoratoes one shall see. + +Your brother's servant has just called to tell me he is going to his +master. I have a great mind to answer his letter, and order him back. + + + +LETTER 34. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Oct. 12. + +I have been looking at the estate Madame Des Roches has to sell; it +is as wild as the lands to which I have a right; I hoped this would +have amused my chagrin, but am mistaken: nothing interests me, nothing +takes up my attention one moment: my mind admits but one idea. This +charming woman follows me wherever I go; I wander about like the first +man when driven out of paradise: I vainly fancy every change of place +will relieve the anxiety of my mind. + +Madame Des Roches smiles, and tells me I am in love; 'tis however a +smile of tenderness and compassion: your sex have great penetration in +whatever regards the heart. + +Oct. 13. + +I have this moment a letter from Miss Fermor, to press my return to +Quebec; she tells me, Emily's marriage is postponed till spring. My +Lucy! how weak is the human heart! In spite of myself, a ray of +hope--I set off this instant: I cannot conceal my joy. + + + +LETTER 35. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec. + +London, July 23. + +You have no idea, Ned, how much your absence is lamented by the +dowagers, to whom, it must be owned, your charity has been pretty +extensive. + +It would delight you to see them condoling with each other on the +loss of the dear charming man, the man of sentiment, of true taste, who +admires the maturer beauties, and thinks no woman worth pursuing till +turned of twenty-five: 'tis a loss not to be made up; for your taste, +it must be owned, is pretty singular. + +I have seen your last favorite, Lady H----, who assures me, on the +word of a woman of honour, that, had you staid seven years in London, +she does not think she should have had the least inclination to change: +but an absent lover, she well observed, is, properly speaking, no lover +at all. "Bid Colonel Rivers remember," said she, "what I have read +somewhere, the parting words of a French lady to a bishop of her +acquaintance, Let your absence be short, my lord; and remember that a +mistress is a benefice which obliges to residence." + +I am told, you had not been gone a week before Jack Willmott had the +honor of drying up the fair widow's tears. + +I am going this evening to Vauxhall, and to-morrow propose setting +out for my house in Rutland, from whence you shall hear from me again. + +Adieu! I never write long letters in London. I should tell you, I +have been to see Mrs. Rivers and your sister; the former is well, but +very anxious to have you in England again; the latter grows so very +handsome, I don't intend to repeat my visits often. + + Yours, + J. Temple. + + + +LETTER 36. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Quebec, Oct. 14. + +I am this moment arrived from a ramble down the river; but, a ship +being just going, must acknowledge your last. + +You make me happy in telling me my dear Lady H---- has given my place +in her heart to so honest a fellow as Jack Willmott; and I sincerely +wish the ladies always chose their favorites as well. + +I should be very unreasonable indeed to expect constancy at almost +four thousand miles distance, especially when the prospect of my return +is so very uncertain. + +My voyage ought undoubtedly to be considered as an abdication: I am +to all intents and purposes dead in law as a lover; and the lady has +a right to consider her heart as vacant, and to proceed to a new +election. + +I claim no more than a share in her esteem and remembrance, which I +dare say I shall never want. + +That I have amused myself a little in the dowager way, I am very far +from denying; but you will observe, it was less from taste than the +principle of doing as little mischief as possible in my few excursions +to the world of gallantry. A little deviation from the exact rule of +right we men all allow ourselves in love affairs; but I was willing to +keep as near it as I could. Married women are, on my principles, +forbidden fruit; I abhor the seduction of innocence; I am too +delicate, and (with all my modesty) too vain, to be pleased with venal +beauty: what was I then to do, with a heart too active to be absolutely +at rest, and which had not met with its counterpart? Widows were, I +thought, fair prey, as being sufficiently experienced to take care of +themselves. + +I have said married women are, on my principles, forbidden fruit: I +should have explained myself; I mean in England, for my ideas on this +head change as soon as I land at Calais. + +Such is the amazing force of local prejudice, that I do not +recollect having ever made love to an English married woman, or a +French unmarried one. Marriages in France being made by the parents, +and therefore generally without inclination on either side, gallantry +seems to be a tacit condition, though not absolutely expressed in the +contract. + +But to return to my plan: I think it an excellent one; and would +recommend it to all those young men about town, who, like me, find in +their hearts the necessity of loving, before they meet with an object +capable of fixing them for life. + +By the way, I think the widows ought to raise a statue to my honor, +for having done my _possible_ to prove that, for the sake of +decorum, morals, and order, they ought to have all the men to +themselves. + +I have this moment your letter from Rutland. Do you know I am almost +angry? Your ideas of love are narrow and pedantic; custom has done +enough to make the life of one half of our species tasteless; but you +would reduce them to a state of still greater insipidity than even that +to which our tyranny has doomed them. + +You would limit the pleasure of loving and being beloved, and the +charming power of pleasing, to three or four years only in the life of +that sex which is peculiarly formed to feel tenderness; women are born +with more lively affections than men, which are still more softened by +education; to deny them the privilege of being amiable, the only +privilege we allow them, as long as nature continues them so, is such a +mixture of cruelty and false taste as I should never have suspected you +of, notwithstanding your partiality for unripened beauty. + +As to myself, I persist in my opinion, that women are most charming +when they join the attractions of the mind to those of the person, when +they feel the passion they inspire; or rather, that they are never +charming till then. + +A woman in the first bloom of youth resembles a tree in blossom; +when mature, in fruit: but a woman who retains the charms of her person +till her understanding is in its full perfection, is like those trees +in happier climes, which produce blossoms and fruit together. + +You will scarce believe, Jack, that I have lived a week _tête à +tête_, in the midst of a wood, with just the woman I have been +describing; a widow extremely my taste, _mature_, five or six +years more so than you say I require, lively, sensible, handsome, +without saying one civil thing to her; yet nothing can be more certain. + +I could give you powerful reasons for my insensibility; but you are +a traitor to love, and therefore have no right to be in any of his +secrets. + +I will excuse your visits to my sister; as well as I love you +myself, I have a thousand reasons for chusing she should not be +acquainted with you. + +What you say in regard to my mother, gives me pain; I will never +take back my little gift to her; and I cannot live in England on my +present income, though it enables me to live _en prince_ in +Canada. + +Adieu! I have not time to say more. I have stole this half hour from +the loveliest woman breathing, whom I am going to visit: surely you are +infinitely obliged to me. To lessen the obligation, however, my calash +is not yet come to the door. + + Adieu! once more. + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 37. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Oct. 15. + +Our wanderer is returned, my dear, and in such spirits as you can't +conceive: he passed yesterday with us; he likes to have us to himself, +and he had yesterday; we walked _à trio_ in the wood, and were +foolish; I have not passed so agreable a day since I came to Canada: I +love mightily to be foolish, and the people here have no taste that way +at all: your brother is divinely so upon occasion. The weather was, to +use the Canadian phrase, _superbe et magnifique_. We shall not, I +am told, have much more in the same _magnifique_ style, so we +intend to make the most of it: I have ordered your brother to come and +walk with us from morning till night; every day and all the day. + +The dear man was amazingly overjoyed to see us again; we shared in +his joy, though my little Emily took some pains to appear tranquil on +the occasion: I never saw more pleasure in the countenances of two +people in my life, nor more pains taken to suppress it. + +Do you know Fitzgerald is really an agreable fellow? I have an +admirable natural instinct; I perceived he had understanding, from his +aquiline nose and his eagle eye, which are indexes I never knew fail. I +believe we are going to be great; I am not sure I shall not admit him +to make up a _partie quarrée_ with your brother and Emily: I told +him my original plot upon him, and he was immensely pleased with it. I +almost fancy he can be foolish; in that case, my business is done: if +with his other merits he has that, I am a lost woman. + +He has excellent sense, great good nature, and the true princely +spirit of an Irishman: he will be ruined here, but that is his affair, +not mine. He changed quarters with an officer now at Montreal; and, +because the lodgings were to be furnished, thought himself obliged to +leave three months wine in the cellars. + +His person is pleasing; he has good eyes and teeth (the only +beauties I require), is marked with the small pox, which in men gives a +sensible look; very manly, and looks extremely like a gentleman. + +He comes, the conqueror comes. + +I see him plainly through the trees; he is now in full view, within +twenty yards of the house. He looks particularly well on horseback, +Lucy; which is one certain proof of a good education. The fellow is +well born, and has ideas of things: I think I shall admit him of my +train. + +Emily wonders I have never been in love: the cause is clear; I have +prevented any attachment to one man, by constantly flirting with +twenty: 'tis the most sovereign receipt in the world. I think too, my +dear, you have maintained a sort of running fight with the little +deity: our hour is not yet come. Adieu! + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 38. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, Oct. 15, evening. + +I am returned, my dear, and have had the pleasure of hearing you and +my mother are well, though I have had no letters from either of you. + +Mr. Temple, my dearest Lucy, tells me he has visited you. Will you +pardon me a freedom which nothing but the most tender friendship can +warrant, when I tell you that I would wish you to be as little +acquainted with him as politeness allows? He is a most agreable man, +perhaps too agreable, with a thousand amiable qualities; he is the man +I love above all others; and, where women are not concerned, a man of +the most unblemished honor: but his manner of life is extremely +libertine, and his ideas of women unworthy the rest of his character; +he knows not the perfections which adorn the valuable part of your +sex, he is a stranger to your virtues, and incapable, at least I fear +so, of that tender affection which alone can make an amiable woman +happy. With all this, he is polite and attentive, and has a manner, +which, without intending it, is calculated to deceive women into an +opinion of his being attached when he is not: he has all the splendid +virtues which command esteem; is noble, generous, disinterested, open, +brave; and is the most dangerous man on earth to a woman of honor, who +is unacquainted with the arts of man. + +Do not however mistake me, my Lucy; I know him to be as incapable +of forming improper designs on you, even were you not the sister of his +friend, as you are of listening to him if he did: 'tis for your heart +alone I am alarmed; he is formed to please; you are young and +inexperienced, and have not yet loved; my anxiety for your peace makes +me dread your loving a man whose views are not turned to marriage, and +who is therefore incapable of returning properly the tenderness of a +woman of honor. + +I have seen my divine Emily: her manner of receiving me was very +flattering; I cannot doubt her friendship for me; yet I am not +absolutely content. I am however convinced, by the easy tranquillity of +her air, and her manner of bearing this delay of their marriage, that +she does not love the man for whom she is intended: she has been a +victim to the avarice of her friends. I would fain hope--yet what +have I to hope? If I had even the happiness to be agreable to her, if +she was disengaged from Sir George, my fortune makes it impossible for +me to marry her, without reducing her to indigence at home, or dooming +her to be an exile in Canada for life. I dare not ask myself what I +wish or intend: yet I give way in spite of me to the delight of seeing +and conversing with her. + +I must not look forward; I will only enjoy the present pleasure of +believing myself one of the first in her esteem and friendship, and of +shewing her all those little pleasing attentions so dear to a sensible +heart; attentions in which her _lover_ is astonishingly remiss: he +is at Montreal, and I am told was gay and happy on his journey thither, +though he left his mistress behind. + +I have spent two very happy days at Silleri, with Emily and your +friend Bell Fermor: to-morrow I meet them at the governor's, where +there is a very agreable assembly on Thursday evenings. Adieu! + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + +I shall write again by a ship which sails next week. + + + +LETTER 39. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Quebec, Oct. 18. + +I have this moment a letter from Madame Des Roches, the lady at +whose house I spent a week, and to whom I am greatly obliged. I am so +happy as to have an opportunity of rendering her a service, in which I +must desire your assistance. + +'Tis in regard to some lands belonging to her, which, not being +settled, some other person has applied for a grant of at home. I send +you the particulars, and beg you will lose no time in entering a +_caveat_, and taking other proper steps to prevent what would be an +act of great injustice: the war and the incursions of the Indians in +alliance with us have hitherto prevented these lands from being +settled, but Madame Des Roches is actually in treaty with some Acadians +to settle them immediately. Employ all your friends as well as mine if +necessary; my lawyer will direct you in what manner to apply, and pay +the expences attending the application. Adieu! + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 40. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Oct. 20. + +I danced last night till four o'clock in the morning (if you will +allow the expression), without being the least fatigued: the little +Fitzgerald was my partner, who grows upon me extremely; the monkey has +a way of being attentive and careless by turns, which has an amazing +effect; nothing attaches a woman of my temper so much to a lover as her +being a little in fear of losing him; and he keeps up the spirit of the +thing admirably. + +Your brother and Emily danced together, and I think I never saw +either of them look so handsome; she was a thousand times more admired +at this ball than the first, and reason good, for she was a thousand +times more agreable; your brother is really a charming fellow, he is +an immense favorite with the ladies; he has that very pleasing general +attention, which never fails to charm women; he can even be particular +to one, without wounding the vanity of the rest: if he was in company +with twenty, his mistress of the number, his manner would be such, that +every woman there would think herself the second in his esteem; and +that, if his heart had not been unluckily pre-engaged, she herself +should have been the object of his tenderness. + +His eyes are of immense use to him; he looks the civilest things +imaginable; his whole countenance speaks whatever he wishes to say; he +has the least occasion for words to explain himself of any man I ever +knew. + +Fitzgerald has eyes too, I assure you, and eyes that know how to +speak; he has a look of saucy unconcern and inattention, which is +really irresistible. + +We have had a great deal of snow already, but it melts away; 'tis a +lovely day, but an odd enough mixture of summer and winter; in some +places you see half a foot of snow lying, in others the dust is even +troublesome. + +Adieu! there are a dozen or two of beaux at the door. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 41. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Nov. 10. + +The savages assure us, my dear, on the information of the beavers, +that we shall have a very mild winter: it seems, these creatures have +laid in a less winter stock than usual. I take it very ill, Lucy, that +the beavers have better intelligence than we have. + +We are got into a pretty composed easy way; Sir George writes very +agreable, sensible, sentimental, gossiping letters, once a fortnight, +which Emily answers in due course, with all the regularity of a +counting-house correspondence; he talks of coming down after Christmas: +we expect him without impatience; and in the mean time amuse ourselves +as well as we can, and soften the pain of absence by the attention of +a man that I fancy we like quite as well. + +With submission to the beavers, the weather is very cold, and we +have had a great deal of snow already; but they tell me 'tis nothing to +what we shall have: they are taking precautions which make me shudder +beforehand, pasting up the windows, and not leaving an avenue where +cold can enter. + +I like the winter carriages immensely; the open carriole is a kind +of one-horse chaise, the covered one a chariot, set on a sledge to run +on the ice; we have not yet had snow enough to use them, but I like +their appearance prodigiously; the covered carrioles seem the prettiest +things in nature to make love in, as there are curtains to draw before +the windows: we shall have three in effect, my father's, Rivers's, and +Fitzgerald's; the two latter are to be elegance itself, and entirely +for the service of the ladies: your brother and Fitzgerald are trying +who shall be ruined first for the honor of their country. I will bet +three to one upon Ireland. They are every day contriving parties of +pleasure, and making the most gallant little presents imaginable to the +ladies. + +Adieu! my dear. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 42. + + +To Miss Rivers. + +Quebec, Nov. 14. + +I shall not, my dear, have above one more opportunity of writing to +you by the ships; after which we can only write by the packet once a +month. + +My Emily is every day more lovely; I see her often, and every hour +discover new charms in her; she has an exalted understanding, improved +by all the knowledge which is becoming in your sex; a soul awake to all +the finer sensations of the heart, checked and adorned by the native +gentleness of woman: she is extremely handsome, but she would please +every feeling heart if she was not; she has the soul of beauty: without +feminine softness and delicate sensibility, no features can give +loveliness; with them, very indifferent ones can charm: that +sensibility, that softness, never were so lovely as in my Emily. I can +write on no other subject. Were you to see her, my Lucy, you would +forgive me. My letter is called for. Adieu! + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + +Your friend Miss Fermor will write you every thing. + + + +LETTER 43. + + +To Miss Montague, at Silleri. + +Montreal, Nov. 14. + +Mr. Melmoth and I, my dear Emily, expected by this time to have seen +you at Montreal. I allow something to your friendship for Miss Fermor; +but there is also something due to relations who tenderly love you, and +under whose protection your uncle left you at his death. + +I should add, that there is something due to Sir George, had I not +already displeased you by what I have said on the subject. + +You are not to be told, that in a week the road from hence to Quebec +will be impassable for at least a month, till the rivers are +sufficiently froze to bear carriages. + +I will own to you, that I am a little jealous of your attachment to +Miss Fermor, though no one can think her more amiable than I do. + +If you do not come this week, I would wish you to stay till Sir +George comes down, and return with him; I will entreat the favor of +Miss Fermor to accompany you to Montreal, which we will endeavour to +make as agreable to her as we can. + +I have been ill of a slight fever, but am now perfectly recovered. +Sir George and Mr. Melmoth are well, and very impatient to see you +here. + + Adieu! my dear. + Your affectionate + E. Melmoth. + + + +LETTER 44. + + +To Mrs. Melmoth, at Montreal. + +Silleri, Nov. 20. + +I have a thousand reasons, my dearest Madam, for intreating you to +excuse my staying some time longer at Quebec. I have the sincerest +esteem for Sir George, and am not insensible of the force of our +engagements; but do not think his being there a reason for my coming: +the kind of suspended state, to say no more, in which those engagements +now are, call for a delicacy in my behaviour to him, which is so +difficult to observe without the appearance of affectation, that his +absence relieves me from a very painful kind of restraint: for the same +reason, 'tis impossible for me to come up at the time he does, if I do +come, even though Miss Fermor should accompany me. + +A moment's reflexion will convince you of the propriety of my +staying here till his mother does me the honor again to approve his +choice; or till our engagement is publicly known to be at an end. Mrs. +Clayton is a prudent mother, and a woman of the world, and may consider +that Sir George's situation is changed since she consented to his +marriage. + +I am not capricious; but I will own to you, that my esteem for Sir +George is much lessened by his behaviour since his last return from +New-York: he mistakes me extremely, if he supposes he has the least +additional merit in my eyes from his late acquisition of fortune: on +the contrary, I now see faults in him which were concealed by the +mediocrity of his situation before, and which do not promise happiness +to a heart like mine, a heart which has little taste for the false +glitter of life, and the most lively one possible for the calm real +delights of friendship, and domestic felicity. + +Accept my sincerest congratulations on your return of health; and +believe me, + + My dearest Madam, + Your obliged and affectionate + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 45. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Nov. 23. + +I have been seeing the last ship go out of the port, Lucy; you have +no notion what a melancholy sight it is: we are now left to ourselves, +and shut up from all the world for the winter: somehow we seem so +forsaken, so cut off from the rest of human kind, I cannot bear the +idea: I sent a thousand sighs and a thousand tender wishes to dear +England, which I never loved so much as at this moment. + +Do you know, my dear, I could cry if I was not ashamed? I shall not +absolutely be in spirits again this week. + +'Tis the first time I have felt any thing like bad spirits in +Canada: I followed the ship with my eyes till it turned Point Levi, +and, when I lost sight of it, felt as if I had lost every thing dear to +me on earth. I am not particular: I see a gloom on every countenance; I +have been at church, and think I never saw so many dejected faces in my +life. + +Adieu! for the present: it will be a fortnight before I can send +this letter; another agreable circumstance that: would to Heaven I +were in England, though I changed the bright sun of Canada for a fog! + +Dec. 1. + +We have had a week's snow without intermission: happily for us, your +brother and the Fitz have been weather-bound all the time at Silleri, +and cannot possibly get away. + +We have amused ourselves within doors, for there is no stirring +abroad, with playing at cards, playing at shuttlecock, playing the +fool, making love, and making moral reflexions: upon the whole, the +week has not been very disagreable. + +The snow is when we wake constantly up to our chamber windows; we +are literally dug out of it every morning. + +As to Quebec, I give up all hopes of ever seeing it again: but my +comfort is, that the people there cannot possibly get to their +neighbors; and I flatter myself very few of them have been half so well +entertained at home. + +We shall be abused, I know, for (what is really the fault of the +weather) keeping these two creatures here this week; the ladies hate us +for engrossing two such fine fellows as your brother and Fitzgerald, as +well as for having vastly more than our share of all the men: we +generally go out attended by at least a dozen, without any other woman +but a lively old French lady, who is a flirt of my father's, and will +certainly be my mamma. + +We sweep into the general's assembly on Thursdays with such a train +of beaux as draws every eye upon us: the rest of the fellows crowd +round us; the misses draw up, blush, and flutter their fans; and your +little Bell sits down with such a saucy impertinent consciousness in +her countenance as is really provoking: Emily on the contrary looks +mild and humble, and seems by her civil decent air to apologize to them +for being so much more agreable than themselves, which is a fault I for +my part am not in the least inclined to be ashamed of. + +Your idea of Quebec, my dear, is perfectly just; it is like a third +or fourth rate country town in England; much hospitality, little +society; cards, scandal, dancing, and good chear; all excellent things +to pass away a winter evening, and peculiarly adapted to what I am +told, and what I begin to feel, of the severity of this climate. + +I am told they abuse me, which I can easily believe, because my +impertinence to them deserves it: but what care I, you know, Lucy, so +long as I please myself, and am at Silleri out of the sound? + +They are squabbling at Quebec, I hear, about I cannot tell what, +therefore shall not attempt to explain: some dregs of old disputes, it +seems, which have had not time to settle: however, we new comers have +certainly nothing to do with these matters: you can't think how +comfortable we feel at Silleri, out of the way. + +My father says, the politics of Canada are as complex and as +difficult to be understood as those of the Germanic system. + +For my part, I think no politics worth attending to but those of the +little commonwealth of woman: if I can maintain my empire over hearts, +I leave the men to quarrel for every thing else. + +I observe a strict neutrality, that I may have a chance for admirers +amongst both parties. Adieu! the post is just going out. + + Your faithful + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 46. + + +To Miss Montague, at Silleri. + +Montreal, Dec. 18. + +There is something, my dear Emily, in what you say as to the +delicacy of your situation; but, whilst you are so very exact in acting +up to it on one side, do you not a little overlook it on the other? + +I am extremely unwilling to say a disagreable thing to you, but Miss +Fermor is too young as well as too gay to be a protection--the very +particular circumstance you mention makes Mr. Melmoth's the only house +in Canada in which, if I have any judgment, you can with propriety live +till your marriage takes place. + +You extremely injure Sir George in supposing it possible he should +fail in his engagements: and I see with pain that you are more +quicksighted to his failings than is quite consistent with that +tenderness, which (allow me to say) he has a right to expect from you. +He is like other men of his age and fortune; he is the very man you so +lately thought amiable, and of whose love you cannot without injustice +have a doubt. + +Though I approve your contempt of the false glitter of the world, +yet I think it a little strained at your time of life: did I not know +you as well as I do, I should say that philosophy in a young and +especially a female mind, is so out of season, as to be extremely +suspicious. The pleasures which attend on affluence are too great, and +too pleasing to youth, to be overlooked, except when under the +influence of a livelier passion. + +Take care, my Emily; I know the goodness of your heart, but I also +know its sensibility; remember that, if your situation requires great +circumspection in your behaviour to Sir George, it requires much +greater to every other person: it is even more delicate than marriage +itself. + +I shall expect you and Miss Fermor as soon as the roads are such +that you can travel agreably; and, as you object to Sir George as a +conductor, I will entreat Captain Fermor to accompany you hither. + + I am, my dear, + Your most affectionate + E. Melmoth. + + + +LETTER 47. + + +To Mrs. Melmoth, at Montreal. + +Silleri, Dec. 26. + +I entreat you, my dearest Madam, to do me the justice to believe I +see my engagement to Sir George in as strong a light as you can do; if +there is any change in my behaviour to him, it is owing to the very +apparent one in his conduct to me, of which no one but myself can be a +judge. As to what you say in regard to my contempt of affluence, I can +only say it is in my character, whether it is generally in the female +one or not. + +Were the cruel hint you are pleased to give just, be assured Sir +George should be the first person to whom I would declare it. I hope +however it is possible to esteem merit without offending even the most +sacred of all engagements. + +A gentleman waits for this. I have only time to say, that Miss +Fermor thanks you for your obliging invitation, and promises she will +accompany me to Montreal as soon as the river St. Lawrence will bear +carriages, as the upper road is extremely inconvenient. + + I am, + My dearest Madam, + Your obliged + and faithful + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 48. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Dec. 27. + +After a fortnight's snow, we have had near as much clear blue sky +and sunshine: the snow is six feet deep, so that we may be said to walk +on our own heads; that is, speaking _en philosophe_, we occupy the +space we should have done in summer if we had done so; or, to explain +it more clearly, our heels are now where our heads should be. + +The scene is a little changed for the worse: the lovely landscape is +now one undistinguished waste of snow, only a little diversified by the +great variety of ever-greens in the woods: the romantic winding path +down the side of the hill to our farm, on which we used to amuse +ourselves with seeing the beaux serpentize, is now a confused, +frightful, rugged precipice, which one trembles at the idea of +ascending. + +There is something exceedingly agreable in the whirl of the +carrioles, which fly along at the rate of twenty miles an hour; and +really hurry one out of one's senses. + +Our little coterie is the object of great envy; we live just as we +like, without thinking of other people, which I am not sure _here_ +is prudent, but it is pleasant, which is a better thing. + +Emily, who is the civilest creature breathing, is for giving up her +own pleasure to avoid offending others, and wants me, every time we +make a carrioling-party, to invite all the misses of Quebec to go with +us, because they seem angry at our being happy without them: but for +that very reason I persist in my own way, and consider wisely, that, +though civility is due to other people, yet there is also some civility +due to one's self. + +I agree to visit every body, but think it mighty absurd I must not +take a ride without asking a hundred people I scarce know to go with +me: yet this is the style here; they will neither be happy themselves, +nor let any body else. Adieu! + +Dec. 29. + +I will never take a beaver's word again as long as I live: there is +no supporting this cold; the Canadians say it is seventeen years since +there has been so severe a season. I thought beavers had been people +of more honor. + +Adieu! I can no more: the ink freezes as I take it from the standish +to the paper, though close to a large stove. Don't expect me to write +again till May; one's faculties are absolutely congealed this weather. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 49. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Jan. 1. + +It is with difficulty I breathe, my dear; the cold is so amazingly +intense as almost totally to stop respiration. I have business, the +business of pleasure, at Quebec; but have not courage to stir from the +stove. + +We have had five days, the severity of which none of the natives +remember to have ever seen equaled: 'tis said, the cold is beyond all +the thermometers here, tho' intended for the climate. + +The strongest wine freezes in a room which has a stove in it; even +brandy is thickened to the consistence of oil: the largest wood fire, +in a wide chimney, does not throw out its heat a quarter of a yard. + +I must venture to Quebec to-morrow, or have company at home: +amusements are here necessary to life; we must be jovial, or the blood +will freeze in our veins. + +I no longer wonder the elegant arts are unknown here; the rigour of +the climate suspends the very powers of the understanding; what then +must become of those of the imagination? Those who expect to see + + "A new Athens rising near the pole," + +will find themselves extremely disappointed. Genius will never +mount high, where the faculties of the mind are benumbed half the year. + +'Tis sufficient employment for the most lively spirit here to +contrive how to preserve an existence, of which there are moments that +one is hardly conscious: the cold really sometimes brings on a sort of +stupefaction. + +We had a million of beaux here yesterday, notwithstanding the severe +cold: 'tis the Canadian custom, calculated I suppose for the climate, +to visit all the ladies on New-year's-day, who sit dressed in form to +be kissed: I assure you, however, our kisses could not warm them; but +we were obliged, to our eternal disgrace, to call in rasberry brandy as +an auxiliary. + +You would have died to see the men; they look just like so many +bears in their open carrioles, all wrapped in furs from head to foot; +you see nothing of the human form appear, but the tip of a nose. + +They have intire coats of beaver skin, exactly like Friday's in +Robinson Crusoe, and casques on their heads like the old knights errant +in romance; you never saw such tremendous figures; but without this +kind of cloathing it would be impossible to stir out at present. + +The ladies are equally covered up, tho' in a less unbecoming style; +they have long cloth cloaks with loose hoods, like those worn by the +market-women in the north of England. I have one in scarlet, the hood +lined with sable, the prettiest ever seen here, in which I assure you I +look amazingly handsome; the men think so, and call me the _Little +red riding-hood_; a name which becomes me as well as the hood. + +The Canadian ladies wear these cloaks in India silk in summer, +which, fluttering in the wind, look really graceful on a fine woman. + +Besides our riding-hoods, when we go out, we have a large buffaloe's +skin under our feet, which turns up, and wraps round us almost to our +shoulders; so that, upon the whole, we are pretty well guarded from the +weather as well as the men. + +Our covered carrioles too have not only canvas windows (we dare not +have glass, because we often overturn), but cloth curtains to draw all +round us; the extreme swiftness of these carriages also, which dart +along like lightening, helps to keep one warm, by promoting the +circulation of the blood. + +I pity the Fitz; no tiger was ever so hard-hearted as I am this +weather: the little god has taken his flight, like the swallows. I say +nothing, but cruelty is no virtue in Canada; at least at this season. + +I suppose Pygmalion's statue was some frozen Canadian gentlewoman, +and a sudden warm day thawed her. I love to expound ancient fables, and +I think no exposition can be more natural than this. + +Would you know what makes me chatter so this morning? Papa has made +me take some excellent _liqueur_; 'tis the mode here; all the +Canadian ladies take a little, which makes them so coquet and agreable. +Certainly brandy makes a woman talk like an angel. Adieu! + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 50. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Jan. 4. + +I don't quite agree with you, my dear; your brother does not appear +to me to have the least scruple of that foolish false modesty which +stands in a man's way. + +He is extremely what the French call _awakened_; he is modest, +certainly; that is, he is not a coxcomb, but he has all that proper +self-confidence which is necessary to set his agreable qualities in +full light: nothing can be a stronger proof of this, than that, +wherever he is, he always takes your attention in a moment, and this +without seeming to solicit it. + +I am very fond of him, though he never makes love to me, in which +circumstance he is very singular: our friendship is quite platonic, at +least on his side, for I am not quite so sure on the other. I remember +one day in summer we were walking _tête à tête_ in the road to +Cape Rouge, when he wanted me to strike into a very beautiful thicket: +"Positively, Rivers," said I, "I will not venture with you into that +wood." "Are you afraid of _me_, Bell?" "No, but extremely of +_myself_." + +I have loved him ever since a little scene that passed here three or +four months ago: a very affecting story, of a distressed family in our +neighbourhood, was told him and Sir George; the latter preserved all +the philosophic dignity and manly composure of his countenance, very +coldly expressed his concern, and called another subject: your brother +changed color, his eyes glistened; he took the first opportunity to +leave the room, he sought these poor people, he found, he relieved +them; which we discovered by accident a month after. + +The weather, tho' cold beyond all that you in England can form an +idea of, is yet mild to what it has been the last five or six days; we +are going to Quebec, to church. + +Two o'clock. + +Emily and I have been talking religion all the way home: we are both +mighty good girls, as girls go in these degenerate days; our +grandmothers to be sure--but it's folly to look back. + +We have been saying, Lucy, that 'tis the strangest thing in the +world people should quarrel about religion, since we undoubtedly all +mean the same thing; all good minds in every religion aim at pleasing +the Supreme Being; the means we take differ according to the country +where we are born, and the prejudices we imbibe from education; a +consideration which ought to inspire us with kindness and indulgence to +each other. + +If we examine each other's sentiments with candor, we shall find +much less difference in essentials than we imagine; + + "Since all agree to own, at least to mean, + One great, one good, one general Lord of all." + +There is, I think, a very pretty Sunday reflexion for you, Lucy. + +You must know, I am extremely religious; and for this amongst other +reasons, that I think infidelity a vice peculiarly contrary to the +native softness of woman: it is bold, daring, masculine; and I should +almost doubt the sex of an unbeliever in petticoats. + +Women are religious as they are virtuous, less from principles +founded on reasoning and argument, than from elegance of mind, delicacy +of moral taste, and a certain quick perception of the beautiful and +becoming in every thing. + +This instinct, however, for such it is, is worth all the tedious +reasonings of the men; which is a point I flatter myself you will not +dispute with me. + +Monday, Jan. 5. + +This is the first day I have ventured in an open carriole; we have +been running a race on the snow, your brother and I against Emily and +Fitzgerald: we conquered from Fitzgerald's complaisance to Emily. I +shall like it mightily, well wrapt up: I set off with a crape over my +face to keep off the cold, but in three minutes it was a cake of solid +ice, from my breath which froze upon it; yet this is called a mild day, +and the sun shines in all his glory. + +Silleri, Thursday, Jan. 8, midnight. + +We are just come from the general's assembly; much company, and we +danced till this minute; for I believe we have not been more coming +these four miles. + +Fitzgerald is the very pink of courtesy; he never uses his covered +carriole himself, but devotes it intirely to the ladies; it stands at +the general's door in waiting on Thursdays: if any lady comes out +before her carriole arrives, the servants call out mechanically, +"Captain Fitzgerald's carriole here, for a lady." The Colonel is +equally gallant, but I generally lay an embargo on his: they have each +of them an extreme pretty one for themselves, or to drive a fair lady a +morning's airing, when she will allow them the honor, and the weather +is mild enough to permit it. + + _Bon soir!_ I am sleepy. + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 51. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Quebec, Jan. 9. + +You mistake me extremely, Jack, as you generally do: I have by no +means forsworn marriage: on the contrary, though happiness is not so +often found there as I wish it was, yet I am convinced it is to be +found no where else; and, poor as I am, I should not hesitate about +trying the experiment myself to-morrow, if I could meet with a woman +to my taste, unappropriated, whose ideas of the state agreed with mine, +which I allow are something out of the common road: but I must be +certain those ideas are her own, therefore they must arise +spontaneously, and not in complaisance to mine; for which reason, if I +could, I would endeavour to lead my mistress into the subject, and know +her sentiments on the manner of living in that state before I +discovered my own. + +I must also be well convinced of her tenderness before I make a +declaration of mine: she must not distinguish me because I flatter her, +but because she thinks I have merit; those fancied passions, where +gratified vanity assumes the form of love, will not satisfy my heart: +the eyes, the air, the voice of the woman I love, a thousand little +indiscretions dear to the heart, must convince me I am beloved, before +I confess I love. + +Though sensible of the advantages of fortune, I can be happy without +it: if I should ever be rich enough to live in the world, no one will +enjoy it with greater gust; if not, I can with great spirit, provided I +find such a companion as I wish, retire from it to love, content, and a +cottage: by which I mean to the life of a little country gentleman. + +You ask me my opinion of the winter here. If you can bear a degree +of cold, of which Europeans can form no idea, it is far from being +unpleasant; we have settled frost, and an eternal blue sky. Travelling +in this country in winter is particularly agreable: the carriages are +easy, and go on the ice with an amazing velocity, though drawn only by +one horse. + +The continual plain of snow would be extremely fatiguing both to the +eye and imagination, were not both relieved, not only by the woods in +prospect, but by the tall branches of pines with which the road is +marked out on each side, and which form a verdant avenue agreably +contrasted with the dazzling whiteness of the snow, on which, when the +sun shines, it is almost impossible to look steadily even for a moment. + +Were it not for this method of marking out the roads, it would be +impossible to find the way from one village to another. + +The eternal sameness however of this avenue is tiresome when you go +far in one road. + +I have passed the last two months in the most agreable manner +possible, in a little society of persons I extremely love: I feel +myself so attached to this little circle of friends, that I have no +pleasure in any other company, and think all the time absolutely lost +that politeness forces me to spend any where else. I extremely dread +our party's being dissolved, and wish the winter to last for ever, for +I am afraid the spring will divide us. + + Adieu! and believe me, + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 52. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Jan. 9. + +I begin not to disrelish the winter here; now I am used to the cold, +I don't feel it so much: as there is no business done here in the +winter, 'tis the season of general dissipation; amusement is the study +of every body, and the pains people take to please themselves +contribute to the general pleasure: upon the whole, I am not sure it is +not a pleasanter winter than that of England. + +Both our houses and our carriages are uncommonly warm; the clear +serene sky, the dry pure air, the little parties of dancing and cards, +the good tables we all keep, the driving about on the ice, the +abundance of people we see there, for every body has a carriole, the +variety of objects new to an European, keep the spirits in a continual +agreable hurry, that is difficult to describe, but very pleasant to +feel. + +Sir George (would you believe it?) has written Emily a very warm +letter; tender, sentimental, and almost impatient; Mrs. Melmoth's +dictating, I will answer for it; not at all in his own composed +agreable style. He talks of coming down in a few days: I have a strong +notion he is coming, after his long tedious two years siege, to +endeavor to take us by storm at last; he certainly prepares for a +_coup de main_. He is right, all women hate a regular attack. + +Adieu for the present. + +Monday, Jan. 12. + +We sup at your brother's to-night, with all the _beau monde_ of +Quebec: we shall be superbly entertained, I know. I am malicious enough +to wish Sir George may arrive during the entertainment, because I have +an idea it will mortify him; though I scarce know why I think so. +Adieu! + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 53. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Jan. 13, Eleven o'clock. + +We passed a most agreable evening with your brother, though a large +company, which is seldom the case: a most admirable supper, excellent +wine, an elegant dessert of preserved fruits, and every body in spirits +and good humor. + +The Colonel was the soul of our entertainment: amongst his other +virtues, he has the companionable and convivial ones to an immense +degree, which I never had an opportunity of discovering so clearly +before. He seemed charmed beyond words to see us all so happy: we staid +till four o'clock in the morning, yet all complained to-day we came +away too soon. + +I need not tell you we had fiddles, for there is no entertainment in +Canada without them: never was such a race of dancers. + +One o'clock. + +The dear man is come, and with an equipage which puts the Empress of +Russia's tranieau to shame. America never beheld any thing so +brilliant: + + "All other carrioles, at sight of this, + Hide their diminish'd heads." + +Your brother's and Fitzgerald's will never dare to appear now; they +sink into nothing. + +Seven in the evening. + +Emily has been in tears in her chamber; 'tis a letter of Mrs. +Melmoth's which has had this agreable effect; some wise advice, I +suppose. Lord! how I hate people that give advice! don't you, Lucy? + +I don't like this lover's coming; he is almost as bad as a husband: +I am afraid he will derange our little coterie; and we have been so +happy, I can't bear it. + +Good night, my dear. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 54. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Jan. 14. + +We have passed a mighty stupid day; Sir George is civil, attentive, +and dull; Emily pensive, thoughtful, and silent; and my little self as +peevish as an old maid: nobody comes near us, not even your brother, +because we are supposed to be settling preliminaries; for you must +know Sir George has graciously condescended to change his mind, and +will marry her, if she pleases, without waiting for his mother's +letter, which resolution he has communicated to twenty people at Quebec +in his way hither; he is really extremely obliging. I suppose the +Melmoths have spirited him up to this. + +One o'clock. + +Emily is strangely reserved to me; she avoids seeing me alone, and +when it happens talks of the weather; papa is however in her +confidence: he is as strong an advocate for this milky baronet as Mrs. +Melmoth. + +Ten at night. + +All is over, Lucy; that is to say, all is fixed: they are to be +married on Monday next at the Recollects church, and to set off +immediately for Montreal: my father has been telling me the whole plan +of operations: we go up with them, stay a fortnight, then all come +down, and show away till summer, when the happy pair embark in the +first ship for England. + +Emily is really what one would call a prudent pretty sort of woman, +I did not think it had been in her: she is certainly right, there is +danger in delay; she has a thousand proverbs on her side; I thought +what all her fine sentiments would come to; she should at least have +waited for mamma's consent; this hurry is not quite consistent with +that extreme delicacy on which she piques herself; it looks exceedingly +as if she was afraid of losing him. + +I don't love her half so well as I did three days ago; I hate +discreet young ladies that marry and settle; give me an agreable fellow +and a knapsack. + +My poor Rivers! what will become of him when we are gone? he has +neglected every body for us. + +As she loves the pleasures of conversation, she will be amazingly +happy in her choice; + + "With such a companion to spend the long day!" + +He is to be sure a most entertaining creature. + +Adieu! I have no patience. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + +After all, I am a little droll; I am angry with Emily for concluding +an advantageous match with a man she does not absolutely dislike, which +all good mammas say is sufficient; and this only because it breaks in +on a little circle of friends, in whose society I have been happy. O! +self! self! I would have her hazard losing a fine fortune and a coach +and six, that I may continue my coterie two or three months longer. + +Adieu! I will write again as soon as we are married. My next will, I +suppose, be from Montreal. I die to see your brother and my little +Fitzgerald; this man gives me the vapours. Heavens! Lucy, what a +difference there is in men! + + +END OF VOL. I. + + + + +THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE. + + +Vol. II + + + +LETTER 55. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Jan. 16. + +So, my dear, we went on too fast, it seems: Sir George was so +obliging as to settle all without waiting for Emily's consent; not +having supposed her refusal to be in the chapter of possibilities: +after having communicated their plan of operations to me as an affair +settled, papa was dispatched, as Sir George's ambassador, to inform +Emily of his gracious intentions in her favor. + +She received him with proper dignity, and like a girl of true spirit +told him, that as the delay was originally from Sir George, she should +insist on observing the conditions very exactly, and was determined to +wait till spring, whatever might be the contents of Mrs. Clayton's +expected letter; reserving to herself also the privilege of refusing +him even then, if upon mature deliberation she should think proper so +to do. + +She has further insisted, that till that time he shall leave +Silleri; take up his abode at Quebec, unless, which she thinks most +adviseable, he should return to Montreal for the winter; and never +attempt seeing her without witnesses, as their present situation is +particularly delicate, and that whilst it continues they can have +nothing to say to each other which their common friends may not with +propriety hear: all she can be prevailed on to consent to in his favor, +is to allow him _en attendant_ to visit here like any other +gentleman. + +I wish she would send him back to Montreal, for I see plainly he +will spoil all our little parties. + +Emily is a fine girl, Lucy, and I am friends with her again; so, my +dear, I shall revive my coterie, and be happy two or three months +longer. I have sent to ask my two sweet fellows at Quebec to dine here: +I really long to see them; I shall let them into the present state of +affairs here, for they both despise Sir George as much as I do; the +creature looks amazingly foolish, and I enjoy his humiliation not a +little: such an animal to set up for being beloved indeed! O to be +sure! + +Emily has sent for me to her apartment. Adieu for a moment. + +Eleven o'clock. + +She has shewn me Mrs. Melmoth's letter on the subject of concluding +the marriage immediately: it is in the true spirit of family +impertinence. She writes with the kind discreet insolence of a +relation; and Emily has answered her with the genuine spirit of an +independent Englishwoman, who is so happy as to be her own mistress, +and who is therefore determined to think for herself. + +She has refused going to Montreal at all this winter; and has +hinted, though not impolitely, that she wants no guardian of her +conduct but herself; adding a compliment to my ladyship's discretion so +very civil, it is impossible for me to repeat it with decency. + +O Heavens! your brother and Fitzgerald! I fly. The dear creatures! +my life has been absolute vegetation since they absented themselves. + + Adieu! my dear, + Your faithful + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 56. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Jan. 24. + +We have the same parties and amusements we used to have, my dear, +but there is by no means the same spirit in them; constraint and +dullness seem to have taken the place of that sweet vivacity and +confidence which made our little society so pleasing: this odious man +has infected us all; he seems rather a spy on our pleasures than a +partaker of them; he is more an antidote to joy than a tall maiden +aunt. + +I wish he would go; I say spontaneously every time I see him, +without considering I am impolite, "La! Sir George, when do you go to +Montreal?" He reddens, and gives me a peevish answer; and I then, and +not before, recollect how very impertinent the question is. + +But pray, my dear, because he has no taste for social companionable +life, has he therefore a right to damp the spirit of it in those that +have? I intend to consult some learned casuist on this head. + +He takes amazing pains to please in his way, is curled, powdered, +perfumed, and exhibits every day in a new suit of embroidery; but with +all this, has the mortification to see your brother please more in a +plain coat. I am lazy. Adieu! + + Yours, ever and ever, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 57. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Jan. 25. + +So you intend, my dear Jack, to marry when you are quite tired of a +life of gallantry: the lady will be much obliged to you for a heart, +the refuse of half the prostitutes in town; a heart, the best feelings +of which will be entirely obliterated; a heart hardened by a long +commerce with the most unworthy of the sex; and which will bring +disgust, suspicion, coldness, and depravity of taste, to the bosom of +sensibility and innocence. + +For my own part, though fond of women to the greatest degree, I have +had, considering my profession and complexion, very few intrigues. I +have always had an idea I should some time or other marry, and have +been unwilling to bring to a state in which I hoped for happiness from +mutual affection, a heart worn out by a course of gallantries: to a +contrary conduct is owing most of our unhappy marriages; the woman +brings with her all her stock of tenderness, truth, and affection; the +man's is exhausted before they meet: she finds the generous delicate +tenderness of her soul, not only unreturned, but unobserved; she +fancies some other woman the object of his affection, she is unhappy, +she pines in secret; he observes her discontent, accuses her of +caprice; and her portion is wretchedness for life. + +If I did not ardently wish your happiness, I should not thus +repeatedly combat a prejudice, which, as you have sensibility, will +infallibly make the greater part of your life a scene of insipidity +and regret. + +You are right, Jack, as to the savages; the only way to civilize +them is to _feminize_ their women; but the task is rather +difficult: at present their manners differ in nothing from those of the +men; they even add to the ferocity of the latter. + +You desire to know the state of my heart: excuse me, Jack; you know +nothing of love; and we who do, never disclose its mysteries to the +prophane: besides, I always chuse a female for the confidante of my +sentiments; I hate even to speak of love to one of my own sex. + +Adieu! I am going a party with half a dozen ladies, and have not +another minute to spare. + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 58. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Jan. 28. + +I every hour, my dear, grow more in love with French manners; there +is something charming in being young and sprightly all one's life: it +would appear absurd in England to hear, what I have just heard, a fat +virtuous lady of seventy toast _Love and Opportunity_ to a young +fellow; but 'tis nothing here: they dance too to the last gasp; I have +seen the daughter, mother, and grand-daughter, in the same French +country dance. + +They are perfectly right; and I honor them for their good sense and +spirit, in determining to make life agreable as long as they can. + +_A propos_ to age, I am resolved to go home, Lucy; I have found +three grey hairs this morning; they tell me 'tis common; this vile +climate is at war with beauty, makes one's hair grey, and one's hands +red. I won't stay, absolutely. + +Do you know there is a very pretty fellow here, Lucy, Captain +Howard, who has taken a fancy to make people believe he and I are on +good terms? He affects to sit by me, to dance with me, to whisper +nothing to me, to bow with an air of mystery, and to shew me all the +little attentions of a lover in public, though he never yet said a +civil thing to me when we were alone. + +I was standing with him this morning near the brow of the hill, +leaning against a tree in the sunshine, and looking down the precipice +below, when I said something of the lover's leap, and in play, as you +will suppose, made a step forwards: we had been talking of indifferent +things, his air was till then indolence itself; but on this little +motion of mine, though there was not the least danger, he with the +utmost seeming eagerness catched hold of me as if alarmed at the very +idea, and with the most passionate air protested his life depended on +mine, and that he would not live an hour after me. I looked at him with +astonishment, not being able to comprehend the meaning of this sudden +flight, when turning my head, I saw a gentleman and lady close behind +us, whom he had observed though I had not. They were retiring: "Pray +approach, my dear Madam," said I; "we have no secrets, this declaration +was intended for you to hear; we were talking of the weather before you +came." + +He affected to smile, though I saw he was mortified; but as his +smile shewed the finest teeth imaginable I forgave him: he is really +very handsome, and 'tis pity he has this foolish quality of preferring +the shadow to the substance. + +I shall, however, desire him to flirt elsewhere, as this _badinage_, +however innocent, may hurt my character, and give pain to my little +Fitzgerald: I believe I begin to love this fellow, because I begin to +be delicate on the subject of flirtations, and feel my spirit of +coquetry decline every day. + +29th. + +Mrs. Clayton has wrote, my dear; and has at last condescended to +allow Emily the honor of being her daughter-in-law, in consideration of +her son's happiness, and of engagements entered into with her own +consent; though she very prudently observes, that what was a proper +match for Captain Clayton is by no means so for Sir George; and talks +something of an offer of a citizen's daughter with fifty thousand +pounds, and the promise of an Irish title. She has, however, observed +that indiscreet engagements are better broke than kept. + +Sir George has shewn the letter, a very indelicate one in my +opinion, to my father and me; and has talked a great deal of nonsense +on the subject. He wants to shew it to Emily, and I advise him to it, +because I know the effect it will have. I see plainly he wishes to make +a great merit of keeping his engagement, if he does keep it: he hinted +a little fear of breaking her heart; and I am convinced, if he thought +she could survive his infidelity, all his tenderness and constancy +would cede to filial duty and a coronet. + +Eleven o'clock. + +After much deliberation, Sir George has determined to write to +Emily, inclose his mother's letter, and call in the afternoon to enjoy +the triumph of his generosity in keeping his engagement, when it is in +his power to do so much better: 'tis a pretty plan, and I encourage him +in it; my father, who wishes the match, shrugs his shoulders, and +frowns at me; but the little man is fixed as fate in his resolve, and +is writing at this moment in my father's apartment. I long to see his +letter; I dare say it will be a curiosity: 'tis short, however, for he +is coming out of the room already. + +Adieu! my father calls for this letter; it is to go in one of his to +New York, and the person who takes it waits for it at the door. + + Ever yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 59. + + +To Miss Montague, at Silleri. + +Dear Madam, + +I send you the inclosed from my mother: I thought it necessary you +should see it, though not even a mother's wishes shall ever influence +me to break those engagements which I have had the happiness of +entering into with the most charming of women, and which a man of honor +ought to hold sacred. + +I do not think happiness intirely dependent on rank or fortune, and +have only to wish my mother's sentiments on this subject more agreable +to my own, as there is nothing I so much wish as to oblige her: at all +events, however, depend on my fulfilling those promises, which ought to +be the more binding, as they were made at a time when our situations +were more equal. + +I am happy in an opportunity of convincing you and the world, that +interest and ambition have no power over my heart, when put in +competition with what I owe to my engagements; being with the greatest +truth, + + My dearest Madam, + Yours, &c. + G. Clayton. + +You will do me the honor to name the day to make me happy. + + + +LETTER 60. + + +To Sir George Clayton, at Quebec. + +Dear Sir, + +I have read Mrs. Clayton's letter with attention; and am of her +opinion, that indiscreet engagements are better broke than kept. + +I have the less reason to take ill your breaking the kind of +engagement between us at the desire of your family, as I entered into +it at first entirely in compliance with mine. I have ever had the +sincerest esteem and friendship for you, but never that romantic love +which hurries us to forget all but itself: I have therefore no reason +to expect in you the imprudent disinterestedness that passion +occasions. + +A fuller explanation is necessary on this subject than it is +possible to enter into in a letter: if you will favor us with your +company this afternoon at Silleri, we may explain our sentiments more +clearly to each other: be assured, I never will prevent your complying +in every instance with the wishes of so kind and prudent a mother. + + I am, dear Sir, + Your affectionate friend + and obedient servant, + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 61. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +I have been with Emily, who has been reading Mrs. Clayton's letter; I +saw joy sparkle in her eyes as she went on, her little heart seemed to +flutter with transport; I see two things very clearly, one of which +is, that she never loved this little insipid Baronet; the other I leave +your sagacity to find out. All the spirit of her countenance is +returned: she walks in air; her cheeks have the blush of pleasure; I +never saw so astonishing a change. I never felt more joy from the +acquisition of a new lover, than she seems to find in the prospect of +losing an old one. + +She has written to Sir George, and in a style that I know will hurt +him; for though I believe he wishes her to give him up, yet his vanity +would desire it should cost her very dear; and appear the effort of +disinterested love, and romantic generosity, not what it really is, the +effect of the most tranquil and perfect indifference. + +By the way, a disinterested mistress is, according to my ideas, a +mistress who _fancies_ she loves: we may talk what we please, at a +distance, of sacrificing the dear man to his interest, and promoting +his happiness by destroying our own; but when it comes to the point, I +am rather inclined to believe all women are of my way of thinking; and +let me die if I would give up a man I loved to the first dutchess in +Christendom: 'tis all mighty well in theory; but for the practical +part, let who will believe it for Bell. + +Indeed when a woman finds her lover inclined to change, 'tis good to +make a virtue of necessity, and give the thing a sentimental turn, +which gratifies his vanity, and does not wound one's own. + +Adieu! I see Sir George and his fine carriole; I must run, and tell +Emily. + + Ever yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 62. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Jan. 28. + +Yes, my Lucy, your brother tenderly regrets the absence of a sister +endeared to him much more by her amiable qualities than by blood; who +would be the object of his esteem and admiration, if she was not that +of his fraternal tenderness; who has all the blooming graces, +simplicity, and innocence of nineteen, with the accomplishments and +understanding of five and twenty; who joins the strength of mind so +often confined to our sex, to the softness, delicacy, and vivacity of +her own; who, in short, is all that is estimable and lovely; and who, +except one, is the most charming of her sex: you will forgive the +exception, Lucy; perhaps no man but a brother would make it. + +My sweet Emily appears every day more amiable; she is now in the +full tyranny of her charms, at the age when the mind is improved, and +the person in its perfection. I every day see in her more indifference +to her lover, a circumstance which gives me a pleasure which perhaps it +ought not: there is a selfishness in it, for which I am afraid I ought +to blush. + +You judge perfectly well, my dear, in checking the natural vivacity +of your temper, however pleasing it is to all who converse with you: +coquetry is dangerous to English women, because they have sensibility; +it is more suited to the French, who are naturally something of the +salamander kind. + +I have this moment a note from Bell Fermor, that she must see me +this instant. I hope my Emily is well: Heaven preserve the most +perfect of all its works. + + Adieu! my dear girl. + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 63. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Feb. 1. + +We have passed three or four droll days, my dear. Emily persists in +resolving to break with Sir George; he thinks it decent to combat her +resolution, lest he should lose the praise of generosity: he is also +piqued to see her give him up with such perfect composure, though I am +convinced he will not be sorry upon the whole to be given up; he has, +from the first receipt of the letter, plainly wished her to resign +him, but hoped for a few faintings and tears, as a sacrifice to his +vanity on the occasion. + +My father is setting every engine at work to make things up again, +supposing Emily to have determined from pique, not from the real +feelings of her heart: he is frighted to death lest I should +counterwork him, and so jealous of my advising her to continue a +conduct he so much disapproves, that he won't leave us a moment +together; he even observes carefully that each goes into her +respective apartment when we retire to bed. + +This jealousy has started an idea which I think will amuse us, and +which I shall take the first opportunity of communicating to Emily; +'tis to write each other at night our sentiments on whatever passes in +the day; if she approves the plan, I will send you the letters, which +will save me a great deal of trouble in telling you all our _petites +histoires_. + +This scheme will have another advantage; we shall be a thousand +times more sincere and open to each other by letter than face to face; +I have long seen by her eyes that the little fool has twenty things to +say to me, but has not courage; now letters you know, my dear, + + "Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart." + +Besides, it will be so romantic and pretty, almost as agreable as a +love affair: I long to begin the correspondence. + + Adieu! + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 64. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, Feb. 5. + +I have but a moment, my Lucy, to tell you, my divine Emily has broke +with her lover, who this morning took an eternal leave of her, and set +out for Montreal in his way to New York, whence he proposes to embark +for England. + +My sensations on this occasion are not to be described: I admire +that amiable delicacy which has influenced her to give up every +advantage of rank and fortune which could tempt the heart of woman, +rather than unite herself to a man for whom she felt the least degree +of indifference; and this, without regarding the censures of her +family, or of the world, by whom, what they will call her imprudence, +will never be forgiven: a woman who is capable of acting so nobly, is +worthy of being beloved, of being adored, by every man who has a soul +to distinguish her perfections. + +If I was a vain man, I might perhaps fancy her regard for me had +some share in determining her conduct, but I am convinced of the +contrary; 'tis the native delicacy of her soul alone, incapable of +forming an union in which the heart has no share, which, independent of +any other consideration, has been the cause of a resolution so worthy +of herself. + +That she has the tenderest affection for me, I cannot doubt one +moment; her attention is too flattering to be unobserved; but 'tis that +kind of affection in which the mind alone is concerned. I never gave +her the most distant hint that I loved her: in her situation, it would +have been even an outrage to have done so. She knows the narrowness of +my circumstances, and how near impossible it is for me to marry; she +therefore could not have an idea--no, my dear girl, 'tis not to love, +but to true delicacy, that she has sacrificed avarice and ambition; and +she is a thousand times the more estimable from this circumstance. + +I am interrupted. You shall hear from me in a few days. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 65. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Feb. 10. + +I have mentioned my plan to Emily, who is charmed with it; 'tis a +pretty evening amusement for two solitary girls in the country. + +Behold the first fruits of our correspondence: + +"To Miss Fermor. + +"It is not to you, my dear girl, I need vindicate my conduct in +regard to Sir George; you have from the first approved it; you have +even advised it. If I have been to blame, 'tis in having too long +delayed an explanation on a point of such importance to us both. I +have been long on the borders of a precipice, without courage to retire +from so dangerous a situation: overborn by my family, I have been near +marrying a man for whom I have not the least tenderness, and whose +conversation is even now tedious to me. + +"My dear friend, we were not formed for each other: our minds have +not the least resemblance. Have you not observed that, when I have +timidly hazarded my ideas on the delicacy necessary to keep love alive +in marriage, and the difficulty of preserving the heart of the object +beloved in so intimate an union, he has indolently assented, with a +coldness not to be described, to sentiments which it is plain from his +manner he did not understand; whilst another, not interested in the +conversation, has, by his countenance, by the fire of his eyes, by +looks more eloquent than all language, shewed his soul was of +intelligence with mine! + +"A strong sense of the force of engagements entered into with my +consent, though not the effect of my free, unbiassed choice, and the +fear of making Sir George, by whom I supposed myself beloved, unhappy, +have thus long prevented my resolving to break with him for ever; and +though I could not bring myself to marry him, I found myself at the +same time incapable of assuming sufficient resolution to tell him so, +'till his mother's letter gave me so happy an occasion. + +"There is no saying what transport I feel in being freed from the +insupportable yoke of this engagement, which has long sat heavy on my +heart, and suspended the natural chearfulness of my temper. + +"Yes, my dear, your Emily has been wretched, without daring to +confess it even to you: I was ashamed of owning I had entered into such +engagements with a man whom I had never loved, though I had for a short +time mistaken esteem for a greater degree of affection than my heart +ever really knew. How fatal, my dear Bell, is this mistake to half our +sex, and how happy am I to have discovered mine in time! + +"I have scarce yet asked myself what I intend; but I think it will +be most prudent to return to England in the first ship, and retire to a +relation of my mother's in the country, where I can live with decency +on my little fortune. + +"Whatever is my fate, no situation can be equally unhappy with that +of being wife to a man for whom I have not even the slightest +friendship or esteem, for whose conversation I have not the least +taste, and who, if I know him, would for ever think me under an +obligation to him for marrying me. + +"I have the pleasure to see I give no pain to his heart, by a step +which has relieved mine from misery: his feelings are those of wounded +vanity, not of love. + + "Adieu! Your + Emily Montague." + + +I have no patience with relations, Lucy; this sweet girl has been +two years wretched under the bondage her uncle's avarice (for he +foresaw Sir George's acquisition, though she did not) prepared for her. +Parents should chuse our company, but never even pretend to direct our +choice; if they take care we converse with men of honor only, 'tis +impossible we can chuse amiss: a conformity of taste and sentiment +alone can make marriage happy, and of that none but the parties +concerned can judge. + +By the way, I think long engagements, even between persons who love, +extremely unfavorable to happiness: it is certainly right to be long +enough acquainted to know something of each other's temper; but 'tis +bad to let the first fire burn out before we come together; and when +we have once resolved, I have no notion of delaying a moment. + +If I should ever consent to marry Fitzgerald, and he should not fly +for a licence before I had finished the sentence, I would dismiss him +if there was not another lover to be had in Canada. + + Adieu! + Your faithful + A. Fermor. + +My Emily is now free as air; a sweet little bird escaped from the +gilded cage. Are you not glad of it, Lucy? I am amazingly. + + + +LETTER 66. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, Feb. 11. + +Would one think it possible, Lucy, that Sir George should console +himself for the loss of all that is lovely in woman, by the sordid +prospect of acquiring, by an interested marriage, a little more of that +wealth of which he has already much more than he can either enjoy or +become? By what wretched motives are half mankind influenced in the +most important action of their lives! + +The vulgar of every rank expect happiness where it is not to be +found, in the ideal advantages of splendor and dissipation; those who +dare to think, those minds who partake of the celestial fire, seek it +in the real solid pleasures of nature and soft affection. + +I have seen my lovely Emily since I wrote to you; I shall not see +her again of some days; I do not intend at present to make my visits to +Silleri so frequent as I have done lately, lest the world, ever +studious to blame, should misconstrue her conduct on this very delicate +occasion. I am even afraid to shew my usual attention to her when +present, lest she herself should think I presume on the politeness she +has ever shewn me, and see her breaking with Sir George in a false +light: the greater I think her obliging partiality to me, the more +guarded I ought to be in my behaviour to her; her situation has some +resemblance to widowhood, and she has equal decorums to observe. + +I cannot however help encouraging a pleasing hope that I am not +absolutely indifferent to her: her lovely eyes have a softness when +they meet mine, to which words cannot do justice: she talks less to me +than to others, but it is in a tone of voice which penetrates my soul; +and when I speak, her attention is most flattering, though of a nature +not to be seen by common observers; without seeming to distinguish me +from the crowd who strive to engage her esteem and friendship, she has +a manner of addressing me which the heart alone can feel; she contrives +to prevent my appearing to give her any preference to the rest of her +sex, yet I have seen her blush at my civility to another. + +She has at least a friendship for me, which alone would make the +happiness of my life; and which I would prefer to the love of the most +charming woman imagination could form, sensible as I am to the sweetest +of all passions: this friendship, however, time and assiduity may ripen +into love; at least I should be most unhappy if I did not think so. + +I love her with a tenderness of which few of my sex are capable: you +have often told me, and you were right, that my heart has all the +sensibility of woman. + +A mail is arrived, by which I hope to hear from you; I must hurry to +the post office; you shall hear again in a few days. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 67. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec. + +London, Dec. 1. + +You need be in no pain, my dear brother, on Mr. Temple's account; +my heart is in no danger from a man of his present character: his +person and manner are certainly extremely pleasing; his understanding, +and I believe his principles, are worthy of your friendship; an +encomium which, let me observe, is from me a very high one: he will be +admired every where, but to be beloved, he wants, or at least appears +to me to want, the most endearing of all qualities, that genuine +tenderness of soul, that almost feminine sensibility, which, with all +your firmness of mind and spirit, you possess beyond any man I ever yet +met with. + +If your friend wishes to please me, which I almost fancy he does, he +must endeavor to resemble you; 'tis rather hard upon me, I think, that +the only man I perfectly approve, and whose disposition is formed to +make me happy, should be my brother: I beg you will find out somebody +very like yourself for your sister, for you have really made me saucy. + +I pity you heartily, and wish above all things to hear of your +Emily's marriage, for your present situation must be extremely +unpleasant. + +But, my dear brother, as you were so very wise about Temple, allow +me to ask you whether it is quite consistent with prudence to throw +yourself in the way of a woman so formed to inspire you with +tenderness, and whom it is so impossible you can ever hope to possess: +is not this acting a little like a foolish girl, who plays round the +flame which she knows will consume her? + +My mother is well, but will never be happy till you return to +England; I often find her in tears over your letters: I will say no +more on a subject which I know will give you pain. I hope, however, to +hear you have given up all thoughts of settling in America: it would be +a better plan to turn farmer in Rutland; we could double the +estate by living upon it, and I am sure I should make the prettiest +milk-maid in the county. + +I am serious, and think we could live very superbly all together in +the country; consider it well, my dear Ned, for I cannot bear to see my +mother so unhappy as your absence makes her. I hear her on the stairs; +I must hurry away my letter, for I don't chuse she should know I write +to you on this subject. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Lucy Rivers. + +Say every thing for me to Bell Fermor; and in your own manner to +your Emily, in whose friendship I promise myself great happiness. + + + +LETTER 68. + + +To Miss Montague, at Silleri. + +Montreal, Feb. 10. + +Never any astonishment equalled mine, my dear Emily, at hearing you +had broke an engagement of years, so much to your advantage as to +fortune, and with a man of so very unexceptionable a character as Sir +George, without any other apparent cause than a slight indelicacy in a +letter of his mother's, for which candor and affection would have found +a thousand excuses. I will not allow myself to suppose, what is however +publicly said here, that you have sacrificed prudence, decorum, and I +had almost said honor, to an imprudent inclination for a man, to whom +there is the strongest reason to believe you are indifferent, and who +is even said to have an attachment to another: I mean Colonel Rivers, +who, though a man of worth, is in a situation which makes it impossible +for him to think of you, were you even as dear to him as the world says +he is to you. + +I am too unhappy to say more on this subject, but expect from our +past friendship a very sincere answer to two questions; whether love +for Colonel Rivers was the real motive for the indiscreet step you have +taken? and whether, if it was, you have the excuse of knowing he loves +you? I should be glad to know what are your views, if you have any. I +am, + + My dear Emily, + Your affectionate friend, + E. Melmoth. + + + +LETTER 69. + + +To Mrs. Melmoth, at Montreal. + +Silleri, Feb. 19. + +My dear Madam, + +I am too sensible of the rights of friendship, to refuse answering +your questions; which I shall do in as few words as possible. I have +not the least reason to suppose myself beloved by Colonel Rivers; nor, +if I know my heart, do I _love him_ in that sense of the word +your question supposes: I think him the best, the most amiable of +mankind; and my extreme affection for him, though I believe that +affection only a very lively friendship, first awakened me to a sense +of the indelicacy and impropriety of marrying Sir George. + +To enter into so sacred an engagement as marriage with one man, with +a stronger affection for another, of how calm and innocent a nature +soever that affection may be, is a degree of baseness of which my heart +is incapable. + +When I first agreed to marry Sir George, I had no superior esteem +for any other man; I thought highly of him, and wanted courage to +resist the pressing solicitations of my uncle, to whom I had a thousand +obligations. I even almost persuaded myself I loved him, nor did I find +my mistake till I saw Colonel Rivers, in whose conversation I had so +very lively a pleasure as soon convinced me of my mistake: I therefore +resolved to break with Sir George, and nothing but the fear of giving +him pain prevented my doing it sooner: his behaviour on the receipt of +his mother's letter removed that fear, and set me free in my own +opinion, and I hope will in yours, from engagements which were equally +in the way of my happiness, and his ambition. If he is sincere, he will +tell you my refusal of him made him happy, though he chuses to affect a +chagrin which he does not feel. + +I have no view but that of returning to England in the spring, and +fixing with a relation in the country. + +If Colonel Rivers has an attachment, I hope it is to one worthy of +him; for my own part, I never entertained the remotest thought of him +in any light but that of the most sincere and tender of friends. I am, +Madam, with great esteem, + + Your affectionate friend + and obedient servant, + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 70. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Feb. 27. + +There are two parties at Quebec in regard to Emily: the prudent +mammas abuse her for losing a good match, and suppose it to proceed +from her partiality to your brother, to the imprudence of which they +give no quarter; whilst the misses admire her generosity and spirit, in +sacrificing all for love; so impossible it is to please every body. +However, she has, in my opinion, done the wisest thing in the world; +that is, she has pleased herself. + +As to her inclination for your brother, I am of their opinion, that +she loves him without being quite clear in the point herself: she has +not yet confessed the fact even to me; but she has speaking eyes, Lucy, +and I think I can interpret their language. + +Whether he sees it or not I cannot tell; I rather think he does, +because he has been less here, and more guarded in his manner when +here, than before this matrimonial affair was put an end to; which is +natural enough on that supposition, because he knows the impertinence +of Quebec, and is both prudent and delicate to a great degree. + +He comes, however, and we are pretty good company, only a little +more reserved on both sides; which is, in my opinion, a little +symptomatic. + +La! here's papa come up to write at my bureau; I dare say, it's only +to pry into what I am about; but excuse me, my dear Sir, for that. +Adieu! _jusqu'au demain, ma tres chere_. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 71. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, Feb. 20. + +Every hour, my Lucy, convinces me more clearly there is no happiness +for me without this lovely woman; her turn of mind is so correspondent +to my own, that we seem to have but one soul: the first moment I saw +her the idea struck me that we had been friends in some pre-existent +state, and were only renewing our acquaintance here; when she speaks, +my heart vibrates to the sound, and owns every thought she expresses a +native there. + +The same dear affections, the same tender sensibility, the most +precious gift of Heaven, inform our minds, and make us peculiarly +capable of exquisite happiness or misery. + +The passions, my Lucy, are common to all; but the affections, the +lively sweet affections, the only sources of true pleasure, are the +portion only of a chosen few. + +Uncertain at present of the nature of her sentiments, I am +determined to develop them clearly before I discover mine: if she loves +as I do, even a perpetual exile here will be pleasing. The remotest +wood in Canada with her would be no longer a desert wild; it would be +the habitation of the Graces. + +But I forget your letter, my dear girl; I am hurt beyond words at +what you tell me of my mother; and would instantly return to England, +did not my fondness for this charming woman detain me here: you are +both too good in wishing to retire with me to the country; will your +tenderness lead you a step farther, my Lucy? It would be too much to +hope to see you here; and yet, if I marry Emily, it will be impossible +for me to think of returning to England. + +There is a man here whom I should prefer of all men I ever saw for +you; but he is already attached to your friend Bell Fermor, who is very +inattentive to her own happiness, if she refuses him: I am very happy +in finding you think of Temple as I wish you should. + +You are so very civil, Lucy, in regard to me, I am afraid of +becoming vain from your praises. + +Take care, my dear, you don't spoil me by this excess of civility, +for my only merit is that of not being a coxcomb. + +I have a heaviness of heart, which has never left me since I read +your letter: I am shocked at the idea of giving pain to the best parent +that ever existed; yet have less hope than ever of seeing England, +without giving up the tender friend, the dear companion, the adored +mistress; in short the very woman I have all my life been in search of: +I am also hurt that I cannot place this object of all my wishes in a +station equal to that she has rejected, and I begin to think rejected +for me. + +I never before repined at seeing the gifts of fortune lavished on +the unworthy. + +Adieu, my dear! I will write again when I can write more chearfully. + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 72. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +My Lord, + +Silleri, Feb. 20. + +Your Lordship does me great honor in supposing me capable of giving +any satisfactory account of a country in which I have spent only a few +months. + +As a proof, however, of my zeal, and the very strong desire I have +to merit the esteem you honor me with, I shall communicate from time to +time the little I have observed, and may observe, as well as what I +hear from good authority, with that lively pleasure with which I have +ever obeyed every command of your Lordship's. + +The French, in the first settling this colony, seem to have had an +eye only to the conquest of ours: their whole system of policy seems +to have been military, not commercial; or only so far commercial as was +necessary to supply the wants, and by so doing to gain the friendship, +of the savages, in order to make use of them against us. + +The lands are held on military tenure: every peasant is a soldier, +every seigneur an officer, and both serve without pay whenever called +upon; this service is, except a very small quit-rent by way of +acknowledgement, all they pay for their lands: the seigneur holds of +the crown, the peasant of the seigneur, who is at once his lord and +commander. + +The peasants are in general tall and robust, notwithstanding their +excessive indolence; they love war, and hate labor; are brave, hardy, +alert in the field, but lazy and inactive at home; in which they +resemble the savages, whose manners they seem strongly to have +imbibed. The government appears to have encouraged a military spirit +all over the colony; though ignorant and stupid to a great degree, +these peasants have a strong sense of honor; and though they serve, as +I have said, without pay, are never so happy as when called to the +field. + +They are excessively vain, and not only look on the French as the +only civilized nation in the world, but on themselves as the flower of +the French nation: they had, I am told, a great aversion to the regular +troops which came from France in the late war, and a contempt equal to +that aversion; they however had an affection and esteem for the late +Marquis De Montcalm, which almost rose to idolatry; and I have even at +this distance of time seen many of them in tears at the mention of his +name: an honest tribute to the memory of a commander equally brave and +humane; for whom his enemies wept even on the day when their own hero +fell. + +I am called upon for this letter, and have only time to assure your +Lordship of my respect, and of the pleasure I always receive from your +commands. I have the honor to be, + + My Lord, + Your Lordship's, &c. + William Fermor. + + + +LETTER 73. + + +To Miss Fermor. + +Feb. 24, Eleven at night. + +I have indeed, my dear, a pleasure in his conversation, to which +words cannot do justice: love itself is less tender and lively than my +friendship for Rivers; from the first moment I saw him, I lost all +taste for other conversation; even yours, amiable as you are, borrows +its most prevailing charm from the pleasure of hearing you talk of him. + +When I call my tenderness for him friendship, I do not mean either +to paint myself as an enemy to tenderer sentiments, or him as one whom +it is easy to see without feeling them: all I mean is, that, as our +situations make it impossible for us to think of each other except as +friends, I have endeavored--I hope with success--to see him in no +other light: it is not in his power to marry without fortune, and mine +is a trifle: had I worlds, they should be his; but, I am neither so +selfish as to desire, nor so romantic as to expect, that he should +descend from the rank of life he has been bred in, and live lost to the +world with me. + +As to the impertinence of two or three women, I hear of it with +perfect indifference: my dear Rivers esteems me, he approves my +conduct, and all else is below my care: the applause of worlds would +give me less pleasure than one smile of approbation from him. + +I am astonished your father should know me so little, as to suppose +me capable of being influenced even by you: when I determined to refuse +Sir George, it was from the feelings of my own heart alone; the first +moment I saw Colonel Rivers convinced me my heart had till then been a +stranger to true tenderness: from that moment my life has been one +continued struggle between my reason, which shewed me the folly as well +as indecency of marrying one man when I so infinitely preferred +another, and a false point of honor and mistaken compassion: from which +painful state, a concurrence of favorable accidents has at length +happily relieved me, and left me free to act as becomes me. + +Of this, my dear, be assured, that, though I have not the least idea +of ever marrying Colonel Rivers, yet, whilst my sentiments for him +continue what they are, I will never marry any other man. + +I am hurt at what Mrs. Melmoth hinted in her letter to you, of +Rivers having appeared to attach himself to me from vanity; she +endeavors in vain to destroy my esteem for him: you well know, he never +did appear to attach himself to me; he is incapable of having done it +from such a motive; but if he had, such delight have I in whatever +pleases him, that I should with joy have sacrificed my own vanity to +gratify his. + + Adieu! Your + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 74. + + +To Miss Montague. + +Feb. 25, Eight o'clock, just up. + +My dear, you deceive yourself; you love Colonel Rivers; you love him +even with all the tenderness of romance: read over again the latter +part of your letter; I know friendship, and of what it is capable; but +I fear the sacrifices it makes are of a different nature. + +Examine your heart, my Emily, and tell me the result of that +examination. It is of the utmost consequence to you to be clear as to +the nature of your affection for Rivers. + + Adieu! Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 75. + + +To Miss Fermor. + +Yes, my dear Bell, you know me better than I know myself; your Emily +loves.--But tell me, and with that clear sincerity which is the +cement of our friendship; has not your own heart discovered to you the +secret of mine? do you not also love this most amiable of mankind? Yes, +you do, and I am lost: it is not in woman to see him without love; +there are a thousand charms in his conversation, in his look, nay in +the very sound of his voice, to which it is impossible for a soul like +yours to be insensible. + +I have observed you a thousand times listening to him with that air +of softness and complacency--Believe me, my dear, I am not angry with +you for loving him; he is formed to charm the heart of woman: I have +not the least right to complain of you; you knew nothing of my passion +for him; you even regarded me almost as the wife of another. But tell +me, though my heart dies within me at the question, is your tenderness +mutual? does he love you? I have observed a coldness in his manner +lately, which now alarms me.--My heart is torn in pieces. Must I +receive this wound from the two persons on earth most dear to me? +Indeed, my dear, this is more than your Emily can bear. Tell me only +whether you love: I will not ask more.--Is there on earth a man who +can please where he appears? + + + +LETTER 76. + + +To Miss Montague. + +You have discovered me, my sweet Emily: I love--not quite so +dyingly as you do; but I love; will you forgive me when I add that I am +beloved? It is unnecessary to add the name of him I love, as you have +so kindly appropriated the whole sex to Colonel Rivers. + +However, to shew you it is possible you may be mistaken, 'tis the +little Fitz I love, who, in my eye, is ten times more agreable than +even your nonpareil of a Colonel; I know you will think me a shocking +wretch for this depravity of taste; but so it is. + +Upon my word, I am half inclined to be angry with you for not being +in love with Fitzgerald; a tall Irishman, with good eyes, has as clear +a title to make conquests as other people. + +Yes, my dear, _there is a man on earth_, and even in the little +town of Quebec, _who can please where he appears_. Surely, child, +if there was but one man on earth who could please, you would not be so +unreasonable as to engross him all to yourself. + +For my part, though I like Fitzgerald extremely, I by no means +insist that every other woman shall. + +Go, you are a foolish girl, and don't know what you would be at. +Rivers is a very handsome agreable fellow; but _it is in woman_ to +see him without dying for love, of which behold your little Bell an +example. Adieu! be wiser, and believe me + + Ever yours, + A. Fermor. + +Will you go this morning to Montmorenci on the ice, and dine on the +island of Orleans? dare you trust yourself in a covered carriole with +the dear man? Don't answer this, because I am certain you can say +nothing on the subject, which will not be very foolish. + + + +LETTER 77. + + +To Miss Fermor. + +I am glad you do not see Colonel Rivers with my eyes; yet it seems +to me very strange; I am almost piqued at your giving another the +preference. I will say no more, it being, as you observe, impossible to +avoid being absurd on such a subject. + +I will go to Montmorenci; and, to shew my courage, will venture in a +covered carriole with Colonel Rivers, though I should rather wish your +father for my cavalier at present. + + Yours, + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 78. + + +To Miss Montague. + +You are right, my dear: 'tis more prudent to go with my father. I +love prudence; and will therefore send for Mademoiselle Clairaut to be +Rivers's belle. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 79. + + +To Miss Fermor. + +You are a provoking chit, and I will go with Rivers. Your father may +attend Madame Villiers, who you know will naturally take it ill if she +is not of our party. We can ask Mademoiselle Clairaut another time. + + Adieu! Your + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 80. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Feb. 25. + +Those who have heard no more of a Canadian winter than what regards +the intenseness of its cold, must suppose it a very joyless season: +'tis, I assure you, quite otherwise; there are indeed some days here of +the severity of which those who were never out of England can form no +conception; but those days seldom exceed a dozen in a whole winter, +nor do they come in succession; but at intermediate periods, as the +winds set in from the North-West; which, coming some hundred leagues, +from frozen lakes and rivers, over woods and mountains covered with +snow, would be insupportable, were it not for the furs with which the +country abounds, in such variety and plenty as to be within the reach +of all its inhabitants. + +Thus defended, the British belles set the winter of Canada at +defiance; and the season of which you seem to entertain such terrible +ideas, is that of the utmost chearfulness and festivity. + +But what particularly pleases me is, there is no place where women +are of such importance: not one of the sex, who has the least share of +attractions, is without a levee of beaux interceding for the honor of +attending her on some party, of which every day produces three or four. + +I am just returned from one of the most agreable jaunts imagination +can paint, to the island of Orleans, by the falls of Montmorenci; the +latter is almost nine miles distant, across the great bason of Quebec; +but as we are obliged to reach it in winter by the waving line, our +direct road being intercepted by the inequalities of the ice, it is now +perhaps a third more. You will possibly suppose a ride of this kind +must want one of the greatest essentials to entertainment, that of +variety, and imagine it only one dull whirl over an unvaried plain of +snow: on the contrary, my dear, we pass hills and mountains of ice in +the trifling space of these few miles. The bason of Quebec is formed by +the conflux of the rivers St. Charles and Montmorenci with the great +river St. Lawrence, the rapidity of whose flood tide, as these rivers +are gradually seized by the frost, breaks up the ice, and drives it +back in heaps, till it forms ridges of transparent rock to an height +that is astonishing, and of a strength which bids defiance to the +utmost rage of the most furiously rushing tide. + +This circumstance makes this little journey more pleasing than you +can possibly conceive: the serene blue sky above, the dazling +brightness of the sun, and the colors from the refraction of its rays +on the transparent part of these ridges of ice, the winding course +these oblige you to make, the sudden disappearing of a train of fifteen +or twenty carrioles, as these ridges intervene, which again discover +themselves on your rising to the top of the frozen mount, the +tremendous appearance both of the ascent and descent, which however are +not attended with the least danger; all together give a grandeur and +variety to the scene, which almost rise to enchantment. + +Your dull foggy climate affords nothing that can give you the least +idea of our frost pieces in Canada; nor can you form any notion of our +amusements, of the agreableness of a covered carriole, with a sprightly +fellow, rendered more sprightly by the keen air and romantic scene +about him; to say nothing of the fair lady at his side. + +Even an overturning has nothing alarming in it; you are laid gently +down on a soft bed of snow, without the least danger of any kind; and +an accident of this sort only gives a pretty fellow occasion to vary +the style of his civilities, and shew a greater degree of attention. + +But it is almost time to come to Montmorenci: to avoid, however, +fatiguing you or myself, I shall refer the rest of our tour to another +letter, which will probably accompany this: my meaning is, that two +moderate letters are vastly better than one long one; in which +sentiment I know you agree with + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 81. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Feb. 25, Afternoon. + +So, my dear, as I was saying, this same ride to Montmorenci--where +was I, Lucy? I forget.--O, I believe pretty near the mouth of the +bay, embosomed in which lies the lovely cascade of which I am to give +you a winter description, and which I only slightly mentioned when I +gave you an account of the rivers by which it is supplied. + +The road, about a mile before you reach this bay, is a regular +glassy level, without any of those intervening hills of ice which I +have mentioned; hills, which with the ideas, though false ones, of +danger and difficulty, give those of beauty and magnificence too. + +As you gradually approach the bay, you are struck with an awe, which +increases every moment, as you come nearer, from the grandeur of a +scene, which is one of the noblest works of nature: the beauty, the +proportion, the solemnity, the wild magnificence of which, surpassing +every possible effect of art, impress one strongly with the idea of its +Divine Almighty Architect. + +The rock on the east side, which is first in view as you approach, +is a smooth and almost perpendicular precipice, of the same height as +the fall; the top, which a little over-hangs, is beautifully covered +with pines, firs, and ever-greens of various kinds, whose verdant +lustre is rendered at this season more shining and lovely by the +surrounding snow, as well as by that which is sprinkled irregularly on +their branches, and glitters half melted in the sun-beams: a thousand +smaller shrubs are scattered on the side of the ascent, and, having +their roots in almost imperceptible clefts of the rock, seem to those +below to grow in air. + +The west side is equally lofty, but more sloping, which, from that +circumstance, affords soil all the way, upon shelving inequalities of +the rock, at little distances, for the growth of trees and shrubs, by +which it is almost entirely hid. + +The most pleasing view of this miracle of nature is certainly in +summer, and in the early part of it, when every tree is in foliage and +full verdure, every shrub in flower; and when the river, swelled with a +waste of waters from the mountains from which it derives its source, +pours down in a tumultuous torrent, that equally charms and astonishes +the beholder. + +The winter scene has, notwithstanding, its beauties, though of a +different kind, more resembling the stillness and inactivity of the +season. + +The river being on its sides bound up in frost, and its channel +rendered narrower than in the summer, affords a less body of water to +supply the cascade; and the fall, though very steep, yet not being +exactly perpendicular, masses of ice are formed, on different shelving +projections of the rock, in a great variety of forms and proportions. + +The torrent, which before rushed with such impetuosity down the deep +descent in one vast sheet of water, now descends in some parts with a +slow and majestic pace; in others seems almost suspended in mid air; +and in others, bursting through the obstacles which interrupt its +course, pours down with redoubled fury into the foaming bason below, +from whence a spray arises, which, freezing in its ascent, becomes on +each side a wide and irregular frozen breast-work; and in front, the +spray being there much greater, a lofty and magnificent pyramid of +solid ice. + +I have not told you half the grandeur, half the beauty, half the +lovely wildness of this scene: if you would know what it is, you must +take no information but that of your own eyes, which I pronounce +strangers to the loveliest work of creation till they have seen the +river and fall of Montmorenci. + +In short, my dear, I am Montmorenci-mad. + +I can hardly descend to tell you, we passed the ice from thence to +Orleans, and dined out of doors on six feet of snow, in the charming +enlivening warmth of the sun, though in the month of February, at a +time when you in England scarce feel his beams. + +Fitzgerald made violent love to me all the way, and I never felt +myself listen with such complacency. + +Adieu! I have wrote two immense letters. Write oftener; you are +lazy, yet expect me to be an absolute slave in the scribbling way. + + Your faithful + A. Fermor. + +Do you know your brother has admirable ideas? He contrived to lose +his way on our return, and kept Emily ten minutes behind the rest of +the company. I am apt to fancy there was something like a declaration, +for she blushed, + + "Celestial rosy red," + +when he led her into the dining room at Silleri. + + Once more, adieu! + + + +LETTER 82. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +March 1. + +I was mistaken, my dear; not a word of love between your brother and +Emily, as she positively assures me; something very tender has passed, +I am convinced, notwithstanding, for she blushes more than ever when he +approaches, and there is a certain softness in his voice when he +addresses her, which cannot escape a person of my penetration. + +Do you know, my dear Lucy, that there is a little impertinent girl +here, a Mademoiselle Clairaut, who, on the meer merit of features and +complexion, sets up for being as handsome as Emily and me? + +If beauty, as I will take the liberty to assert, is given us for the +purpose of pleasing, she who pleases most, that is to say, she who +excites the most passion, is to all intents and purposes the most +beautiful woman; and, in this case, I am inclined to believe your +little Bell stands pretty high on the roll of beauty; the men's _eyes_ +may perhaps _say_ she is handsome, but their _hearts feel_ +that I am so. + +There is, in general, nothing so insipid, so uninteresting, as a +beauty; which those men experience to their cost, who chuse from +vanity, not inclination. I remember Sir Charles Herbert, a Captain in +the same regiment with my father, who determined to marry Miss Raymond +before he saw her, merely because he had been told she was a celebrated +beauty, though she was never known to have inspired a real passion: he +saw her, not with his own eyes, but those of the public, took her +charms on trust; and, till he was her husband, never found out she was +not his taste; a secret, however, of some little importance to his +happiness. + +I have, however, known some beauties who had a right to please; that +is, who had a mixture of that invisible charm, that nameless grace +which by no means depends on beauty, and which strikes the heart in a +moment; but my first aversion is your _fine women_: don't you +think _a fine woman_ a detestable creature, Lucy? I do: they are +vastly well to _fill_ public places; but as to the heart--Heavens, +my dear! yet there are men, I suppose, to be found, who have a taste +for the great sublime in beauty. + +Men are vastly foolish, my dear; very few of them have spirit to +think for themselves; there are a thousand Sir Charles Herberts: I +have seen some of them weak enough to decline marrying the woman on +earth most pleasing to themselves, because not thought handsome by the +generality of their companions. + +Women are above this folly, and therefore chuse much oftener from +affection than men. We are a thousand times wiser, Lucy, than these +important beings, these mighty lords, + + "Who strut and fret their hour upon the stage;" + +and, instead of playing the part in life which nature dictates to +their reason and their hearts, act a borrowed one at the will of +others. + +I had rather even judge ill, than not judge for myself. + + Adieu! yours ever, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 83. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, March 4. + +After debating with myself some days, I am determined to pursue +Emily; but, before I make a declaration, will go to see some ungranted +lands at the back of Madame Des Roches's estate; which, lying on a very +fine river, and so near the St. Lawrence, may I think be cultivated at +less expence than those above Lake Champlain, though in a much inferior +climate: if I make my settlement here, I will purchase the estate +Madame Des Roches has to sell, which will open me a road to the river +St. Lawrence, and consequently treble the value of my lands. + +I love, I adore this charming woman; but I will not suffer my +tenderness for her to make her unhappy, or to lower her station in +life: if I can, by my present plan, secure her what will in this +country be a degree of affluence, I will endeavor to change her +friendship for me into a tenderer and more lively affection; if she +loves, I know by my own heart, that Canada will be no longer a place of +exile; if I have flattered myself, and she has only a friendship for +me, I will return immediately to England, and retire with you and my +mother to our little estate in the country. + +You will perhaps say, why not make Emily of our party? I am almost +ashamed to speak plain; but so weak are we, and so guided by the +prejudices we fancy we despise, that I cannot bear my Emily, after +refusing a coach and six, should live without an equipage suitable at +least to her birth, and the manner in which she has always lived when +in England. + +I know this is folly, that it is a despicable pride; but it is a +folly, a pride, I cannot conquer. + +There are moments when I am above all this childish prejudice, but +it returns upon me in spite of myself. + +Will you come to us, my Lucy? Tell my mother, I will build her a +rustic palace, and settle a little principality on you both. + +I make this a private excursion, because I don't chuse any body +should even guess at my views. I shall set out in the evening, and make +a circuit to cross the river above the town. + +I shall not even take leave at Silleri, as I propose being back in +four days, and I know your friend Bell will be inquisitive about my +journey. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 84. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, March 6. + +Your brother is gone nobody knows whither, and without calling upon +us before he set off; we are piqued, I assure you, my dear, and with +some little reason. + +Four o'clock. + +Very strange news, Lucy; they say Colonel Rivers is gone to marry +Madame Des Roches, a lady at whose house he was some time in autumn; if +this is true, I forswear the whole sex: his manner of stealing off is +certainly very odd, and she is rich and agreable; but, if he does not +love Emily, he has been excessively cruel in shewing an attention which +has deceived her into a passion for him. I cannot believe it possible: +not that he has ever told her he loved her; but a man of honor will +not tell an untruth even with his eyes, and his have spoke a very +unequivocal language. + +I never saw any thing like her confusion, when she was told he was +gone to visit Madame Des Roches; but, when it was hinted with what +design, I was obliged to take her out of the room, or she would have +discovered all the fondness of her soul. I really thought she would +have fainted as I led her out. + +Eight o'clock. + +I have sent away all the men, and drank tea in Emily's apartment; +she has scarce spoke to me; I am miserable for her; she has a paleness +which alarms me, the tears steal every moment into her lovely eyes. +Can Rivers act so unworthy a part? her tenderness cannot have been +unobserved by him; it was too visible to every body. + +9th, Ten o'clock. + +Not a line from your brother yet; only a confirmation of his being +with Madame Des Roches, having been seen there by some Canadians who +are come up this morning: I am not quite pleased, though I do not +believe the report; he might have told us surely where he was going. + +I pity Emily beyond words; she says nothing, but there is a dumb +eloquence in her countenance which is not to be described. + +Twelve o'clock. + +I have been an hour alone with the dear little girl, who has, from a +hint I dropt on purpose, taken courage to speak to me on this very +interesting subject; she says, "she shall be most unhappy if this +report is true, though without the least right to complain of Colonel +Rivers, who never even hinted a word of any affection for her more +tender than friendship; that if her vanity, her self-love, or her +tenderness, have deceived her, she ought only to blame herself." She +added, "that she wished him to marry Madame Des Roches, if she could +make him happy;" but when she said this, an involuntary tear seemed to +contradict the generosity of her sentiments. + +I beg your pardon, my dear, but my esteem for your brother is +greatly lessened; I cannot help fearing there is something in the +report, and that this is what Mrs. Melmoth meant when she mentioned his +having an attachment. + +I shall begin to hate the whole sex, Lucy, if I find your brother +unworthy, and shall give Fitzgerald his dismission immediately. + +I am afraid Mrs. Melmoth knows men better than we foolish girls do: +she said, he attached himself to Emily meerly from vanity, and I begin +to believe she was right: how cruel is this conduct! The man who from +vanity, or perhaps only to amuse an idle hour, can appear to be +attached where he is not, and by that means seduce the heart of a +deserving woman, or indeed of any woman, falls in my opinion very +little short in baseness of him who practises a greater degree of +seduction. + +What right has he to make the most amiable of women wretched? a +woman who would have deserved him had he been monarch of the universal +world! I might add, who has sacrificed ease and affluence to her +tenderness for him? + +You will excuse my warmth on such an occasion; however, as it may +give you pain, I will say no more. + + Adieu! + Your faithful + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 85. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Kamaraskas, March 12. + +I have met with something, my dear Lucy, which has given me infinite +uneasiness; Madame Des Roches, from my extreme zeal to serve her in an +affair wherein she has been hardly used, from my second visit, and a +certain involuntary attention, and softness of manner I have to all +women, has supposed me in love with her, and with a frankness I cannot +but admire, and a delicacy not to be described, has let me know I am +far from being indifferent to her. + +I was at first extremely embarrassed; but when I had reflected a +moment, I considered that the ladies, though another may be the object, +always regard with a kind of complacency a man who _loves_, as +one who acknowledges the power of the sex, whereas an indifferent is a +kind of rebel to their empire; I considered also that the confession +of a prior inclination saves the most delicate vanity from being +wounded; and therefore determined to make her the confidante of my +tenderness for Emily; leaving her an opening to suppose that, if my +heart had been disengaged, it could not have escaped her attractions. + +I did this with all possible precaution, and with every softening +friendship and politeness could suggest; she was shocked at my +confession, but soon recovered herself enough to tell me she was highly +flattered by this proof of my confidence and esteem; that she believed +me a man to have only the more respect for a woman who by owning her +partiality had told me she considered me not only as the most amiable, +but the most noble of my sex; that she had heard, no love was so +tender as that which was the child of friendship; but that of this she +was convinced, that no friendship was so tender as that which was the +child of love; that she offered me this tender, this lively friendship, +and would for the future find her happiness in the consideration of +mine. + +Do you know, my dear, that, since this confession, I feel a kind of +tenderness for her, to which I cannot give a name? It is not love; for +I love, I idolize another: but it is softer and more pleasing, as well +as more animated, than friendship. + +You cannot conceive what pleasure I find in her conversation; she +has an admirable understanding, a feeling heart, and a mixture of +softness and spirit in her manner, which is peculiarly pleasing to men. +My Emily will love her; I must bring them acquainted: she promises to +come to Quebec in May; I shall be happy to shew her every attention +when there. + +I have seen the lands, and am pleased with them: I believe this will +be my residence, if Emily, as I cannot avoid hoping, will make me +happy; I shall declare myself as soon as I return, but must continue +here a few days longer: I shall not be less pleased with this situation +for its being so near Madame Des Roches, in whom Emily will find a +friend worthy of her esteem, and an entertaining lively companion. + + Adieu, my dear Lucy! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + +I have fixed on the loveliest spot on earth, on which to build a +house for my mother: do I not expect too much in fancying she will +follow me hither? + + + +LETTER 86. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, March 13. + +Still with Madame Des Roches; appearances are rather against him, +you must own, Lucy: but I will not say all I think to you. Poor Emily! +we dispute continually, for she will persist in defending his conduct; +she says, he has a right to marry whoever he pleases; that her loving +him is no tie upon his honor, especially as he does not even know of +this preference; that she ought only to blame the weakness of her own +heart, which has betrayed her into a false belief that their tenderness +was mutual: this is pretty talking, but he has done every thing to +convince her of his feeling the strongest passion for her, except +making a formal declaration. + +She talks of returning to England the moment the river is open: +indeed, if your brother marries, it is the only step left her to take. I +almost wish now she had married Sir George: she would have had all the +_douceurs_ of marriage; and as to love, I begin to think men +incapable of feeling it: some of them can indeed talk well on the +subject; but self-interest and vanity are the real passions of their +souls. I detest the whole sex. + + Adieu! + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 87. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +My Lord, + +Silleri, March 13. + +I generally distrust my own opinion when it differs from your +Lordship's; but in this instance I am most certainly in the right: +allow me to say, nothing can be more ill-judged than your Lordship's +design of retiring into a small circle, from that world of which you +have so long been one of the most brilliant ornaments. What you say of +the disagreableness of age, is by no means applicable to your Lordship; +nothing is in this respect so fallible as the parish register. Why +should any man retire from society whilst he is capable of contributing +to the pleasures of it? Wit, vivacity, good-nature, and politeness, +give an eternal youth, as stupidity and moroseness a premature old +age. Without a thousandth part of your Lordship's shining qualities, I +think myself much younger than half the boys about me, meerly because I +have more good-nature, and a stronger desire of pleasing. + +My daughter is much honored by your Lordship's enquiries: she is +Bell Fermor still; but is addressed by a gentleman who is extremely +agreable to me, and I believe not less so to her; I however know too +well the free spirit of woman, of which she has her full share, to let +Bell know I approve her choice; I am even in doubt whether it would not +be good policy to seem to dislike the match, in order to secure her +consent: there is something very pleasing to a young girl, in opposing +the will of her father. + +To speak truth, I am a little out of humor with her at present, for +having contributed, and I believe entirely from a spirit of opposition +to me, to break a match on which I had extremely set my heart; the +lady was the niece of my particular friend, and one of the most +lovely and deserving women I ever knew: the gentleman very worthy, with +an agreable, indeed a very handsome person, and a fortune which with +those who know the world, would have compensated for the want of most +other advantages. + +The fair lady, after an engagement of two years, took a whim that +there was no happiness in marriage without being madly in love, and +that her passion was not sufficiently romantic; in which piece of folly +my rebel encouraged her, and the affair broke off in a manner which has +brought on her the imputation of having given way to an idle +prepossession in favor of another. + +Your Lordship will excuse my talking on a subject very near my +heart, though uninteresting to you; I have too often experienced your +Lordship's indulgence to doubt it on this occasion: your good-natured +philosophy will tell you, much fewer people talk or write to amuse or +inform their friends, than to give way to the feelings of their own +hearts, or indulge the governing passion of the moment. + +In my next, I will endeavor in the best manner I can, to obey your +Lordship's commands in regard to the political and religious state of +Canada: I will make a point of getting the best information possible; +what I have yet seen, has been only the surface. + + I have the honor to be, + My Lord, + Your Lordship's &c. + William Fermor. + + + +LETTER 88. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, March 16, Monday. + +Your brother is come back; and has been here: he came after dinner +yesterday. My Emily is more than woman; I am proud of her behaviour: +he entered with his usual impatient air; she received him with a +dignity which astonished me, and disconcerted him: there was a cool +dispassionate indifference in her whole manner, which I saw cut his +vanity to the quick, and for which he was by no means prepared. + +On such an occasion I should have flirted violently with some other +man, and have shewed plainly I was piqued: she judged much better; I +have only to wish it may last. He is the veriest coquet in nature, for, +after all, I am convinced he loves Emily. + +He stayed a very little time, and has not been here this morning; he +may pout if he pleases, but I flatter myself we shall hold out the +longest. + +Nine o'clock. + +He came to dine; we kept up our state all dinner time; he begged a +moment's conversation, which we refused, but with a timid air that +makes me begin to fear we shall beat a parley: he is this moment gone, +and Emily retired to her apartment on pretence of indisposition: I am +afraid she is a foolish girl. + +Half hour after six. + +It will not do, Lucy: I found her in tears at the window, following +Rivers's carriole with her eyes: she turned to me with such a look--in +short, my dear, + + "The weak, the fond, the fool, the coward woman" + +has prevailed over all her resolution: her love is only the more +violent for having been a moment restrained; she is not equal to the +task she has undertaken; her resentment was concealed tenderness, and +has retaken its first form. + +I am sorry to find there is not one wise woman in the world but +myself. + +Past ten. + +I have been with her again: she seemed a little calmer; I commended +her spirit; she disavowed it; was peevish with me, angry with herself; +said she had acted in a manner unworthy her character; accused herself +of caprice, artifice, and cruelty; said she ought to have seen him, if +not alone, yet with me only: that it was natural he should be surprized +at a reception so inconsistent with true friendship, and therefore +that he should wish an explanation; that _her_ Rivers (and why not +Madame Des Roches's Rivers?) was incapable of acting otherwise than as +became the best and most tender of mankind, and that therefore she +ought not to have suffered a whisper injurious to his honor: that I had +meant well, but had, by depriving her of Rivers's friendship, which she +had lost by her haughty behaviour, destroyed all the happiness of her +life. + +To be sure, your poor Bell is always to blame: but if ever I +intermeddle between lovers again, Lucy-- + +I am sure she was ten times more angry with him than I was, but this +it is to be too warm in the interest of our friends. + + Adieu! till to-morrow. + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + +I can only say, that if Fitzgerald had visited a handsome rich +French widow, and staid with her ten days _téte à téte_ in the +country, without my permission-- + +O Heavens! here is _mon cher pere_: I must hide my letter. + + _Bon soir. _ + + + +LETTER 89. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, March 6. + +I cannot account, my dear, for what has happened to me. I left +Madame Des Roches's full of the warm impatience of love, and flew to my +Emily at Silleri: I was received with a disdainful coldness which I did +not think had been in her nature, and which has shocked me beyond all +expression. + +I went again to-day, and met with the same reception; I even saw my +presence was painful to her, therefore shortened my visit, and, if I +have resolution to persevere, will not go again till invited by Captain +Fermor in form. + +I could bear any thing but to lose her affection; my whole heart was +set upon her: I had every reason to believe myself dear to her. Can +caprice find a place in that bosom which is the abode of every virtue? + +I must have been misrepresented to her, or surely this could not +have happened: I will wait to-morrow, and if I hear nothing will write +to her, and ask an explanation by letter; she refused me a verbal one +to-day, though I begged to speak with her only for a moment. + +Tuesday. + +I have been asked on a little riding party, and, as I cannot go to +Silleri, have accepted it: it will amuse my present anxiety. + +I am to drive Mademoiselle Clairaut, a very pretty French lady: this +is however of no consequence, for my eyes see nothing lovely but Emily. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 90. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Wednesday morning. + +Poor Emily is to meet with perpetual mortification: we have been +carrioling with Fitzgerald and my father; and, coming back, met your +brother driving Mademoiselle Clairaut: Emily trembled, turned pale, and +scarce returned Rivers's bow; I never saw a poor little girl so in +love; she is amazingly altered within the last fortnight. + +Two o'clock. + +A letter from Mrs. Melmoth: I send you a copy of it with this. + + Adieu! + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 91. + + +To Miss Montague, at Silleri. + +Montreal, March 19. + +If you are not absolutely resolved on destruction, my dear Emily, it +is yet in your power to retrieve the false step you have made. + +Sir George, whose good-nature is in this instance almost without +example, has been prevailed on by Mr. Melmoth to consent I should write +to you before he leaves Montreal, and again offer you his hand, though +rejected in a manner so very mortifying both to vanity and love. + +He gives you a fortnight to consider his offer, at the end of which +if you refuse him he sets out for England over the lakes. + +Be assured, the man for whom it is too plain you have acted this +imprudent part, is so far from returning your affection, that he is at +this moment addressing another; I mean Madame Des Roches, a near +relation of whose assured me that there was an attachment between them: +indeed it is impossible he could have thought of a woman whose fortune +is as small as his own. Men, Miss Montague, are not the romantic beings +you seem to suppose them; you will not find many Sir George Claytons. + +I beg as early an answer as is consistent with the attention so +important a proposal requires, as a compliment to a passion so generous +and disinterested as that of Sir George. I am, my dear Emily, + + Your affectionate friend, + E. Melmoth. + + + +LETTER 92. + + +To Mrs. Melmoth, at Montreal. + +Silleri, March 19. + +I am sorry, my dear Madam, you should know so little of my heart, as +to suppose it possible I could have broke my engagements with Sir +George from any motive but the full conviction of my wanting that +tender affection for him, and that lively taste for his conversation, +which alone could have ensured either his felicity or my own; happy is +it for both that I discovered this before it was too late: it was a +very unpleasing circumstance, even under an intention only of marrying +him, to find my friendship stronger for another; what then would it +have been under the most sacred of all engagements, that of marriage? +What wretchedness would have been the portion of both, had timidity, +decorum, or false honor, carried me, with this partiality in my heart, +to fulfill those views, entered into from compliance to my family, and +continued from a false idea of propriety, and weak fear of the censures +of the world? + +The same reason therefore still subsisting, nay being every moment +stronger, from a fuller conviction of the merit of him my heart +prefers, in spite of me, to Sir George, our union is more impossible +than ever. + +I am however obliged to you, and Major Melmoth, for your zeal to +serve me, though you must permit me to call it a mistaken one; and to +Sir George, for a concession which I own I should not have made in his +situation, and which I can only suppose the effect of Major Melmoth's +persuasions, which he might suppose were known to me, and an +imagination that my sentiments for him were changed: assure him of my +esteem, though love is not in my power. + +As Colonel Rivers never gave me the remotest reason to suppose him +more than my friend, I have not the least right to disapprove his +marrying: on the contrary, as his friend, I _ought_ to wish a +connexion which I am told is greatly to his advantage. + +To prevent all future importunity, painful to me, and, all +circumstances considered, degrading to Sir George, whose honor is very +dear to me, though I am obliged to refuse him that hand which he surely +cannot wish to receive without my heart, I am compelled to say, that, +without an idea of ever being united to Colonel Rivers, I will never +marry any other man. + +Were I never again to behold him, were he even the husband of +another, my tenderness, a tenderness as innocent as it is lively, +would never cease: nor would I give up the refined delight of loving +him, independently of any hope of being beloved, for any advantage in +the power of fortune to bestow. + +These being my sentiments, sentiments which no time can alter, they +cannot be too soon known to Sir George: I would not one hour keep him +in suspence in a point, which this step seems to say is of consequence +to his happiness. + +Tell him, I entreat him to forget me, and to come into views which +will make his mother, and I have no doubt himself, happier than a +marriage with a woman whose chief merit is that very sincerity of heart +which obliges her to refuse him. + + I am, Madam, + Your affectionate, &c. + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 93. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Thursday. + +Your brother dines here to-day, by my father's invitation; I am +afraid it will be but an awkward party. + +Emily is at this moment an exceeding fine model for a statue of +tender melancholy. + +Her anger is gone; not a trace remaining; 'tis sorrow, but the most +beautiful sorrow I ever beheld: she is all grief for having offended +the dear man. + +I am out of patience with this look; it is so flattering to him, I +could beat her for it: I cannot bear his vanity should be so +gratified. + +I wanted her to treat him with a saucy, unconcerned, flippant air; +but her whole appearance is gentle, tender, I had almost said, +supplicating: I am ashamed of the folly of my own sex: O, that I could +to-day inspire her with a little of my spirit! she is a poor tame +household dove, and there is no making any thing of her. + +Eleven o'clock. + + "For my shepherd is kind, and my heart is at ease." + +What fools women are, Lucy! He took her hand, expressed concern for +her health, softened the tone of his voice, looked a few civil things +with those expressive lying eyes of his, and without one word of +explanation all was forgot in a moment. + + Good night! Yours, + A. Fermor. + + +Heavens! the fellow is here, has followed me to my dressing-room; +was ever any thing so confident? These modest men have ten times the +assurance of your impudent fellows. I believe absolutely he is going to +make love to me: 'tis a critical hour, Lucy; and to rob one's friend of +a lover is really a temptation. + +Twelve o'clock. + +The dear man is gone, and has made all up: he insisted on my +explaining the reasons of the cold reception he had met with; which you +know was impossible, without betraying the secret of poor Emily's +little foolish heart. + +I however contrived to let him know we were a little piqued at his +going without seeing us, and that we were something inclined to be +jealous of his _friendship_ for Madame Des Roches. + +He made a pretty decent defence; and, though I don't absolutely +acquit him of coquetry, yet upon the whole I think I forgive him. + +He loves Emily, which is great merit with me: I am only sorry they +are two such poor devils, it is next to impossible they should ever +come together. + +I think I am not angry now; as to Emily, her eyes dance with +pleasure; she has not the same countenance as in the morning; this +love is the finest cosmetick in the world. + +After all, he is a charming fellow, and has eyes, Lucy--Heaven be +praised, he never pointed their fire at me! + +Adieu! I will try to sleep. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 94. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, March 20. + +The coldness of which I complained, my dear Lucy, in regard to +Emily, was the most flattering circumstance which could have happened: +I will not say it was the effect of jealousy, but it certainly was of +a delicacy of affection which extremely resembles it. + +Never did she appear so lovely as yesterday; never did she display +such variety of loveliness: there was a something in her look, when I +first addressed her on entering the room, touching beyond all words, a +certain inexpressible melting languor, a dying softness, which it was +not in man to see unmoved: what then must a lover have felt? + +I had the pleasure, after having been in the room a few moments, to +see this charming languor change to a joy which animated her whole +form, and of which I was so happy as to believe myself the cause: my +eyes had told her all that passed in my heart; hers had shewed me +plainly they understood their language. We were standing at a window at +some little distance from the rest of the company, when I took an +opportunity of hinting my concern at having, though without knowing it, +offended her: she blushed, she looked down, she again raised her lovely +eyes, they met mine, she sighed; I took her hand, she withdrew it, but +not in anger; a smile, like that of the poet's Hebe, told me I was +forgiven. + +There is no describing what then passed in my soul: with what +difficulty did I restrain my transports! never before did I really know +love: what I had hitherto felt even for her, was cold to that +enchanting, that impassioned moment. + +She is a thousand times dearer to me than life: my Lucy, I cannot +live without her. + +I contrived, before I left Silleri, to speak to Bell Fermor on the +subject of Emily's reception of me; she did not fully explain herself, +but she convinced me hatred had no part in her resentment. + +I am going again this afternoon: every hour not passed with her is +lost. + +I will seek a favorable occasion of telling her the whole happiness +of my life depends on her tenderness. + +Before I write again, my fate will possibly be determined: with +every reason to hope, the timidity inseparable from love makes me dread +a full explanation of my sentiments: if her native softness should have +deceived me--but I will not study to be unhappy. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 95. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, March 20. + +I have been telling Fitzgerald I am jealous of his prodigious +attention to Emily, whose cecisbeo he has been the last ten days: the +simpleton took me seriously, and began to vindicate himself, by +explaining the nature of his regard for her, pleading her late +indisposition as an excuse for shewing her some extraordinary +civilities. + +I let him harangue ten minutes, then stops me him short, puts on my +poetical face, and repeats, + + "When sweet Emily complains, + I have sense of all her pains; + But for little Bella, I + Do not only grieve, but die." + +He smiled, kissed my hand, praised my amazing penetration, and was +going to take this opportunity of saying a thousand civil things, when +my divine Rivers appeared on the side of the hill; I flew to meet him, +and left my love to finish the conversation alone. + +Twelve o'clock. + +I am the happiest of all possible women; Fitzgerald is in the +sullens about your brother; surely there is no pleasure in nature equal +to that of plaguing a fellow who really loves one, especially if he has +as much merit as Fitzgerald, for otherwise he would not be worth +tormenting. He had better not pout with me: I believe I know who will +be tired first. + +Eight in the evening. + +I have passed a most delicious day: Fitzgerald took it into his wise +head to endeavor to make me jealous of a little pert French-woman, the +wife of a Croix de St. Louis, who I know he despises; I then thought +myself at full liberty to play off all my airs, which I did with +ineffable success, and have sent him home in a humor to hang himself. +Your brother stays the evening, so does a very handsome fellow I have +been flirting with all the day: Fitz was engaged here too, but I told +him it was impossible for him not to attend Madame La Brosse to Quebec; +he looked at me with a spite in his countenance which charmed me to the +soul, and handed the fair lady to his carriole. + +I'll teach him to coquet, Lucy; let him take his Madame La Brosse: +indeed, as her husband is at Montreal, I don't see how he can avoid +pursuing his conquest: I am delighted, because I know she is his +aversion. + +Emily calls me to cards. Adieu! my dear little Lucy. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 96. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec. + +Pall Mall, January 3. + +I have but a moment, my dear Ned, to tell you, that without so much +as asking your leave, and in spite of all your wise admonitions, your +lovely sister has this morning consented to make me the happiest of +mankind: to-morrow gives me all that is excellent and charming in +woman. + +You are to look on my writing this letter as the strongest proof I +ever did, or ever can give you of my friendship. I must love you with +no common affection to remember at this moment that there is such a man +in being: perhaps you owe this recollection only to your being brother +to the loveliest woman nature ever formed; whose charms in a month +have done more towards my conversion than seven years of your preaching +would have done. I am going back to Clarges Street. Adieu! + + Yours, &c. + John Temple. + + + +LETTER 97. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec. + +Clarges Street, January 3. + +I am afraid you knew very little of the sex, my dear brother, when +you cautioned me so strongly against loving Mr. Temple: I should +perhaps, with all his merit, have never thought of him but for that +caution. + +There is something very interesting to female curiosity in the idea +of these very formidable men, whom no woman can see without danger; we +gaze on the terrible creature at a distance, see nothing in him so very +alarming; he approaches, our little hearts palpitate with fear, he is +gentle, attentive, respectful; we are surprized at this respect, we are +sure the world wrongs the dear civil creature; he flatters, we are +pleased with his flattery; our little hearts still palpitate--but not +with fear. + +In short, my dear brother, if you wish to serve a friend with us, +describe him as the most dangerous of his sex; the very idea that he is +so, makes us think resistance vain, and we throw down our defensive +arms in absolute despair. + +I am not sure this is the reason of my discovering Mr. Temple to be +the most amiable of men; but of this I am certain, that I love him with +the most lively affection, and that I am convinced, notwithstanding all +you have said, that he deserves all my tenderness. + +Indeed, my dear prudent brother, you men fancy yourselves extremely +wise and penetrating, but you don't know each other half so well as we +know you: I shall make Temple in a few weeks as tame a domestic animal +as you can possibly be, even with your Emily. + +I hope you won't be very angry with me for accepting an agreable +fellow, and a coach and six: if you are, I can only say, that finding +the dear man steal every day upon my heart, and recollecting how very +dangerous a creature he was, + + "I held it both safest and best + To marry, for fear you should chide." + + Adieu! + Your affectionate, &c. + Lucy Rivers. + + +Please to observe, mamma was on Mr. Temple's side, and that I only +take him from obedience to her commands. He has behaved like an angel +to her; but I leave himself to explain how: she has promised to live +with us. We are going a party to Richmond, and only wait for Mr. +Temple. + +With all my pertness, I tremble at the idea that to-morrow will +determine the happiness or misery of my life. + + Adieu! my dearest brother. + + + +LETTER 98. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Quebec, March 21. + +Were I convinced of your conversion, my dear Jack, I should be the +happiest man breathing in the thought of your marrying my sister; but I +tremble lest this resolution should be the effect of passion merely, +and not of that settled esteem and tender confidence without which +mutual repentance will be the necessary consequence of your connexion. + +Lucy is one of the most beautiful women I ever knew, but she has +merits of a much superior kind; her understanding and her heart are +equally lovely: she has also a sensibility which exceedingly alarms me +for her, as I know it is next to impossible that even her charms can +fix a heart so long accustomed to change. + +Do I not guess too truly, my dear Temple, when I suppose the +charming mistress is the only object you have in view; and that the +tender amiable friend, the pleasing companion, the faithful confidante, +is forgot? + +I will not however anticipate evils: if any merit has power to fix +you, Lucy's cannot fail of doing it. + +I expect with impatience a further account of an event in which my +happiness is so extremely interested. + +If she is yours, may you know her value, and you cannot fail of +being happy: I only fear from your long habit of improper attachments; +naturally, I know not a heart filled with nobler sentiments than yours, +nor is there on earth a man for whom I have equal esteem. Adieu! + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 99. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Quebec, March 23. + +I have received your second letter, my dear Temple, with the account +of your marriage. + +Nothing could make me so happy as an event which unites a sister I +idolize to the friend on earth most dear to me, did I not tremble for +your future happiness, from my perfect knowledge of both. + +I know the sensibility of Lucy's temper, and that she loves you: I +know also the difficulty of weaning the heart from such a habit of +inconstancy as you have unhappily acquired. + +Virtues like Lucy's will for ever command your esteem and +friendship; but in marriage it is equally necessary to keep love alive: +her beauty, her gaiety, her delicacy, will do much; but it is also +necessary, my dearest Temple, that you keep a guard on your heart, +accustomed to liberty, to give way to every light impression. + +I need not tell you, who have experienced the truth of what I say, +that happiness is not to be found in a life of intrigue; there is no +real pleasure in the possession of beauty without the heart; with it, +the fears, the anxieties, a man not absolutely destitute of humanity +must feel for the honor of her who ventures more than life for him, +must extremely counterbalance his transports. + +Of all the situations this world affords, a marriage of choice gives +the fairest prospect of happiness; without love, life would be a +tasteless void; an unconnected human being is the most wretched of all +creatures: by love I would be understood to mean that tender lively +friendship, that mixed sensation, which the libertine never felt; and +with which I flatter myself my amiable sister cannot fail of inspiring +a heart naturally virtuous, however at present warped by a foolish +compliance with the world. + +I hope, my dear Temple, to see you recover your taste for those +pleasures peculiarly fitted to our natures; to see you enjoy the pure +delights of peaceful domestic life, the calm social evening hour, the +circle of friends, the prattling offspring, and the tender impassioned +smile of real love. + +Your generosity is no more than I expected from your character; and +to convince you of my perfect esteem, I so far accept it, as to draw +out the money I have in the funds, which I intended for my sister: it +will make my settlement here turn to greater advantage, and I allow you +the pleasure of convincing Lucy of the perfect disinterestedness of +your affection: it would be a trifle to you, and will make me happy. + +But I am more delicate in regard to my mother, and will never +consent to resume the estate I have settled on her: I esteem you above +all mankind, but will not let _her_ be dependent even on you: I +consent she visit you as often as she pleases, but insist on her +continuing her house in town, and living in every respect as she has +been accustomed. + +As to Lucy's own little fortune, as it is not worth your receiving, +suppose she lays it out in jewels? I love to see beauty adorned; and +two thousand pounds, added to what you have given her, will set her on +a footing in this respect with a nabobess. + +Your marriage, my dear Temple, removes the strongest objection to +mine; the money I have in the funds, which whilst Lucy was unmarried I +never would have taken, enables me to fix to great advantage here. I +have now only to try whether Emily's friendship for me is sufficiently +strong to give up all hopes of a return to England. + +I shall make an immediate trial: you shall know the event in a few +days. If she refuses me, I bid adieu to all my schemes, and embark in +the first ship. + +Give my kindest tenderest wishes to my mother and sister. My dear +Temple, only know the value of the treasure you possess, and you must +be happy. Adieu! + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 100. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +My Lord, + +Silleri, March 24. + +Nothing can be more just than your Lordship's observation; and I am +the more pleased with it, as it coincides with what I had the honor of +saying to you in my last, in regard to the impropriety, the cruelty, +I had almost said the injustice, of your intention of deserting that +world of which you are at once the ornament and the example. + +Good people, as your Lordship observes, are generally too retired +and abstracted to let their example be of much service to the world: +whereas the bad, on the contrary, are conspicuous to all; they stand +forth, they appear on the fore ground of the picture, and force +themselves into observation. + +'Tis to that circumstance, I am persuaded, we may attribute that +dangerous and too common mistake, that vice is natural to the human +heart, and virtuous characters the creatures of fancy; a mistake of the +most fatal tendency, as it tends to harden our hearts, and destroy +that mutual confidence so necessary to keep the bands of society from +loosening, and without which man is the most ferocious of all beasts +of prey. + +Would all those whose virtues like your Lordship's are adorned by +politeness and knowledge of the world, mix more in society, we should +soon see vice hide her head: would all the good appear in full view, +they would, I am convinced, be found infinitely the majority. + +Virtue is too lovely to be hid in cells, the world is her scene of +action: she is soft, gentle, indulgent; let her appear then in her own +form, and she must charm: let politeness be for ever her attendant, +that politeness which can give graces even to vice itself, which makes +superiority easy, removes the sense of inferiority, and adds to every +one's enjoyment both of himself and others. + +I am interrupted, and must postpone till to-morrow what I have +further to say to your Lordship. I have the honor to be, my Lord, + + Your Lordship's, &c. + W. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 101. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, March 25. + +Your brother, my dear Lucy, has made me happy in communicating to me +the account he has received of your marriage. I know Temple; he is, +besides being very handsome, a fine, sprightly, agreable fellow, and is +particularly formed to keep a woman's mind in that kind of play, that +gentle agitation, which will for ever secure her affection. + +He has in my opinion just as much coquetry as is necessary to +prevent marriage from degenerating into that sleepy kind of existence, +which to minds of the awakened turn of yours and mine would be +insupportable. + +He has also a fine fortune, which I hold to be a pretty enough +ingredient in marriage. + +In short, he is just such a man, upon the whole, as I should have +chose for myself. + +Make my congratulations to the dear man, and tell him, if he is not +the happiest man in the world, he will forfeit all his pretensions to +taste; and if he does not make you the happiest woman, he forfeits all +title to my favor, as well as to the favor of the whole sex. + +I meant to say something civil; but, to tell you the truth, I am not +_en train_; I am excessively out of humor: Fitzgerald has not been +here of several days, but spends his whole time in gallanting Madame +La Brosse, a woman to whom he knows I have an aversion, and who has +nothing but a tolerable complexion and a modest assurance to recommend +her. + +I certainly gave him some provocation, but this is too much: +however, 'tis very well; I don't think I shall break my heart, though +my vanity is a little piqued. I may perhaps live to take my revenge. + +I am hurt, because I began really to like the creature; a secret +however to which he is happily a stranger. I shall see him to-morrow at +the governor's, and suppose he will be in his penitentials: I have some +doubt whether I shall let him dance with me; yet it would look so +particular to refuse him, that I believe I shall do him the honor. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + A. Fermor. + +26th, Thursday, 11 at night. + +No, Lucy, if I forgive him this, I have lost all the free spirit of +woman; he had the insolence to dance with Madame La Brosse to-night at +the governor's. I never will forgive him. There are men perhaps quite +his equals!--but 'tis no matter--I do him too much honor to be +piqued--yet on the footing we were--I could not have believed-- + + Adieu! + + +I was so certain he would have danced with me, that I refused +Colonel H----, one of the most agreable men in the place, and therefore +could not dance at all. Nothing hurt me so much as the impertinent +looks of the women; I could cry for vexation. + +Would your brother have behaved thus to Emily? but why do I name +other men with your brother! do you know he and Emily had the +good-nature to refuse to dance, that my sitting still might be the less +taken notice of? We all played at cards, and Rivers contrived to be of +my party, by which he would have won Emily's heart if he had not had it +before. + + Good night. + + + +LETTER 102. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Quebec, March 27. + +I have been twice at Silleri with the intention of declaring my +passion, and explaining my situation, to Emily; but have been prevented +by company, which made it impossible for me to find the opportunity I +wished. + +Had I found that opportunity, I am not sure I should have made use +of it; a degree of timidity is inseparable from true tenderness; and I +am afraid of declaring myself a lover, lest, if not beloved, I should +lose the happiness I at present possess in visiting her as her friend: +I cannot give up the dear delight I find in seeing her, in hearing her +voice, in tracing and admiring every sentiment of that lovely +unaffected generous mind as it rises. + +In short, my Lucy, I cannot live without her esteem and friendship; +and though her eyes, her attention to me, her whole manner, encourage +me in the hope of being beloved, yet the possibility of my being +mistaken makes me dread an explanation by which I hazard losing the +lively pleasure I find in her friendship. + +This timidity however must be conquered; 'tis pardonable to feel +it, but not to give way to it. I have ordered my carriole, and am +determined to make my attack this very morning like a man of courage +and a soldier. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + +A letter from Bell Fermor, to whom I wrote this morning on the +subject: + +"To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec. + +Silleri, Friday morning. + +"You are a foolish creature, and know nothing of women. Dine at +Silleri, and we will air after dinner; 'tis a glorious day, and if you +are timid in a covered carriole, I give you up. + + "Adieu! + Yours, + A. Fermor." + + + +LETTER 103. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Quebec, March 27, 11 at night. + +She is an angel, my dear Lucy, and no words can do her justice: I am +the happiest of mankind; I painted my passion with all the moving +eloquence of undissembled love; she heard me with the most flattering +attention; she said little, but her looks, her air, her tone of voice, +her blushes, her very silence--how could I ever doubt her tenderness? +have not those lovely eyes a thousand times betrayed the dear secret of +her heart? + +My Lucy, we were formed for each other; our souls are of +intelligence; every thought, every idea--from the first moment I +beheld her--I have a thousand things to say, but the tumult of my +joy--she has given me leave to write to her; what has she not said in +that permission? + +I cannot go to bed; I will go and walk an hour on the battery; 'tis +the loveliest night I ever beheld, even in Canada: the day is scarce +brighter. + +One in the morning. + +I have had the sweetest walk imaginable: the moon shines with a +splendor I never saw before; a thousand streaming meteors add to her +brightness; I have stood gazing on the lovely planet, and delighting +myself with the idea that 'tis the same moon that lights my Emily. + +Good night, my Lucy! I love you beyond all expression; I always +loved you tenderly, but there is a softness about my heart +to-night--this lovely woman-- + +I know not what I would say, but till this night I could never be +said to live. + + Adieu! Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 104. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Quebec, 28th March. + +I had this morning a short billet from her dear hand, entreating me +to make up a quarrel between Bell Fermor and her lover: your friend has +been indiscreet; her spirit of coquetry is eternally carrying her +wrong; but in my opinion Fitzgerald has been at least equally to blame. + +His behaviour at the governor's on Thursday night was inexcusable, +as it exposed her to the sneers of a whole circle of her own sex, many +of them jealous of her perfections. + +A lover should overlook little caprices, where the heart is good and +amiable like Bell's: I should think myself particularly obliged to +bring this affair to an amicable conclusion, even if Emily had not +desired it, as I was originally the innocent cause of their quarrel. In +my opinion he ought to beg her pardon; and, as a friend tenderly +interested for both, I have a right to tell him I think so: he loves +her, and I know must suffer greatly, though a foolish pride prevents +his acknowledging it. + +My greatest fear is, that an idle resentment may engage him in an +intrigue with the lady in question, who is a woman of gallantry, and +whom he may find very troublesome hereafter. It is much easier to +commence an affair of this kind than to break it off; and a man, though +his heart was disengaged, should be always on his guard against any +thing like an attachment where his affections are not really +interested: meer passion or meer vanity will support an affair _en +passant_; but, where the least degree of constancy and attention are +expected, the heart must feel, or the lover is subjecting himself to a +slavery as irksome as a marriage without inclination. + +Temple will tell you I speak like an oracle; for I have often seen +him led by vanity into this very disagreable situation: I hope I am not +too late to save Fitzgerald from it. + +Six in the evening. + +All goes well: his proud heart is come down, he has begged her +pardon, and is forgiven; you have no idea how civil both are to me, +for having persuaded them to do what each of them has longed to do from +the first moment: I love to advise, when I am sure the heart of the +person advised is on my side. Both were to blame, but I always love to +save the ladies from any thing mortifying to the dignity of their +characters; a little pride in love becomes them, but not us; and 'tis +always our part to submit on these occasions. + +I never saw two happier people than they are at present, as I have a +little preserved decorum on both sides, and taken the whole trouble of +the reconciliation on myself: Bell knows nothing of my having applied +to Fitzgerald, nor he that I did it at Emily's request: my conversation +with him on this subject seemed accidental. I was obliged to leave +them, having business in town; but my lovely Emily thanked me by a +smile which would overpay a thousand such little services. + +I am to spend to-morrow at Silleri: how long shall I think this +evening! + +Adieu! my tenderest wishes attend you all! + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 105. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, March 27, evening. + +Fitzgerald has been here, and has begged my pardon; he declares he +had no thought of displeasing me at the governor's, but from my +behaviour was afraid of importuning me if he addressed me as usual. + +I thought who would come to first; for my part, if he had stayed +away for ever, I would not have suffered papa to invite him to Silleri: +it was easy to see his neglect was all pique; it would have been +extraordinary indeed if such a woman as Madame La Brosse could have +rivalled me: I am something younger; and, if either my glass or the men +are to be believed, as handsome: _entre nous_, there is some +little difference; if she was not so very fair, she would be +absolutely ugly; and these very fair women, you know, Lucy, are always +insipid; she is the taste of no man breathing, though eternally making +advances to every man; without spirit, fire, understanding, vivacity, +or any quality capable of making amends for the mediocrity of her +charms. + +Her insolence in attempting to attach Fitzgerald is intolerable, +especially when the whole province knows him to be my lover: there is +no expressing to what a degree I hate her. + +The next time we meet I hope to return her impertinence on Thursday +night at the governor's; I will never forgive Fitzgerald if he takes +the least notice of her. + +Emily has read my letter; and says she did not think I had so much +of the woman in me; insists on my being civil to Madame La Brosse, but +if I am, Lucy-- + +These Frenchwomen are not to be supported; they fancy vanity and +assurance are to make up for the want of every other virtue; forgetting +that delicacy, softness, sensibility, tenderness, are attractions to +which they are strangers: some of them here are however tolerably +handsome, and have a degree of liveliness which makes them not quite +insupportable. + +You will call all this spite, as Emily does, so I will say no more: +only that, in order to shew her how very easy it is to be civil to a +rival, I wish for the pleasure of seeing another French lady, that I +could mention, at Quebec. + +Good night, my dear! tell Temple, I am every thing but in love with +him. + + Your faithful, + A. Fermor. + +I will however own, I encouraged Fitzgerald by a kind look. I was +so pleased at his return, that I could not keep up the farce of disdain +I had projected: in love affairs, I am afraid, we are all fools alike. + + + +LETTER 106. + + +To Miss Fermor. + +Saturday noon. + +Come to my dressing-room, my dear; I have a thousand things to say +to you: I want to talk of my Rivers, to tell you all the weakness of my +soul. + +No, my dear, I cannot love him more, a passion like mine will not +admit addition; from the first moment I saw him my whole soul was his: +I knew not that I was dear to him; but true genuine love is +self-existent, and does not depend on being beloved: I should have +loved him even had he been attached to another. + +This declaration has made me the happiest of my sex; but it has not +increased, it could not increase, my tenderness: with what softness, +what diffidence, what respect, what delicacy, was this declaration +made! my dear friend, he is a god, and my ardent affection for him is +fully justified. + +I love him--no words can speak how much I love him. + +My passion for him is the first and shall be the last of my life: my +bosom never heaved a sigh but for my Rivers. + +Will you pardon the folly of a heart which till now was ashamed to +own its feelings, and of which you are even now the only confidante? + +I find all the world so insipid, nothing amuses me one moment; in +short, I have no pleasure but in Rivers's conversation, nor do I count +the hours of his absence in my existence. + +I know all this will be called folly, but it is a folly which makes +all the happiness of my life. + +You love, my dear Bell; and therefore will pardon the weakness of +your + + Emily. + + + +LETTER 107. + + +To Miss Montague. + +Saturday. + +Yes, my dear, I love, at least I think so; but, thanks to my stars, +not in the manner you do. + +I prefer Fitzgerald to all the rest of his sex; but _I count the +hours of his absence in my existence_; and contrive sometimes to +pass them pleasantly enough, if any other agreable man is in the way: +in short, I relish flattery and attention from others, though I +infinitely prefer them from him. + +I certainly love him, for I was jealous of Madame La Brosse; but, in +general, I am not alarmed when I see him flirt a little with others. +Perhaps my vanity was as much wounded as my love, with regard to Madame +La Brosse. + +I find love is quite a different plant in different soils; it is an +exotic, and grows faintly, with us coquets; but in its native climate +with you people of sensibility and sentiment. + +Adieu! I will attend you in a quarter of an hour. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 108. + + +To Miss Fermor. + +Not alarmed, my dear, at his attention to others? believe me, you +know nothing of love. + +I think every woman who beholds my Rivers a rival; I imagine I see +in every female countenance a passion tender and lively as my own; I +turn pale, my heart dies within me, if I observe his eyes a moment +fixed on any other woman; I tremble at the possibility of his changing; +I cannot support the idea that the time may come when I may be less +dear to my Rivers than at present. Do you believe it possible, my +dearest Bell, for any heart, not prepossessed, to be insensible one +moment to my Rivers? + +He is formed to charm the soul of woman; his delicacy, his +sensibility, the mind that speaks through those eloquent eyes; the +thousand graces of his air, the sound of his voice--my dear, I never +heard him speak without feeling a softness of which it is impossible to +convey an idea. + +But I am wrong to encourage a tenderness which is already too great; +I will think less of him; I will not talk of him; do not speak of him +to me, my dear Bell: talk to me of Fitzgerald; there is no danger of +your passion becoming too violent. + +I wish you loved more tenderly, my dearest; you would then be more +indulgent to my weakness: I am ashamed of owning it even to you. + +Ashamed, did I say? no, I rather glory in loving the most amiable, +the most angelic of mankind. + +Speak of him to me for ever; I abhor all conversation of which he is +not the subject. I am interrupted. Adieu! + + Your faithful + Emily. + + +My dearest, I tremble; he is at the door; how shall I meet him +without betraying all the weakness of my heart? come to me this moment, +I will not go down without you. Your father is come to fetch me; +follow me, I entreat: I cannot see him alone; my heart is too much +softened at this moment. He must not know to what excess he is beloved. + + + +LETTER 109. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Quebec, March 28. + +I am at present, my dear Lucy, extremely embarrassed; Madame Des +Roches is at Quebec: it is impossible for me not to be more than polite +to her; yet my Emily has all my heart, and demands all my attention; +there is but one way of seeing them both as often as I wish; 'tis to +bring them as often as possible together: I wish extremely that Emily +would visit her, but 'tis a point of the utmost delicacy to manage. + +Will it not on reflection be cruel to Madame Des Roches? I know her +generosity of mind, but I also know the weakness of the human heart: +can she see with pleasure a beloved rival? + +My Lucy, I never so much wanted your advice: I will consult Bell +Fermor, who knows every thought of my Emily's heart. + +Eleven o'clock. + +I have visited Madame Des Roches at her relation's; she received me +with a pleasure which was too visible not to be observed by all +present: she blushed, her voice faltered when she addressed me; her +eyes had a softness which seemed to reproach my insensibility: I was +shocked at the idea of having inspired her with a tenderness not in my +power to return; I was afraid of increasing that tenderness; I scarce +dared to meet her looks. + +I felt a criminal in the presence of this amiable woman; for both +our sakes, I must see her seldom: yet what an appearance will my +neglect have, after the attention she has shewed me, and the friendship +she has expressed for me to all the world? + +I know not what to determine. I am going to Silleri. Adieu till my +return. + +Eight o'clock. + +I have entreated Emily to admit Madame Des Roches among the number +of her friends, and have asked her to visit her to-morrow morning: she +changed color at my request, but promised to go. + +I almost repent of what I have done: I am to attend Emily and Bell +Fermor to Madame Des Roches in the morning: I am afraid I shall +introduce them with a very bad grace. Adieu! + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 110. + + +To Miss Fermor. + +Sunday morning. + +Could you have believed he would have expected such a proof of my +desire to oblige him? but what can he ask that his Emily will refuse? I +will see this _friend_ of his, this Madame Des Roches; I will even +love her, if it is in woman to be so disinterested. She loves him; he +sees her; they say she is amiable; I could have wished her visit to +Quebec had been delayed. + +But he comes; he looks up; his eyes seem to thank me for this excess +of complaisance: what is there I would not do to give him pleasure? + +Six o'clock. + +Do you think her so very pleasing, my dear Bell? she has fine eyes, +but have they not more fire than softness? There was a vivacity in her +manner which hurt me extremely: could she have behaved with such +unconcern, had she loved as I do? + +Do you think it possible, Bell, for a Frenchwoman to love? is not +vanity the ruling passion of their hearts? + +May not Rivers be deceived in supposing her so much attached to him? +was there not some degree of affectation in her particular attention to +me? I cannot help thinking her artful. + +Perhaps I am prejudiced: she may be amiable, but I will own she does +not please me. + +Rivers begged me to have a friendship for her; I am afraid this is +more than is in my power: friendship, like love, is the child of +sympathy, not of constraint. + + Adieu! Yours, + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 111. + + +To Miss Montague. + +Monday. + +The inclosed, my dear, is as much to you as to me, perhaps more; I +pardon the lady for thinking you the handsomest. Is not this the +strongest proof I could give of my friendship? perhaps I should have +been piqued, however, had the preference been given by a man; but I +can with great tranquillity allow you to be the women's beauty. + +Dictate an answer to your little Bell, who waits your commands at +her bureau. + + Adieu! + +"To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Monday. + +"You and your lovely friend obliged me beyond words, my dear Bell, +by your visit of yesterday: Madame Des Roches is charmed with you +both: you will not be displeased when I tell you she gives Emily the +preference; she says she is beautiful as an angel; that she should +think the man insensible, who could see her without love; that she is +_touchant_, to use her own word, beyond any thing she ever beheld. + +"She however does justice to your charms, though Emily's seem to +affect her most. She even allows you to be perhaps more the taste of +men in general. + +"She intends paying her respects to you and Emily this afternoon; +and has sent to desire me to conduct her. As it is so far, I would wish +to find you at home. + + "Yours, + Ed. Rivers." + + + +LETTER 112. + + +To Miss Fermor. + +Always Madame Des Roches! but let her come: indeed, my dear, she is +artful; she gains upon him by this appearance of generosity; I cannot +return it, I do not love her; yet I will receive her with politeness. + +He is to drive her too; but 'tis no matter; if the tenderest +affection can secure his heart, I have nothing to fear: loving him as I +do, it is impossible not to be apprehensive: indeed, my dear, he knows +not how I love him. + + Adieu! + Your Emily. + + + +LETTER 113. + + +To Miss Fermor. + +Monday evening. + +Surely I am the weakest of my weak sex; I am ashamed to tell you all +my feelings: I cannot conquer my dislike to Madame Des Roches: she +said a thousand obliging things to me, she praised my Rivers; I made +her no answer, I even felt tears ready to start; what must she think of +me? there is a meanness in my jealousy of her, which I cannot forgive +myself. + +I cannot account for her attention to me, it is not natural; she +behaved to me not only with politeness, but with the appearance of +affection; she seemed to feel and pity my confusion. She is either the +most artful, or the most noble of women. + + Adieu! + Your + Emily. + + + +LETTER 114. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, March 29. + +We are going to dine at a farm house in the country, where we are to +meet other company, and have a ball: the snow begins a little to +soften, from the warmth of the sun, which is greater than in England in +May. Our winter parties are almost at an end. + +My father drives Madame Des Roches, who is of our party, and your +brother Emily; I hope the little fool will be easy now, Lucy; she is +very humble, to be jealous of one, who, though really very pleasing, is +neither so young nor so handsome as herself; and who professes to wish +only for Rivers's friendship. + +But I have no right to say a word on this subject, after having been +so extremely hurt at Fitzgerald's attention to such a woman as Madame +La Brosse; an attention too which was so plainly meant to pique me. + +We are all, I am afraid, a little absurd in these affairs, and +therefore ought to have some degree of indulgence for others. + +Emily and I, however, differ in our ideas of love: it is the +business of her life, the amusement of mine; 'tis the food of her +hours, the seasoning of mine. + +Or, in other words, she loves like a foolish woman, I like a +sensible man: for men, you know, compared to women, love in about the +proportion of one to twenty. + +'Tis a mighty wrong thing, after all, Lucy, that parents will +educate creatures so differently, who are to live with and for each +other. + +Every possible means is used, even from infancy, to soften the minds +of women, and to harden those of men; the contrary endeavor might be of +use, for the men creatures are unfeeling enough by nature, and we are +born too tremblingly alive to love, and indeed to every soft affection. + +Your brother is almost the only one of his sex I know, who has the +tenderness of woman with the spirit and firmness of man: a circumstance +which strikes every woman who converses with him, and which contributes +to make him the favorite he is amongst us. Foolish women who cannot +distinguish characters may possibly give the preference to a coxcomb; +but I will venture to say, no woman of sense was ever much acquainted +with Colonel Rivers without feeling for him an affection of some kind +or other. + +_A propos_ to women, the estimable part of us are divided into +two classes only, the tender and the lively. + +The former, at the head of which I place Emily, are infinitely more +capable of happiness; but, to counterbalance this advantage, they are +also capable of misery in the same degree. We of the other class, who +feel less keenly, are perhaps upon the whole as happy, at least I would +fain think so. + +For example, if Emily and I marry our present lovers, she will +certainly be more exquisitely happy than I shall; but if they should +change their minds, or any accident prevent our coming together, I am +inclined to fancy my situation would be much the most agreable. + +I should pout a month, and then look about for another lover; whilst +the tender Emily would + + "Sit like patience on a monument," + +and pine herself into a consumption. + +Adieu! They wait for me. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + +Tuesday, midnight. + +We have had a very agreable day, Lucy, a pretty enough kind of a +ball, and every body in good humor: I danced with Fitzgerald, whom I +never knew so agreable. + +Happy love is gay, I find; Emily is all sprightliness, your +brother's eyes have never left her one moment, and her blushes seemed +to shew her sense of the distinction; I never knew her look so handsome +as this day. + +Do you know I felt for Madame Des Roches? Emily was excessively +complaisant to her: she returned her civility, but I could perceive a +kind of constraint in her manner, very different from the ease of her +behaviour when we saw her before: she felt the attention of Rivers to +Emily very strongly: in short, the ladies seemed to have changed +characters for the day. + +We supped with your brother on our return, and from his windows, +which look on the river St. Charles, had the pleasure of observing one +of the most beautiful objects imaginable, which I never remember to +have seen before this evening. + +You are to observe the winter method of fishing here, is to break +openings like small fish ponds on the ice, to which the fish coming for +air, are taken in prodigious quantities on the surface. + +To shelter themselves from the excessive cold of the night, the +fishermen build small houses of ice on the river, which are arranged in +a semicircular form, and extend near a quarter of a mile, and which, +from the blazing fires within, have a brilliant transparency and vivid +lustre, not easy either to imagine or to describe: the starry +semicircle looks like an immense crescent of diamonds, on which the sun +darts his meridian rays. + +Absolutely, Lucy, you see nothing in Europe: you are cultivated, you +have the tame beauties of art; but to see nature in her lovely wild +luxuriance, you must visit your brother when he is prince of the +Kamaraskas. + + Adieu! + Your faithful + A. Fermor. + + +The variety, as well of grand objects, as of amusements, in this +country, confirms me in an opinion I have always had, that Providence +had made the conveniences and inconveniences of life nearly equal every +where. + +We have pleasures here even in winter peculiar to the climate, which +counterbalance the evils we suffer from its rigor. + +Good night, my dear Lucy! + + + +LETTER 115. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Quebec, April 2. + +I have this moment, my dear, a letter from Montreal, describing some +lands on Lake Champlain, which my friend thinks much better worth my +taking than those near the Kamaraskas: he presses me to come up +immediately to see them, as the ice on the rivers will in a few days be +dangerous to travel on. + +I am strongly inclined to go, and for this reason; I am convinced my +wish of bringing about a friendship between Emily and Madame Des +Roches, the strongest reason I had for fixing at the Kamaraskas, was an +imprudent one: gratitude and (if the expression is not impertinent) +compassion give me a softness in my behaviour to the latter, which a +superficial observer would take for love, and which her own tenderness +may cause even her to misconstrue; a circumstance which must retard her +resolution of changing the affection with which she has honored me, +into friendship. + +I am also delicate in my love, and cannot bear to have it one moment +supposed, my heart can know a wish but for my Emily. + +Shall I say more? The blush on Emily's cheek on her first seeing +Madame Des Roches convinced me of my indiscretion, and that vanity +alone carried me to desire to bring together two women, whose affection +for me is from their extreme merit so very flattering. + +I shall certainly now fix in Canada; I can no longer doubt of +Emily's tenderness, though she refuses me her hand, from motives which +make her a thousand times more dear to me, but which I flatter myself +love will over-rule. + +I am setting off in an hour for Montreal, and shall call at Silleri +to take Emily's commands. + +Seven in the evening, Des Chambeaux. + +I asked her advice as to fixing the place of my settlement; she said +much against my staying in America at all; but, if I was determined, +recommended Lake Champlain rather than the Kamaraskas, on account of +climate. Bell smiled; and a blush, which I perfectly understood, +over-spread the lovely cheek of my sweet Emily. Nothing could be more +flattering than this circumstance; had she seen Madame Des Roches with +a calm indifference, had she not been alarmed at the idea of fixing +near her, I should have doubted of the degree of her affection; a +little apprehension is inseparable from real love. + +My courage has been to-day extremely put to the proof: had I staid +three days longer, it would have been impossible to have continued my +journey. + +The ice cracks under us at every step the horses set, a rather +unpleasant circumstance on a river twenty fathom deep: I should not +have attempted the journey had I been aware of this particular. I hope +no man meets inevitable danger with more spirit, but no man is less +fond of seeking it where it is honorably to be avoided. + +I am going to sup with the seigneur of the village, who is, I am +told, married to one of the handsomest women in the province. + +Adieu! my dear! I shall write to you from Montreal. + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 116. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Montreal, April 3. + +I am arrived, my dear, after a very disagreable and dangerous +journey; I was obliged to leave the river soon after I left Des +Chambeaux, and to pursue my way on the land over melting snow, into +which the horses feet sunk half a yard every step. + +An officer just come from New York has given me a letter from you, +which came thither by a private ship: I am happy to hear of your +health, and that Temple's affection for you seems rather to increase +than lessen since your marriage. + +You ask me, my dear Lucy, how to preserve this affection, on the +continuance of which, you justly say, your whole happiness depends. + +The question is perhaps the most delicate and important which +respects human life; the caprice, the inconstancy, the injustice of +men, makes the task of women in marriage infinitely difficult. + +Prudence and virtue will certainly secure esteem; but, +unfortunately, esteem alone will not make a happy marriage; passion +must also be kept alive, which the continual presence of the object +beloved is too apt to make subside into that apathy, so insupportable +to sensible minds. + +The higher your rank, and the less your manner of life separates you +from each other, the more danger there will be of this indifference. + +The poor, whose necessary avocations divide them all day, and whose +sensibility is blunted by the coarseness of their education, are in no +danger of being weary of each other; and, unless naturally vicious, you +will see them generally happy in marriage; whereas even the virtuous, +in more affluent situations, are not secure from this unhappy cessation +of tenderness. + +When I received your letter, I was reading Madame De Maintenon's +advice to the Dutchess of Burgundy, on this subject. I will transcribe +so much of it as relates to _the woman_, leaving her advice +to _the princess_ to those whom it may concern. + +"Do not hope for perfect happiness; there is no such thing in this +sublunary state. + +"Your sex is the more exposed to suffer, because it is always in +dependence: be neither angry nor ashamed of this dependence on a +husband, nor of any of those which are in the order of Providence. + +"Let your husband be your best friend and your only confidant. + +"Do not hope that your union will procure you perfect peace: the +best marriages are those where with softness and patience they bear by +turns with each other; there are none without some contradiction and +disagreement. + +"Do not expect the same degree of friendship that you feel: men are +in general less tender than women; and you will be unhappy if you are +too delicate in friendship. + +"Beg of God to guard your heart from jealousy: do not hope to bring +back a husband by complaints, ill humor, and reproaches. The only means +which promise success, are patience and softness: impatience sours and +alienates hearts; softness leads them back to their duty. + +"In sacrificing your own will, pretend to no right over that of a +husband: men are more attached to theirs than women, because educated +with less constraint. + +"They are naturally tyrannical; they will have pleasures and +liberty, yet insist that women renounce both: do not examine whether +their rights are well founded; let it suffice to you, that they are +established; they are masters, we have only to suffer and obey with a +good grace." + +Thus far Madame De Maintenon, who must be allowed to have known the +heart of man, since, after having been above twenty years a widow, she +enflamed, even to the degree of bringing him to marry her, that of a +great monarch, younger than herself, surrounded by beauties, habituated +to flattery, in the plenitude of power, and covered with glory; and +retained him in her chains to the last moment of his life. + +Do not, however, my dear, be alarmed at the picture she has drawn of +marriage; nor fancy with her, that women are only born to suffer and +to obey. + +That we are generally tyrannical, I am obliged to own; but such of +us as know how to be happy, willingly give up the harsh title of +master, for the more tender and endearing one of friend; men of sense +abhor those customs which treat your sex as if created meerly for the +happiness of the other; a supposition injurious to the Deity, though +flattering to our tyranny and self-love; and wish only to bind you in +the soft chains of affection. + +Equality is the soul of friendship: marriage, to give delight, must +join two minds, not devote a slave to the will of an imperious lord; +whatever conveys the idea of subjection necessarily destroys that of +love, of which I am so convinced, that I have always wished the word +obey expunged from the marriage ceremony. + +If you will permit me to add my sentiments to those of a lady so +learned in the art of pleasing; I would wish you to study the taste of +your husband, and endeavor to acquire a relish for those pleasures +which appear most to affect him; let him find amusement at home, but +never be peevish at his going abroad; he will return to you with the +higher gust for your conversation: have separate apartments, since your +fortune makes it not inconvenient; be always elegant, but not too +expensive, in your dress; retain your present exquisite delicacy of +every kind; receive his friends with good-breeding and complacency; +contrive such little parties of pleasure as you know are agreable to +him, and with the most agreable people you can select: be lively even +to playfulness in your general turn of conversation with him; but, at +the same time, spare no pains so to improve your understanding, which +is an excellent one, as to be no less capable of being the companion of +his graver hours: be ignorant of nothing which it becomes your sex to +know, but avoid all affectation of knowledge: let your oeconomy be +exact, but without appearing otherwise than by the effect. + +Do not imitate those of your sex who by ill temper make a husband +pay dear for their fidelity; let virtue in you be drest in smiles; and +be assured that chearfulness is the native garb of innocence. + +In one word, my dear, do not lose the mistress in the wife, but let +your behaviour to him as a husband be such as you would have thought +most proper to attract him as a lover: have always the idea of pleasing +before you, and you cannot fail to please. + +Having lectured you, my dear Lucy, I must say a word to Temple: a +great variety of rules have been given for the conduct of women in +marriage; scarce any for that of men; as if it was not essential to +domestic happiness, that the man should preserve the heart of her with +whom he is to spend his life; or as if bestowing happiness were not +worth a man's attention, so he possessed it: if, however, it is +possible to feel true happiness without giving it. + +You, my dear Temple, have too just an idea of pleasure to think in +this manner: you would be beloved; it has been the pursuit of your +life, though never really attained perhaps before. You at present +possess a heart full of sensibility, a heart capable of loving with +ardor, and from the same cause as capable of being estranged by +neglect: give your whole attention to preserving this invaluable +treasure; observe every rule I have given to her, if you would be +happy; and believe me, the heart of woman is not less delicate than +tender; their sensibility is more keen, they feel more strongly than +we do, their tenderness is more easily wounded, and their hearts are +more difficult to recover if once lost. + +At the same time, they are both by nature and education more +constant, and scarce ever change the object of their affections but +from ill treatment: for which reason there is some excuse for a custom +which appears cruel, that of throwing contempt on the husband for the +ill conduct of the wife. + +Above all things, retain the politeness and attention of a lover; +and avoid that careless manner which wounds the vanity of human nature, +a passion given us, as were all passions, for the wisest ends, and +which never quits us but with life. + +There is a certain attentive tenderness, difficult to be described, +which the manly of our sex feel, and which is peculiarly pleasing to +woman: 'tis also a very delightful sensation to ourselves, as well as +productive of the happiest consequences: regarding them as creatures +placed by Providence under our protection, and depending on us for +their happiness, is the strongest possible tie of affection to a +well-turned mind. + +If I did not know Lucy perfectly, I should perhaps hesitate in the +next advice I am going to give you; which is, to make her the +confidante, and the _only_ confidante, of your gallantries, if you +are so unhappy as to be inadvertently betrayed into any: her heart will +possibly be at first a little wounded by the confession, but this proof +of perfect esteem will increase her friendship for you; she will regard +your error with compassion and indulgence, and lead you gently back by +her endearing tenderness to honor and herself. + +Of all tasks I detest that of giving advice; you are therefore +under infinite obligation to me for this letter. + +Be assured of my tenderest affection; and believe me, + + Yours, &c. + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 117. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +Silleri, April 8. + +Nothing can be more true, my Lord, than that poverty is ever the +inseparable companion of indolence. + +I see proofs of it every moment before me; with a soil fruitful +beyond all belief, the Canadians are poor on lands which are their own +property, and for which they pay only a trifling quit-rent to their +seigneurs. + +This indolence appears in every thing: you scarce see the meanest +peasant walking; even riding on horseback appears to them a fatigue +insupportable; you see them lolling at ease, like their lazy lords, in +carrioles and calashes, according to the season; a boy to guide the +horse on a seat in the front of the carriage, too lazy even to take the +trouble of driving themselves, their hands in winter folded in an +immense muff, though perhaps their families are in want of bread to eat +at home. + +The winter is passed in a mixture of festivity and inaction; dancing +and feasting in their gayer hours; in their graver smoking, and +drinking brandy, by the side of a warm stove: and when obliged to +cultivate the ground in spring to procure the means of subsistence, you +see them just turn the turf once lightly over, and, without manuring +the ground, or even breaking the clods of earth, throw in the seed in +the same careless manner, and leave the event to chance, without +troubling themselves further till it is fit to reap. + +I must, however, observe, as some alleviation, that there is +something in the climate which strongly inclines both the body and +mind, but rather the latter, to indolence: the heat of the summer, +though pleasing, enervates the very soul, and gives a certain lassitude +unfavorable to industry; and the winter, at its extreme, binds up and +chills all the active faculties of the soul. + +Add to this, that the general spirit of amusement, so universal here +in winter, and so necessary to prevent the ill effects of the season, +gives a habit of dissipation and pleasure, which makes labor doubly +irksome at its return. + +Their religion, to which they are extremely bigoted, is another +great bar, as well to industry as population: their numerous festivals +inure them to idleness; their religious houses rob the state of many +subjects who might be highly useful at present, and at the same time +retard the increase of the colony. + +Sloth and superstition equally counterwork providence, and render +the bounty of heaven of no effect. + +I am surprized the French, who generally make their religion +subservient to the purposes of policy, do not discourage convents, and +lessen the number of festivals, in the colonies, where both are so +peculiarly pernicious. + +It is to this circumstance one may in great measure attribute the +superior increase of the British American settlements compared to +those of France: a religion which encourages idleness, and makes a +virtue of celibacy, is particularly unfavorable to colonization. + +However religious prejudice may have been suffered to counterwork +policy under a French government, it is scarce to be doubted that this +cause of the poverty of Canada will by degrees be removed; that these +people, slaves at present to ignorance and superstition, will in time +be enlightened by a more liberal education, and gently led by reason to +a religion which is not only preferable, as being that of the country +to which they are now annexed, but which is so much more calculated to +make them happy and prosperous as a people. + +Till that time, till their prejudices subside, it is equally just, +humane, and wise, to leave them the free right of worshiping the Deity +in the manner which they have been early taught to believe the best, +and to which they are consequently attached. + +It would be unjust to deprive them of any of the rights of citizens +on account of religion, in America, where every other sect of +dissenters are equally capable of employ with those of the established +church; nay where, from whatever cause, the church of England is on a +footing in many colonies little better than a toleration. + +It is undoubtedly, in a political light, an object of consequence +every where, that the national religion, whatever it is, should be as +universal as possible, agreement in religious worship being the +strongest tie to unity and obedience; had all prudent means been used +to lessen the number of dissenters in our colonies, I cannot avoid +believing, from what I observe and hear, that we should have found in +them a spirit of rational loyalty, and true freedom, instead of that +factious one from which so much is to be apprehended. + +It seems consonant to reason, that the religion of every country +should have a relation to, and coherence with, the civil constitution: +the Romish religion is best adapted to a despotic government, the +presbyterian to a republican, and that of the church of England to a +limited monarchy like ours. + +As therefore the civil government of America is on the same plan +with that of the mother country, it were to be wished the religious +establishment was also the same, especially in those colonies where the +people are generally of the national church; though with the fullest +liberty of conscience to dissenters of all denominations. + +I would be clearly understood, my Lord; from all I have observed +here, I am convinced, nothing would so much contribute to diffuse a +spirit of order, and rational obedience, in the colonies, as the +appointment, under proper restrictions, of bishops: I am equally +convinced that nothing would so much strengthen the hands of +government, or give such pleasure to the well-affected in the colonies, +who are by much the most numerous, as such an appointment, however +clamored against by a few abettors of sedition. + +I am called upon for this letter, and must remit to another time +what I wished to say more to your Lordship in regard to this country. + + I have the honor to be, + My Lord, &c. + Wm. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 118. + + +To Mrs. Melmoth, at Montreal. + +Silleri, April 8. + +I am indeed, Madam, this inconsistent creature. I have at once +refused to marry Colonel Rivers, and owned to him all the tenderness of +my soul. + +Do not however think me mad, or suppose my refusal the effect of an +unmeaning childish affectation of disinterestedness: I can form to +myself no idea of happiness equal to that of spending my life with +Rivers, the best, the most tender, the most amiable of mankind; nor can +I support the idea of his marrying any other woman: I would therefore +marry him to-morrow were it possible without ruining him, without +dooming him to a perpetual exile, and obstructing those views of +honest ambition at home, which become his birth, his connexions, his +talents, his time of life; and with which, as his friend, it is my +duty to inspire him. + +His affection for me at present blinds him, he sees no object but me +in the whole universe; but shall I take advantage of that inebriation +of tenderness, to seduce him into a measure inconsistent with his real +happiness and interest? He must return to England, must pursue fortune +in that world for which he was formed: shall his Emily retard him in +the glorious race? shall she not rather encourage him in every laudable +attempt? shall she suffer him to hide that shining merit in the +uncultivated wilds of Canada, the seat of barbarism and ignorance, +which entitles him to hope a happy fate in the dear land of arts and +arms? + +I entreat you to do all you can to discourage his design. Remind him +that his sister's marriage has in some degree removed the cause of his +coming hither; that he can have now no motive for fixing here, but his +tenderness for me; that I shall be justly blamed by all who love him +for keeping him here. Tell him, I will not marry him in Canada; that +his stay makes the best mother in the world wretched; that he owes his +return to himself, nay to his Emily, whose whole heart is set on seeing +him in a situation worthy of him: though without ambition as to myself, +I am proud, I am ambitious for him; if he loves me, he will gratify +that pride, that ambition; and leave Canada to those whose duty +confines them here, or whose interest it is to remain unseen. Let him +not once think of me in his determination: I am content to be beloved, +and will leave all else to time. You cannot so much oblige or serve me, +as by persuading Colonel Rivers to return to England. + + Believe me, my dear Madam, + Your affectionate + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 119. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, April 9. + +Your brother, my dear, is gone to Montreal to look out for a +settlement, and Emily to spend a fortnight at Quebec, with a lady she +knew in England, who is lately arrived from thence by New York. + +I am lost without my friend, though my lover endeavors in some +degree to supply her place; he lays close siege; I know not how long I +shall be able to hold out: this fine weather is exceedingly in his +favor; the winter freezes up all the avenues to the heart; but this +sprightly April sun thaws them again amazingly. I was the cruellest +creature breathing whilst the chilly season lasted, but can answer for +nothing now the sprightly May is approaching. + +I can see papa is vastly in Fitzgerald's interest; but he knows our +sex well enough to keep this to himself. + +I shall, however, for decency's sake, ask his opinion on the affair +as soon as I have taken my resolution; which is the very time at which +all the world ask advice of their friends. + +A letter from Emily, which I must answer: she is extremely absurd, +which your tender lovers always are. + + Adieu! yours, + A. Fermor. + +Sir George Clayton had left Montreal some days before your brother +arrived there; I was pleased to hear it, because, with all your +brother's good sense, and concern for Emily's honor, and Sir George's +natural coldness of temper, a quarrel between them would have been +rather difficult to have been avoided. + + + +LETTER 120. + + +To Miss Fermor. + +Quebec, Thursday morning. + +Do you think, my dear, that Madame Des Roches has heard from Rivers? +I wish you would ask her this afternoon at the governor's: I am +anxious to know, but ashamed to enquire. + +Not, my dear, that I have the weakness to be jealous; but I shall +think his letter to me a higher compliment, if I know he writes to +nobody else. I extremely approve his friendship for Madame Des Roches; +she is very amiable, and certainly deserves it: but you know, Bell, it +would be cruel to encourage an affection, which she must conquer, or be +unhappy: if she did not love him, there would be nothing wrong in his +writing to her; but, as she does, it would be doing her the greatest +injury possible: 'tis as much on her account as my own I am thus +anxious. + +Did you ever read so tender, yet so lively a letter as Rivers's to +me? he is alike in all: there is in his letters, as in his +conversation, + + "All that can softly win, or gaily charm + The heart of woman." + +Even strangers listen to him with an involuntary attention, and hear +him with a pleasure for which they scarce know how to account. + +He charms even without intending it, and in spite of himself; but +when he wishes to please, when he addresses the woman he loves, when +his eyes speak the soft language of his heart, when your Emily reads +in them the dear confession of his tenderness, when that melodious +voice utters the sentiments of the noblest mind that ever animated a +human form--My dearest, the eloquence of angels cannot paint my Rivers +as he is. + +I am almost inclined not to go to the governor's to-night; I am +determined not to dance till Rivers returns, and I know there are too +many who will be ready to make observations on my refusal: I think I +will stay at home, and write to him against Monday's post: I have a +thousand things to say, and you know we are continually interrupted at +Quebec; I shall have this evening to myself, as all the world will be +at the governor's. + + Adieu, your faithful + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 121. + + +To Miss Montague, at Quebec. + +Silleri, Thursday morning. + +I dare say, my dear, Madame Des Roches has not heard from Rivers; +but suppose she had. If he loves you, of what consequence is it to whom +he writes? I would not for the world any friend of yours should ask her +such a question. + +I shall call upon you at six o'clock, and shall expect to find you +determined to go to the governor's this evening, and to dance: +Fitzgerald begs the honor of being your partner. + +Believe me, Emily, these kind of unmeaning sacrifices are childish; +your heart is new to love, and you have all the romance of a girl: +Rivers would, on your account, be hurt to hear you had refused to dance +in his absence, though he might be flattered to know you had for a +moment entertained such an idea. + +I pardon you for having the romantic fancies of seventeen, provided +you correct them with the good sense of four and twenty. + +Adieu! I have engaged myself to Colonel H----, on the presumption +that you are too polite to refuse to dance with Fitzgerald, and too +prudent to refuse to dance at all. + + Your affectionate + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 122. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Quebec, Saturday morning. + +How unjust have I been in my hatred of Madame Des Roches! she spent +yesterday with us, and after dinner desired to converse with me an hour +in my apartment, where she opened to me all her heart on the subject of +her love for Rivers. + +She is the noblest and most amiable of women, and I have been in +regard to her the most capricious and unjust: my hatred of her was +unworthy my character; I blush to own the meanness of my sentiments, +whilst I admire the generosity of hers. + +Why, my dear, should I have hated her? she was unhappy, and deserved +rather my compassion: I had deprived her of all hope of being beloved, +it was too much to wish to deprive her also of his conversation. I +knew myself the only object of Rivers's love; why then should I have +envied her his friendship? she had the strongest reason to hate me, but +I should have loved and pitied her. + +Can there be a misfortune equal to that of loving Rivers without +hope of a return? Yet she has not only born this misfortune without +complaint, but has been the confidante of his passion for another; he +owned to her all his tenderness for me, and drew a picture of me, +which, she told me, ought, had she listened to reason, to have +destroyed even the shadow of hope: but that love, ever ready to flatter +and deceive, had betrayed her into the weakness of supposing it +possible I might refuse him, and that gratitude might, in that case, +touch his heart with tenderness for one who loved him with the most +pure and disinterested affection; that her journey to Quebec had +removed the veil love had placed between her and truth; that she was +now convinced the faint hope she had encouraged was madness, and that +our souls were formed for each other. + +She owned she still loved him with the most lively affection; yet +assured me, since she was not allowed to make the most amiable of +mankind happy herself, she wished him to be so with the woman on earth +she thought most worthy of him. + +She added, that she had on first seeing me, though she thought me +worthy his heart, felt an impulse of dislike which she was ashamed to +own, even now that reason and reflexion had conquered so unworthy a +sentiment; that Rivers's complaisance had a little dissipated her +chagrin, and enabled her to behave to me in the manner she did: that +she had, however, almost hated me at the ball in the country: that the +tenderness in Rivers's eyes that day whenever they met mine, and his +comparative inattention to her, had wounded her to the soul. + +That this preference had, however, been salutary, though painful; +since it had determined her to conquer a passion, which could only make +her life wretched if it continued; that, as the first step to this +conquest, she had resolved to see him no more: that she would return to +her house the moment she could cross the river with safety; and +conjured me, for her sake, to persuade him to give up all thoughts of a +settlement near her; that she could not answer for her own heart if she +continued to see him; that she believed in love there was no safety but +in flight. + +That his absence had given her time to think coolly; and that she +now saw so strongly the amiableness of my character, and was so +convinced of my perfect tenderness for him, that she should hate +herself were she capable of wishing to interrupt our happiness. + +That she hoped I would pardon her retaining a tender remembrance of +a man who, had he never seen me, might have returned her affection; +that she thought so highly of my heart, as to believe I could not hate +a woman who esteemed me, and who solicited my friendship, though a +happy rival. + +I was touched, even to tears, at her behaviour: we embraced; and, if +I know my own weak foolish heart, I love her. + +She talks of leaving Quebec before Rivers's return; she said, her +coming was an imprudence which only love could excuse; and that she +had no motive for her journey but the desire of seeing him, which was +so lively as to hurry her into an indiscretion of which she was afraid +the world took but too much notice. What openness, what sincerity, what +generosity, was there in all she said! + +How superior, my dear, is her character to mine! I blush for myself +on the comparison; I am shocked to see how much she soars above me: +how is it possible Rivers should not have preferred her to me? Yet this +is the woman I fancied incapable of any passion but vanity. + +I am sure, my dear Bell, I am not naturally envious of the merit of +others; but my excess of love for Rivers makes me apprehensive of +every woman who can possibly rival me in his tenderness. + +I was hurt at Madame Des Roches's uncommon merit; I saw with pain +the amiable qualities of her mind; I could scarce even allow her person +to be pleasing: but this injustice is not that of my natural temper, +but of love. + +She is certainly right, my dear, to see him no more; I applaud, I +admire her resolution: do you think, however, she would pursue it if +she loved as I do? she has perhaps loved before, and her heart has lost +something of its native trembling sensibility. + +I wish my heart felt her merit as strongly as my reason: I esteem, I +admire, I even love her at present; but I am convinced Rivers's return +while she continues here would weaken these sentiments of affection: +the least appearance of preference, even for a moment, would make me +relapse into my former weakness. I adore, I idolize her character; but +I cannot sincerely wish to cultivate her friendship. + +Let me see you this afternoon at Quebec; I am told the roads will +not be passable for carrioles above three days longer: let me therefore +see you as often as I can before we are absolutely shut from each +other. + + Adieu! my dear! + Your faithful + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 123. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +Silleri, April 14. + +England, however populous, is undoubtedly, my Lord, too small to +afford very large supplies of people to her colonies: and her people +are also too useful, and of too much value, to be suffered to emigrate, +if they can be prevented, whilst there is sufficient employment for +them at home. + +It is not only our interest to have colonies; they are not only +necessary to our commerce, and our greatest and surest sources of +wealth, but our very being as a powerful commercial nation depends on +them: it is therefore an object of all others most worthy our +attention, that they should be as flourishing and populous as +possible. + +It is however equally our interest to support them at as little +expence of our own inhabitants as possible: I therefore look on the +acquisition of such a number of subjects as we found in Canada, to be a +much superior advantage to that of gaining ten times the immense tract +of land ceded to us, if uncultivated and destitute of inhabitants. + +But it is not only contrary to our interest to spare many of our own +people as settlers in America; it must also be considered, that, if we +could spare them, the English are the worst settlers on new lands in +the universe. + +Their attachment to their native country, especially amongst the +lower ranks of people, is so very strong, that few of the honest and +industrious can be prevailed on to leave it; those therefore who go, +are generally the dissolute and the idle, who are of no use any where. + +The English are also, though industrious, active, and enterprizing, +ill fitted to bear the hardships, and submit to the wants, which +inevitably attend an infant settlement even on the most fruitful lands. + +The Germans, on the contrary, with the same useful qualities, have a +patience, a perseverance, an abstinence, which peculiarly fit them for +the cultivation of new countries; too great encouragement therefore +cannot be given to them to settle in our colonies: they make better +settlers than our own people; and at the same time their numbers are an +acquisition of real strength where they fix, without weakening the +mother country. + +It is long since the populousness of Europe has been the cause of +her sending out colonies: a better policy prevails; mankind are +enlightened; we are now convinced, both by reason and experience, that +no industrious people can be too populous. + +The northern swarms were compelled to leave their respective +countries, not because those countries were unable to support them, but +because they were too idle to cultivate the ground: they were a +ferocious, ignorant, barbarous people, averse to labor, attached to +war, and, like our American savages, believing every employment not +relative to this favorite object, beneath the dignity of man. + +Their emigrations therefore were less owing to their populousness, +than to their want of industry, and barbarous contempt of agriculture +and every useful art. + +It is with pain I am compelled to say, the late spirit of +encouraging the monopoly of farms, which, from a narrow short-sighted +policy, prevails amongst our landed men at home, and the alarming +growth of celibacy amongst the peasantry which is its necessary +consequence, to say nothing of the same ruinous increase of celibacy in +higher ranks, threaten us with such a decrease of population, as will +probably equal that caused by the ravages of those scourges of heaven, +the sword, the famine, and the pestilence. + +If this selfish policy continues to extend itself, we shall in a few +years be so far from being able to send emigrants to America, that we +shall be reduced to solicit their return, and that of their posterity, +to prevent England's becoming in its turn an uncultivated desart. + +But to return to Canada; this large acquisition of people is an +invaluable treasure, if managed, as I doubt not it will be, to the best +advantage; if they are won by the gentle arts of persuasion, and the +gradual progress of knowledge, to adopt so much of our manners as tends +to make them happier in themselves, and more useful members of the +society to which they belong: if with our language, which they should +by every means be induced to learn, they acquire the mild genius of our +religion and laws, and that spirit of industry, enterprize, and +commerce, to which we owe all our greatness. + +Amongst the various causes which concur to render France more +populous than England, notwithstanding the disadvantage of a less +gentle government, and a religion so very unfavorable to the increase +of mankind, the cultivation of vineyards may be reckoned a principal +one; as it employs a much greater number of hands than even agriculture +itself, which has however infinite advantages in this respect above +pasturage, the certain cause of a want of people wherever it prevails +above its due proportion. + +Our climate denies us the advantages arising from the culture of +vines, as well as many others which nature has accorded to France; a +consideration which should awaken us from the lethargy into which the +avarice of individuals has plunged us, and set us in earnest on +improving every advantage we enjoy, in order to secure us by our native +strength from so formidable a rival. + +The want of bread to eat, from the late false and cruel policy of +laying small farms into great ones, and the general discouragement of +tillage which is its consequence, is in my opinion much less to be +apprehended than the want of people to eat it. + +In every country where the inhabitants are at once numerous and +industrious, there will always be a proportionable cultivation. + +This evil is so very destructive and alarming, that, if the great +have not virtue enough to remedy it, it is to be hoped it will in time, +like most great evils, cure itself. + +Your Lordship enquires into the nature of this climate in respect to +health. The air being uncommonly pure and serene, it is favorable to +life beyond any I ever knew: the people live generally to a very +advanced age; and are remarkably free from diseases of every kind, +except consumptions, to which the younger part of the inhabitants are a +good deal subject. + +It is however a circumstance one cannot help observing, that they +begin to look old much sooner than the people in Europe; on which my +daughter observes, that it is not very pleasant for women to come to +reside in a country where people have a short youth, and a long old +age. + +The diseases of cold countries are in general owing to want of +perspiration; for which reason exercise, and even dissipation, are here +the best medicines. + +The Indians therefore shewed their good sense in advising the +French, on their first arrival, to use dancing, mirth, chearfulness, +and content, as the best remedies against the inconveniences of the +climate. + +I have already swelled this letter to such a length, that I must +postpone to another time my account of the peculiar natural +productions of Canada; only observing, that one would imagine heaven +intended a social intercourse between the most distant nations, by +giving them productions of the earth so very different each from the +other, and each more than sufficient for itself, that the exchange +might be the means of spreading the bond of society and brotherhood +over the whole globe. + +In my opinion, the man who conveys, and causes to grow, in any +country, a grain, a fruit, or even a flower, it never possessed before, +deserves more praise than a thousand heroes: he is a benefactor, he is +in some degree a creator. + + I have the honor to be, + My Lord, + Your Lordship's &c. + William Fermor. + + + +LETTER 124. + + +To Miss Montague, at Quebec. + +Montreal, April 14. + +Is it possible, my dear Emily, you can, after all I have said, +persist in endeavoring to disswade me from a design on which my whole +happiness depends, and which I flattered myself was equally essential +to yours? I forgave, I even admired, your first scruple; I thought it +generosity: but I have answered it; and if you had loved as I do, you +would never again have named so unpleasing a subject. + +Does your own heart tell you mine will call a settlement here, with +you, an exile? Examine yourself well, and tell me whether your +aversion to staying in Canada is not stronger than your tenderness for +your Rivers. + +I am hurt beyond all words at the earnestness with which you press +Mrs. Melmoth to disswade me from staying in this country: you press +with warmth my return to England, though it would put an eternal bar +between us: you give reasons which, though the understanding may +approve, the heart abhors: can ambition come in competition with +tenderness? you fancy yourself generous, when you are only indifferent. +Insensible girl! you know nothing of love. + +Write to me instantly, and tell me every emotion of your soul, for I +tremble at the idea that your affection is less lively than mine. + +Adieu! I am wretched till I hear from you. Is it possible, my Emily, +you can have ceased to love him, who, as you yourself own, sees no +other object than you in the universe? + + Adieu! Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + +You know not the heart of your Rivers, if you suppose it capable of +any ambition but that dear one of being beloved by you. + +What have you said, my dear Emily? _You will not marry me in +Canada_. You have passed a hard sentence on me: you know my fortune +will not allow me to marry you in England. + + +END OF VOL. II. + + + + +THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE. + + +Vol. III + + + +LETTER 125. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Montreal. + +Quebec, April 17. + +How different, my Rivers, is your last letter from all your Emily +has ever yet received from you! What have I done to deserve such +suspicions? How unjust are your sex in all their connexions with ours! + +Do I not know love? and does this reproach come from the man on whom +my heart doats, the man, whom to make happy, I would with transport +cease to live? can you one moment doubt your Emily's tenderness? have +not her eyes, her air, her look, her indiscretion, a thousand times +told you, in spite of herself, the dear secret of her heart, long +before she was conscious of the tenderness of yours? + +Did I think only of myself, I could live with you in a desart; all +places, all situations, are equally charming to me, with you: without +you, the whole world affords nothing which could give a moment's +pleasure to your Emily. + +Let me but see those eyes in which the tenderest love is painted, +let me but hear that enchanting voice, I am insensible to all else, I +know nothing of what passes around me; all that has no relation to you +passes away like a morning dream, the impression of which is effaced in +a moment: my tenderness for you fills my whole soul, and leaves no room +for any other idea. Rank, fortune, my native country, my friends, all +are nothing in the balance with my Rivers. + +For your own sake, I once more entreat you to return to England: I +will follow you; I will swear never to marry another; I will see you, +I will allow you to continue the tender inclination which unites us. +Fortune may there be more favorable to our wishes than we now hope; +may join us without destroying the peace of the best of parents. + +But if you persist, if you will sacrifice every consideration to +your tenderness--My Rivers, I have no will but yours. + + + +LETTER 126. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +London, Feb. 17. + +My dear Bell, + +Lucy, being deprived of the pleasure of writing to you, as she +intended, by Lady Anne Melville's dining with her, desires me to make +her apologies. + +Allow me to say something for myself, and to share my joy with one +who will, I am sure, so very sincerely sympathize with me in it. + +I could not have believed, my dear Bell, it had been so very easy a +thing to be constant: I declare, but don't mention this, lest I should +be laughed at, I have never felt the least inclination for any other +woman, since I married your lovely friend. + +I now see a circle of beauties with the same indifference as a bed +of snowdrops: no charms affect me but hers; the whole creation to me +contains no other woman. + +I find her every day, every hour, more lovely; there is in my Lucy a +mixture of modesty, delicacy, vivacity, innocence, and blushing +sensibility, which add a thousand unspeakable graces to the most +beautiful person the hand of nature ever formed. + +There is no describing her enchanting smile, the smile of +unaffected, artless tenderness. How shall I paint to you the sweet +involuntary glow of pleasure, the kindling fire of her eyes, when I +approach; or those thousand little dear attentions of which love alone +knows the value? + +I never, my dear girl, knew happiness till now; my tenderness is +absolutely a species of idolatry; you cannot think what a slave this +lovely girl has made me. + +As a proof of this, the little tyrant insists on my omitting a +thousand civil things I had to say to you, and attending her and Lady +Anne immediately to the opera; she bids me however tell you, she loves +you _passing the love of woman_, at least of handsome women, who +are not generally celebrated for their candor and good will to each +other. + + Adieu, my dearest Bell! + Yours, + J. Temple. + + + +LETTER 127. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Silleri, April 18. + +Indeed? + + "Is this that haughty, gallant, gay Lothario, + That dear perfidious--" + +Absolutely, my dear Temple, the sex ought never to forgive Lucy for +daring to monopolize so very charming a fellow. I had some thoughts of +a little _badinage_ with you myself, if I should return soon to +England; but I now give up the very idea. + +One thing I will, however, venture to say, that love Lucy as much as +you please, you will never love her half so well as she deserves; +which, let me tell you, is a great deal for one woman, especially, as +you well observe, one handsome woman, to say of another. + +I am, however, not quite clear your idea is just: _cattism_, if +I may be allowed the expression, seeming more likely to be the vice of +those who are conscious of wanting themselves the dear power of +pleasing. + +Handsome women ought to be, what I profess myself, who am however +only pretty, too vain to be envious; and yet we see, I am afraid, too +often, some little sparks of this mean passion between rival beauties. + +Impartially speaking, I believe the best natured women, and the most +free from envy, are those who, without being very handsome, have that +_je ne sçai quoi_, those nameless graces, which please even without +beauty; and who therefore, finding more attention paid to them by men +than their looking-glass tells them they have a right to expect, are +for that reason in constant good humor with themselves, and of course +with every body else: whereas beauties, claiming universal empire, are +at war with all who dispute their rights; that is, with half the sex. + +I am very good natured myself; but it is, perhaps, because, though a +pretty woman, I am more agreable than handsome, and have an infinity of +the _je ne sçai quoi_. + +_A propos_, my dear Temple, I am so pleased with what +Montesquieu says on this subject, that I find it is not in my nature to +resist translating and inserting it; you cannot then say I have sent +you a letter in which there is nothing worth reading. + +I beg you will read this to the misses, for which you cannot fail of +their thanks, and for this reason; there are perhaps a dozen women in +the world who do not think themselves handsome, but I will venture to +say, not one who does not think herself agreable, and that she has this +nameless charm, this so much talked of _I know not what_, which is +so much better than beauty. But to my Montesquieu: + +"There is sometimes, both in persons and things, an invisible charm, +a natural grace, which we cannot define, and which we are therefore +obliged to call the _je ne sçai quoi_. + +"It seems to me that this is an effect principally founded on +surprize. + +"We are touched that a person pleases us more than she seemed at +first to have a right to do; and we are agreably surprized that she +should have known how to conquer those defects which our eyes shewed +us, but which our hearts no longer believe: 'tis for this reason that +women, who are not handsome, have often graces or agreablenesses and +that beautiful ones very seldom have. + +"For a beautiful person does generally the very contrary of what we +expected; she appears to us by degrees less amiable, and, after having +surprized us pleasingly, she surprizes us in a contrary manner; but +the agreable impression is old, the disagreable one new: 'tis also +seldom that beauties inspire violent passions, which are almost always +reserved for those who have graces, that is to say, agreablenesses, +which we did not expect, and which we had no reason to expect. + +"Magnificent habits have seldom grace, which the dresses of +shepherdesses often have. + +"We admire the majesty of the draperies of Paul Veronese; but we are +touched with the simplicity of Raphael, and the exactness of Corregio. + +"Paul Veronese promises much, and pays all he promises; Raphael and +Corregio promise little, and pay much, which pleases us more. + +"These graces, these agreablenesses, are found oftener in the mind +than in the countenance: the charms of a beautiful countenance are +seldom hidden, they appear at first view; but the mind does not shew +itself except by degrees, when it pleases, and as much as it pleases; +it can conceal itself in order to appear, and give that species of +surprize to which those graces, of which I speak, owe their existence. + +"This grace, this agreableness, is less in the countenance than in +the manner; the manner changes every instant, and can therefore every +moment give us the pleasure of surprize: in one word, a woman can be +handsome but in one way, but she may be agreable in a hundred +thousand." + +I like this doctrine of Montesquieu's extremely, because it gives +every woman her chance, and because it ranks me above a thousand +handsomer women, in the dear power of inspiring passion. + +Cruel creature! why did you give me the idea of flowers? I now envy +you your foggy climate: the earth with you is at this moment covered +with a thousand lovely children of the spring; with us, it is an +universal plain of snow. + +Our beaux are terribly at a loss for similies: you have lilies of +the valley for comparisons; we nothing but what with the idea of +whiteness gives that of coldness too. + +This is all the quarrel I have with Canada: the summer is delicious, +the winter pleasant with all its severities; but alas! the smiling +spring is not here; we pass from winter to summer in an instant, and +lose the sprightly season of the Loves. + +A letter from the God of my idolatry--I must answer it instantly. + + Adieu! Yours, &c. + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 128. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Yes, I give permission; you may come this afternoon: there is +something amusing enough in your dear nonsense; and, as my father will +be at Quebec, I shall want amusement. + +It will also furnish a little chat for the misses at Quebec; a +_tête à tête_ with a tall Irishman is a subject which cannot escape +their sagacity. + + Adieu! Yours, + A. F. + + + +LETTER 129. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, April 20. + +After my immense letter to your love, my dear, you must not expect +me to say much to your fair ladyship. + +I am glad to find you manage Temple so admirably; the wisest, the +wildest, the gravest, and the gayest, are equally our slaves, when we +have proper ideas of petticoat politics. + +I intend to compose a code of laws for the government of husbands, +and get it translated into all the modern languages; which I apprehend +will be of infinite benefit to the world. + +Do you know I am a greater fool than I imagined? You may remember I +was always extremely fond of sweet waters. I left them off lately, upon +an idea, though a mistaken one, that Fitzgerald did not like them: I +yesterday heard him say the contrary; and, without thinking of it, went +mechanically to my dressing-room, and put lavender water on my +handkerchief. + +This is, I am afraid, rather a strong symptom of my being absurd; +however, I find it pleasant to be so, and therefore give way to it. + +It is divinely warm to-day, though the snow is still on the ground; +it is melting fast however, which makes it impossible for me to get to +Quebec. I shall be confined for at least a week, and Emily not with me: +I die for amusement. Fitzgerald ventures still at the hazard of his own +neck and his horse's legs; for the latter of which animals I have so +much compassion, that I have ordered both to stay at home a few days, +which days I shall devote to study and contemplation, and little pert +chit-chats with papa, who is ten times more fretful at being kept +within doors than I am: I intend to win a little fortune of him at +piquet before the world breaks in upon our solitude. Adieu! I am idle, +but always + + Your faithful + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 130. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +Silleri, April 20. + +'Tis indeed, my Lord, an advantage for which we cannot be too +thankful to the Supreme Being, to be born in a country, whose religion +and laws are such, as would have been the objects of our wishes, had we +been born in any other. + +Our religion, I would be understood to mean Christianity in general, +carries internal conviction by the excellency of its moral precepts, +and its tendency to make mankind happy; and the peculiar mode of it +established in England breathes beyond all others the mild spirit of +the Gospel, and that charity which embraces all mankind as brothers. + +It is equally free from enthusiasm and superstition; its outward +form is decent and respectful, without affected ostentation; and what +shews its excellence above all others is, that every other church +allows it to be the best, except itself: and it is an established rule, +that he has an undoubted right to the first rank of merit, to whom +every man allows the second. + +As to our government, it would be impertinent to praise it; all +mankind allow it to be the master-piece of human wisdom. + +It has the advantage of every other form, with as little of their +inconveniences as the imperfection attendant on all human inventions +will admit: it has the monarchic quickness of execution and stability, +the aristocratic diffusive strength and wisdom of counsel, the +democratic freedom and equal distribution of property. + +When I mention equal distribution of property, I would not be +understood to mean such an equality as never existed, nor can exist but +in idea; but that general, that comparative equality, which leaves to +every man the absolute and safe possession of the fruits of his labors; +which softens offensive distinctions, and curbs pride, by leaving +every order of men in some degree dependent on the other; and admits +of those gentle and almost imperceptible gradations, which the poet so +well calls, + + "Th' according music of a well-mix'd state." + +The prince is here a centre of union; an advantage, the want of +which makes a democracy, which is so beautiful in theory, the very +worst of all possible governments, except absolute monarchy, in +practice. + +I am called upon, my Lord, to go to the citadel, to see the going +away of the ice; an object so new to me, that I cannot resist the +curiosity I have to see it, though my going thither is attended with +infinite difficulty. + +Bell insists on accompanying me: I am afraid for her, but she will +not be refused. + +At our return, I will have the honor of writing again to your +Lordship, by the gentleman who carries this to New York. + + I have the honor to be, my Lord, + Your Lordship's, &c. + Wm. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 131. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +Silleri, April 20, Evening. + +We are returned, my Lord, from having seen an object as beautiful +and magnificent in itself, as pleasing from the idea it gives of +renewing once more our intercourse with Europe. + +Before I saw the breaking up of the vast body of ice, which forms +what is here called _the bridge_, from Quebec to Point Levi, I +imagined there could be nothing in it worth attention; that the ice +would pass away, or dissolve gradually, day after day, as the influence +of the sun, and warmth of the air and earth increased; and that we +should see the river open, without having observed by what degrees it +became so. + +But I found _the great river_, as the savages with much +propriety call it, maintain its dignity in this instance as in all +others, and assert its superiority over those petty streams which we +honor with the names of rivers in England. Sublimity is the +characteristic of this western world; the loftiness of the mountains, +the grandeur of the lakes and rivers, the majesty of the rocks shaded +with a picturesque variety of beautiful trees and shrubs, and crowned +with the noblest of the offspring of the forest, which form the banks +of the latter, are as much beyond the power of fancy as that of +description: a landscape-painter might here expand his imagination, +and find ideas which he will seek in vain in our comparatively little +world. + +The object of which I am speaking has all the American magnificence. + +The ice before the town, or, to speak in the Canadian stile, _the +bridge_, being of a thickness not less than five feet, a league in +length, and more than a mile broad, resists for a long time the rapid +tide that attempts to force it from the banks. + +We are prepared by many previous circumstances to expect something +extraordinary in this event, if I may so call it: every increase of +heat in the weather for near a month before the ice leaves the banks; +every warm day gives you terror for those you see venturing to pass it +in carrioles; yet one frosty night makes it again so strong, that even +the ladies, and the timid amongst them, still venture themselves over +in parties of pleasure; though greatly alarmed at their return, if a +few hours of uncommon warmth intervenes. + +But, during the last fortnight, the alarm grows indeed a very +serious one: the eye can distinguish, even at a considerable distance, +that the ice is softened and detached from the banks; and you dread +every step being death to those who have still the temerity to pass it, +which they will continue always to do till one or more pay their +rashness with their lives. + +From the time the ice is no longer a bridge on which you see crowds +driving with such vivacity on business or pleasure, every one is +looking eagerly for its breaking away, to remove the bar to the +continually wished and expected event, of the arrival of ships from +that world from whence we have seemed so long in a manner excluded. + +The hour is come; I have been with a crowd of both sexes, and all +ranks, hailing the propitious moment: our situation, on the top of Cape +Diamond, gave us a prospect some leagues above and below the town; +above Cape Diamond the river was open, it was so below Point Levi, the +rapidity of the current having forced a passage for the water under the +transparent bridge, which for more than a league continued firm. + +We stood waiting with all the eagerness of expectation; the tide +came rushing with an amazing impetuosity; the bridge seemed to shake, +yet resisted the force of the waters; the tide recoiled, it made a +pause, it stood still, it returned with redoubled fury, the immense +mass of ice gave way. + +A vast plain appeared in motion; it advanced with solemn and +majestic pace: the points of land on the banks of the river for a few +moments stopped its progress; but the immense weight of so prodigious a +body, carried along by a rapid current, bore down all opposition with a +force irresistible. + +There is no describing how beautiful the opening river appears, +every moment gaining on the sight, till, in a time less than can +possibly be imagined, the ice passing Point Levi, is hid in one moment +by the projecting land, and all is once more a clear plain before you; +giving at once the pleasing, but unconnected, ideas of that direct +intercourse with Europe from which we have been so many months +excluded, and of the earth's again opening her fertile bosom, to feast +our eyes and imagination with her various verdant and flowery +productions. + +I am afraid I have conveyed a very inadequate idea of the scene +which has just passed before me; it however struck me so strongly, that +it was impossible for me not to attempt it. + +If my painting has the least resemblance to the original, your +Lordship will agree with me, that the very vicissitudes of season here +partake of the sublimity which so strongly characterizes the country. + +The changes of season in England, being slow and gradual, are but +faintly felt; but being here sudden, instant, violent, afford to the +mind, with the lively pleasure arising from meer change, the very high +additional one of its being accompanied with grandeur. I have the +honor to be, + + My Lord, + Your Lordship's, &c. + William Fermor. + + + +LETTER 132. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +April 22. + +Certainly, my dear, you are so far right; a nun may be in many +respects a less unhappy being than some women who continue in the +world; her situation is, I allow, paradise to that of a married woman, +of sensibility and honor, who dislikes her husband. + +The cruelty therefore of some parents here, who sacrifice their +children to avarice, in forcing or seducing them into convents, would +appear more striking, if we did not see too many in England guilty of +the same inhumanity, though in a different manner, by marrying them +against their inclination. + +Your letter reminds me of what a French married lady here said to me +on this very subject: I was exclaiming violently against convents; and +particularly urging, what I thought unanswerable, the extreme hardship +of one circumstance; that, however unhappy the state was found on +trial, there was no retreat; that it was _for life_. + +Madame De ---- turned quick, "And is not marriage for life?" + +"True, Madam; and, what is worse, without a year of probation. I +confess the force of your argument." + +I have never dared since to mention convents before Madame De ----. + +Between you and I, Lucy, it is a little unreasonable that people +will come together entirely upon sordid principles, and then wonder +they are not happy: in delicate minds, love is seldom the consequence +of marriage. + +It is not absolutely certain that a marriage of which love is the +foundation will be happy; but it is infallible, I believe, that no +other can be so to souls capable of tenderness. + +Half the world, you will please to observe, have no souls; at least +none but of the vegetable and animal kinds: to this species of beings, +love and sentiment are entirely unnecessary; they were made to travel +through life in a state of mind neither quite awake nor asleep; and it +is perfectly equal to them in what company they take the journey. + +You and I, my dear, are something _awakened_; therefore it is +necessary we should love where we marry, and for this reason: our +souls, being of the active kind, can never be totally at rest; +therefore, if we were not to love our husbands, we should be in +dreadful danger of loving somebody else. + +For my part, whatever tall maiden aunts and cousins may say of the +indecency of a young woman's distinguishing one man from another, and +of love coming after marriage; I think marrying, in that expectation, +on sober prudent principles, a man one dislikes, the most deliberate +and shameful degree of vice of which the human mind is capable. + +I cannot help observing here, that the great aim of modern education +seems to be, to eradicate the best impulses of the human heart, love, +friendship, compassion, benevolence; to destroy the social, and +encrease the selfish principle. Parents wisely attempt to root out +those affections which should only be directed to proper objects, and +which heaven gave us as the means of happiness; not considering that +the success of such an attempt is doubtful; and that, if they succeed, +they take from life all its sweetness, and reduce it to a dull unactive +round of tasteless days, scarcely raised above vegetation. + +If my ideas of things are right, the human mind is naturally +virtuous; the business of education is therefore less to give us good +impressions, which we have from nature, than to guard us against bad +ones, which are generally acquired. + +And so ends my sermon. + + Adieu! my dear! + Your faithful + A. Fermor. + + +A letter from your brother; I believe the dear creature is out of +his wits: Emily has consented to marry him, and one would imagine by +his joy that nobody was ever married before. + +He is going to Lake Champlain, to fix on his seat of empire, or +rather Emily's; for I see she will be the reigning queen, and he only +her majesty's consort. + +I am going to Quebec; two or three dry days have made the roads +passable for summer carriages: Fitzgerald is come to fetch me. Adieu! + +Eight o'clock. + +I am come back, have seen Emily, who is the happiest woman existing; +she has heard from your brother, and in such terms--his letter +breathes the very soul of tenderness. I wish they were richer. I don't +half relish their settling in Canada; but, rather than not live +together, I believe they would consent to be set ashore on a desart +island. Good night. + + + +LETTER 133. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +Silleri, April 25. + +The pleasure the mind finds in travelling, has undoubtedly, my Lord, +its source in that love of novelty, that delight in acquiring new +ideas, which is interwoven in its very frame, which shews itself on +every occasion from infancy to age, which is the first passion of the +human mind, and the last. + +There is nothing the mind of man abhors so much as a state of rest: +the great secret of happiness is to keep the soul in continual action, +without those violent exertions, which wear out its powers, and dull +its capacity of enjoyment; it should have exercise, not labor. + +Vice may justly be called the fever of the soul, inaction its +lethargy; passion, under the guidance of virtue, its health. + +I have the pleasure to see my daughter's coquetry giving place to a +tender affection for a very worthy man, who seems formed to make her +happy: his fortune is easy; he is a gentleman, and a man of worth and +honor, and, what perhaps inclines me to be more partial to him, of my +own profession. + +I mention the last circumstance in order to introduce a request, +that your Lordship would have the goodness to employ that interest for +him in the purchase of a majority, which you have so generously offered +to me; I am determined, as there is no prospect of real duty, to quit +the army, and retire to that quiet which is so pleasing at my time of +life: I am privately in treaty with a gentleman for my company, and +propose returning to England in the first ship, to give in my +resignation: in this point, as well as that of serving Mr. Fitzgerald, +I shall without scruple call upon your Lordship's friendship. + +I have settled every thing with Fitzgerald, but without saying a +word to Bell; and he is to seduce her into matrimony as soon as he +can, without my appearing at all interested in the affair: he is to ask +my consent in form, though we have already settled every preliminary. + +All this, as well as my intention of quitting the army, is yet a +secret to my daughter. + +But to the questions your Lordship does me the honor to ask me in +regard to the Americans, I mean those of our old colonies: they appear +to me, from all I have heard and seen of them, a rough, ignorant, +positive, very selfish, yet hospitable people. + +Strongly attached to their own opinions, but still more so to their +interests, in regard to which they have inconceivable sagacity and +address; but in all other respects I think naturally inferior to the +Europeans; as education does so much, it is however difficult to +ascertain this. + +I am rather of opinion they would not have refused submission to the +stamp act, or disputed the power of the legislature at home, had not +their minds been first embittered by what touched their interests so +nearly, the restraints laid on their trade with the French and Spanish +settlements, a trade by which England was an immense gainer; and by +which only a few enormously rich West India planters were hurt. + +Every advantage you give the North Americans in trade centers at +last in the mother country; they are the bees, who roam abroad for that +honey which enriches the paternal hive. + +Taxing them immediately after their trade is restrained, seems like +drying up the source, and expecting the stream to flow. + +Yet too much care cannot be taken to support the majesty of +government, and assert the dominion of the parent country. + +A good mother will consult the interest and happiness of her +children, but will never suffer her authority to be disputed. + +An equal mixture of mildness and spirit cannot fail of bringing +these mistaken people, misled by a few of violent temper and ambitious +views, into a just sense of their duty. + + I have the honor to be, + My Lord, &c. + William Fermor. + + + +LETTER 134. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +May 5. + +I have got my Emily again, to my great joy; I am nobody without her. +As the roads are already very good, we walk and ride perpetually, and +amuse ourselves as well as we can, _en attendant_ your brother, +who is gone a settlement hunting. + +The quickness of vegetation in this country is astonishing; though +the hills are still covered with snow, and though it even continues in +spots in the vallies, the latter with the trees and shrubs in the woods +are already in beautiful verdure; and the earth every where putting +forth flowers in a wild and lovely variety and profusion. + +'Tis amazingly pleasing to see the strawberries and wild pansies +peeping their little foolish heads from beneath the snow. + +Emily and I are prodigiously fond after having been separated; it is +a divine relief to us both, to have again the delight of talking of our +lovers to each other: we have been a month divided; and neither of us +have had the consolation of a friend to be foolish to. + +Fitzgerald dines with us: he comes. + + Adieu! yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 135. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +Silleri, May 5. + +My Lord, + +I have been conversing, if the expression is not improper when I +have not had an opportunity of speaking a syllable, more than two hours +with a French officer, who has declaimed the whole time with the most +astonishing volubility, without uttering one word which could either +entertain or instruct his hearers; and even without starting any thing +that deserved the name of a thought. + +People who have no ideas out of the common road are, I believe, +generally the greatest talkers, because all their thoughts are low +enough for common conversation; whereas those of more elevated +understandings have ideas which they cannot easily communicate except +to persons of equal capacity with themselves. + +This might be brought as an argument of the inferiority of women's +understanding to ours, as they are generally greater talkers, if we did +not consider the limited and trifling educations we give them; men, +amongst other advantages, have that of acquiring a greater variety as +well as sublimity of ideas. + +Women who have conversed much with men are undoubtedly in general +the most pleasing companions; but this only shews of what they are +capable when properly educated, since they improve so greatly by that +accidental and limited opportunity of acquiring knowledge. + +Indeed the two sexes are equal gainers, by conversing with each +other: there is a mutual desire of pleasing, in a mixed conversation, +restrained by politeness, which sets every amiable quality in a +stronger light. + +Bred in ignorance from one age to another, women can learn little of +their own sex. + +I have often thought this the reason why officers daughters are in +general more agreable than other women in an equal rank of life. + +I am almost tempted to bring Bell as an instance; but I know the +blindness and partiality of nature, and therefore check what paternal +tenderness would dictate. + +I am shocked at what your Lordship tells me of Miss H----. I know her +imprudent, I believe her virtuous: a great flow of spirits has been +ever hurrying her into indiscretions; but allow me to say, my Lord, it +is particularly hard to fix the character by our conduct, at a time of +life when we are not competent judges of our own actions; and when the +hurry and vivacity of youth carries us to commit a thousand follies and +indiscretions, for which we blush when the empire of reason begins. + +Inexperience and openness of temper betray us in early life into +improper connexions; and the very constancy, and nobleness of nature, +which characterize the best hearts, continue the delusion. + +I know Miss H---- perfectly; and am convinced, if her father will +treat her as a friend, and with the indulgent tenderness of affection +endeavor to wean her from a choice so very unworthy of her, he will +infallibly succeed; but if he treats her with harshness, she is lost +for ever. + +He is too stern in his behaviour, too rigid in his morals: it is the +interest of virtue to be represented as she is, lovely, smiling, and +ever walking hand in hand with pleasure: we were formed to be happy, +and to contribute to the happiness of our fellow creatures; there are +no real virtues but the social ones. + +'Tis the enemy of human kind who has thrown around us the gloom of +superstition, and taught that austerity and voluntary misery are virtue. + +If moralists would indeed improve human nature, they should endeavor +to expand, not to contract the heart; they should build their system on +the passions and affections, the only foundations of the nobler +virtues. + +From the partial representations of narrow-minded bigots, who paint +the Deity from their own gloomy conceptions, the young are too often +frighted from the paths of virtue; despairing of ideal perfections, +they give up all virtue as unattainable, and start aside from the road +which they falsely suppose strewed with thorns. + +I have studied the heart with some attention; and am convinced +every parent, who will take the pains to gain his children's friendship, +will for ever be the guide and arbiter of their conduct: I speak from a +happy experience. + +Notwithstanding all my daughter says in gaiety of heart, she would +sooner even relinquish the man she loves, than offend a father in whom +she has always found the tenderest and most faithful of friends. I am +interrupted, and have only time to say, I have the honor to be, + + My Lord, &c. + Wm. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 136. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, May 13. + +Madame Des Roches has just left us; she returns to-day to the +Kamaraskas: she came to take leave of us, and shewed a concern at +parting from Emily, which really affected me. She is a most amiable +woman; Emily and she were in tears at parting; yet I think my sweet +friend is not sorry for her return: she loves her, but yet cannot +absolutely forget she has been her rival, and is as well satisfied that +she leaves Quebec before your brother's arrival. + +The weather is lovely; the earth is in all its verdure, the trees in +foliage, and no snow but on the sides of the mountains; we are looking +eagerly out for ships from dear England: I expect by them volumes of +letters from my Lucy. We expect your brother in a week: in short, we +are all hope and expectation; our hearts beat at every rap of the door, +supposing it brings intelligence of a ship, or of the dear man. + +Fitzgerald takes such amazing pains to please me, that I begin to +think it is pity so much attention should be thrown away; and am half +inclined, from meer compassion, to follow the example you have so +heroically set me. + +Absolutely, Lucy, it requires amazing resolution to marry. + + Adieu! yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 137. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Montreal. + +Silleri, May 14. + +I am returned, my Rivers, to my sweet friend, and have again the +dear delight of talking of you without restraint; she bears with, she +indulges me in, all my weakness; if that name ought to be given to a +tenderness of which the object is the most exalted and worthy of his +sex. + +It was impossible I should not have loved you; the soul that spoke +in those eloquent eyes told me, the first moment we met, our hearts +were formed for each other; I saw in that amiable countenance a +sensibility similar to my own, but which I had till then sought in +vain; I saw there those benevolent smiles, which are the marks, and +the emanations of virtue; those thousand graces which ever accompany a +mind conscious of its own dignity, and satisfied with itself; in short, +that mental beauty which is the express image of the Deity. + +What defence had I against you, my Rivers, since your merit was such +that my reason approved the weakness of my heart? + +We have lost Madame Des Roches; we were both in tears at parting; we +embraced, I pressed her to my bosom: I love her, my dear Rivers; I have +an affection for her which I scarce know how to describe. I saw her +every day, I found infinite pleasure in being with her; she talked of +you, she praised you, and my heart was soothed; I however found it +impossible to mention your name to her; a reserve for which I cannot +account; I found pleasure in looking at her from the idea that she was +dear to you, that she felt for you the tenderest friendship: do you +know I think she has some resemblance of you? there is something in her +smile, which gives me an idea of you. + +Shall I, however, own all my folly? I never found this pleasure in +seeing her when you were present: on the contrary, your attention to +her gave me pain: I was jealous of every look; I even saw her amiable +qualities with a degree of envy, which checked the pleasure I should +otherwise have found in her conversation. + +There is always, I fear, some injustice mixed with love, at least +with love so ardent and tender as mine. + +You, my Rivers, will however pardon that injustice which is a proof +of my excess of tenderness. + +Madame Des Roches has promised to write to me: indeed I will love +her; I will conquer this little remain of jealousy, and do justice to +the most gentle and amiable of women. + +Why should I dislike her for seeing you with my eyes, for having a +soul whose feelings resemble my own? + +I have observed her voice is softened, and trembles like mine, when +she names you. + +My Rivers, you were formed to charm the heart of woman; there is +more pleasure in loving you, even without the hope of a return, than in +the adoration of all your sex: I pity every woman who is so insensible +as to see you without tenderness. This is the only fault I ever found +in Bell Fermor: she has the most lively friendship for you, but she has +seen you without love. Of what materials must her heart be composed? + +No other man can inspire the same sentiments with my Rivers; no +other man can deserve them: the delight of loving you appears to me so +superior to all other pleasures, that, of all human beings, if I was +not Emily Montague, I would be Madame Des Roches. + +I blush for what I have written; yet why blush for having a soul to +distinguish perfection, or why conceal the real feelings of my heart? + +I will never hide a thought from you; you shall be at once the +confidant and the dear object of my tenderness. + +In what words--my Rivers, you rule every emotion of my heart; +dispose as you please of your Emily: yet, if you allow her to form a +wish in opposition to yours, indulge her in the transport of returning +you to your friends; let her receive you from the hands of a mother, +whose happiness you ought to prefer even to hers. + +Why will you talk of the mediocrity of your fortune? have you not +enough for every real want? much less, with you, would make your Emily +blest: what have the trappings of life to do with happiness? 'tis only +sacrificing pride to love and filial tenderness; the worst of human +passions to the best. + +I have a thousand things to say, but am forced to steal this moment +to write to you: we have some French ladies here, who are eternally +coming to my apartment. + +They are at the door. Adieu! + + Yours, + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 138. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +Silleri, May 12. + +It were indeed, my Lord, to be wished that we had here schools, at +the expence of the public, to teach English to the rising generation: +nothing is a stronger tie of brotherhood and affection, a greater +cement of union, than speaking one common language. + +The want of attention to this circumstance has, I am told, had the +worst effects possible in the province of New York, where the people, +especially at a distance from the capital, continuing to speak Dutch, +retain their affection for their ancient masters, and still look on +their English fellow subjects as strangers and intruders. + +The Canadians are the more easily to be won to this, or whatever +else their own, or the general good requires, as their noblesse have +the strongest attachment to a court, and that favor is the great object +of their ambition: were English made by degrees the court language, it +would soon be universally spoke. + +Of the three great springs of the human heart, interest, pleasure, +vanity, the last appears to me much the strongest in the Canadians; and +I am convinced the most forcible tie their noblesse have to France, is +their unwillingness to part with their croix de St. Louis: might not +therefore some order of the same kind be instituted for Canada, and +given to all who have the croix, on their sending back the ensigns +they now wear, which are inconsistent with their allegiance as British +subjects? + +Might not such an order be contrived, to be given at the discretion +of the governor, as well to the Canadian gentlemen who merited most of +the government, as to the English officers of a certain rank, and such +other English as purchased estates, and settled in the country? and, to +give it additional lustre, the governor, for the time being, be always +head of the order? + +'Tis possible something of the same kind all over America might be +also of service; the passions of mankind are nearly the same every +where: at least I never yet saw the soil or climate, where vanity did +not grow; and till all mankind become philosophers, it is by their +passions they must be governed. + +The common people, by whom I mean the peasantry, have been great +gainers here by the change of masters; their property is more secure, +their independence greater, their profits much more than doubled: it is +not them therefore whom it is necessary to gain. + +The noblesse, on the contrary, have been in a great degree undone: +they have lost their employs, their rank, their consideration, and many +of them their fortunes. + +It is therefore equally consonant to good policy and to humanity +that they should be considered, and in the way most acceptable to them; +the rich conciliated by little honorary distinctions, those who are +otherwise by sharing in all lucrative employs; and all of them by +bearing a part in the legislature of their country. + +The great objects here seem to be to heal those wounds, which past +unhappy disputes have left still in some degree open; to unite the +French and English, the civil and military, in one firm body; to raise +a revenue, to encourage agriculture, and especially the growth of hemp +and flax; and find a staple, for the improvement of a commerce, which +at present labors under a thousand disadvantages. + +But I shall say little on this or any political subject relating to +Canada, for a reason which, whilst I am in this colony, it would look +like flattery to give: let it suffice to say, that, humanly speaking, +it is impossible that the inhabitants of this province should be +otherwise than happy. + + I have the honor to be, + My Lord, &c. + William Fermor. + + + +LETTER 139. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, May 20. + +I confess the fact, my dear; I am, thanks to papa, amazingly +learned, and all that, for a young lady of twenty-two: yet you will +allow I am not the worse; no creature breathing would ever find it out: +envy itself must confess, I talk of lace and blond like another +christian woman. + +I have been thinking, Lucy, as indeed my ideas are generally a +little pindaric, how entertaining and improving would be the history of +the human heart, if people spoke all the truth, and painted themselves +as they really are: that is to say, if all the world were as sincere +and honest as I am; for, upon my word, I have such a contempt for +hypocrisy, that, upon the whole, I have always appeared to have fewer +good qualities than I really have. + +I am afraid we should find in the best characters, if we withdrew +the veil, a mixture of errors and inconsistencies, which would greatly +lessen our veneration. + +Papa has been reading me a wise lecture, this morning, on playing +the fool: I reminded him, that I was now arrived at years of +_indiscretion_; that every body must have their day; and that those +who did not play the fool young, ran a hazard of doing it when it would +not half so well become them. + +_A propos_ to playing the fool, I am strongly inclined to +believe I shall marry. + +Fitzgerald is so astonishingly pressing--Besides, some how or +other, I don't feel happy without him: the creature has something of a +magnetic virtue; I find myself generally, without knowing it, on the +same side the room with him, and often in the next chair; and lay a +thousand little schemes to be of the same party at cards. + +I write pretty sentiments in my pocket-book, and carve his name on +trees when nobody sees me: did you think it possible I could be such an +ideot? + +I am as absurd as even the gentle love-sick Emily. + +I am thinking, my dear, how happy it is, since most human beings +differ so extremely one from another, that heaven has given us the same +variety in our tastes. + +Your brother is a divine fellow, and yet there is a sauciness about +Fitzgerald which pleases me better; as he has told me a thousand +times, he thinks me infinitely more agreable than Emily. + +Adieu! I am going to Quebec. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 140. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +May 20, Evening. + +_Io triumphe!_ A ship from England! You can have no idea of +the universal transport at the sight; the whole town was on the beach, +eagerly gazing at the charming stranger, who danced gaily on the waves, +as if conscious of the pleasure she inspired. + +If our joy is so great, who preserve a correspondence with Europe, +through our other colonies, during the winter, what must that of the +French have been, who were absolutely shut up six months from the rest +of the world? + +I can scarce conceive a higher delight than they must have felt at +being thus restored to a communication with mankind. + +The letters are not delivered; our servant stays for them at the +post-office; we expect him every moment: if I have not volumes from +you, I shall be very angry. + +He comes. Adieu! I have not patience to wait their being brought up +stairs. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + +They are here; six letters from you; I shall give three of them to +Emily to read, whilst I read the rest: you are very good, Lucy, and I +will never call you lazy again. + + + +LETTER 141. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Pall Mall, April 8. + +Whilst I was sealing my letter, I received yours of the 1st of +February. + +I am excessively alarmed, my dear, at the account it gives me of +Miss Montague's having broke with her lover, and of my brother's +extreme affection for her. + +I did not dare to let my mother see that letter, as I am convinced +the very idea of a marriage which must for ever separate her from a son +she loves to idolatry, would be fatal to her; she is altered since his +leaving England more than you can imagine; she is grown pale and thin, +her vivacity has entirely left her. Even my marriage scarce seemed to +give her pleasure; yet such is her delicacy, her ardor for his +happiness, she will not suffer me to say this to him, lest it should +constrain him, and prevent his making himself happy in his own way. I +often find her in tears in her apartment; she affects a smile when she +sees me, but it is a smile which cannot deceive one who knows her whole +soul as I do. In short, I am convinced she will not live long unless my +brother returns. She never names him without being softened to a +degree not to be expressed. + +Amiable and lovely as you represent this charming woman, and great +as the sacrifice is she has made to my brother, it seems almost cruelty +to wish to break his attachment to her; yet, situated as they are, what +can be the consequence of their indulging their tenderness at present, +but ruin to both? + +At all events, however, my dear, I intreat, I conjure you, to press +my brother's immediate return to England; I am convinced, my mother's +life depends on seeing him. + +I have often been tempted to write to Miss Montague, to use her +influence with him even against herself. + +If she loves him, she will have his true happiness at heart; she +will consider what a mind like his must hereafter suffer, should his +fondness for her be fatal to the best of mothers; she will urge, she +will oblige him to return, and make this step the condition of +preserving her tenderness. + +Read this letter to her; and tell her, it is to her affection for my +brother, to her generosity, I trust for the life of a parent who is +dearer to me than my existence. + +Tell her my heart is hers, that I will receive her as my guardian +angel, that we will never part, that we will be friends, that we will +be sisters, that I will omit nothing possible to make her happy with my +brother in England, and that I have very rational hopes it may be in +time accomplished; but that, if she marries him in Canada, and suffers +him to pursue his present design, she plants a dagger in the bosom of +her who gave him life. + +I scarce know what I would say, my dear Bell; but I am wretched; I +have no hope but in you. Yet if Emily is all you represent her-- + +I am obliged to break off: my mother is here; she must not see this +letter. + + Adieu! your affectionate + Lucy Temple. + + + +LETTER 142. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, May 21. + +Your letter of the 8th of April, my dear, was first read by Emily, +being one of the three I gave her for that purpose, as I before +mentioned. + +She went through it, and melting into tears, left the room without +speaking a word: she has been writing this morning, and I fancy to you, +for she enquired when the mail set out for England, and seemed pleased +to hear it went to-day. + +I am excessively shocked at your account of Mrs. Rivers: assure her, +in my name, of your brother's immediate return; I know both him and +Emily too well to believe they will sacrifice her to their own +happiness: there is nothing, on the contrary, they will not suffer +rather than even afflict her. + +Do not, however, encourage an idea of ever breaking an attachment +like theirs; an attachment founded less in passion than in the +tenderest friendship, in a similarity of character, and a sympathy the +most perfect the world ever saw. + +Let it be your business, my Lucy, to endeavor to make them happy, +and to remove the bars which prevent their union in England; and depend +on seeing them there the very moment their coming is possible. + +From what I know of your brother, I suppose he will insist on +marrying Emily before he leaves Quebec; but, after your letter, which +I shall send him, you may look on his return as infallible. + +I send all yours and Temple's letters for your brother to-day: you +may expect to hear from him by the same mail with this. + + I have only to say, I am, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 143. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec. + +London, April 8. + +My own happiness, my dear Rivers, in a marriage of love, makes me +extremely unwilling to prevent your giving way to a tenderness, which +promises you the same felicity, with so amiable a woman as both you +and Bell Fermor represent Miss Montague to be. + +But, my dear Ned, I cannot, without betraying your friendship, and +hazarding all the quiet of your future days, dispense with myself from +telling you, though I have her express commands to the contrary, that +the peace, perhaps the life, of your excellent mother, depends on your +giving up all thoughts of a settlement in America, and returning +immediately to England. + +I know the present state of your affairs will not allow you to marry +this charming woman here, without descending from the situation you +have ever held, and which you have a right from your birth to hold, in +the world. + +Would you allow me to gratify my friendship for you, and shew, at +the same time, your perfect esteem for me, by commanding, what our +long affection gives you a right to, such a part of my fortune as I +could easily spare without the least inconvenience to myself, we might +all be happy, and you might make your Emily so: but you have already +convinced me, by your refusal of a former request of this kind, that +your esteem for me is much less warm than mine for you; and that you do +not think I merit the delight of making you happy. + +I will therefore say no more on this subject till we meet, than that +I have no doubt this letter will bring you immediately to us. + +If the tenderness you express for Miss Montague is yet conquerable, +it will surely be better for both it should be conquered, as fortune +has been so much less kind to each of you than nature; but if your +hearts are immoveably fixed on each other, if your love is of the kind +which despises every other consideration, return to the bosom of +friendship, and depend on our finding some way to make you happy. + +If you persist in refusing to share my fortune, you can have no +objection to my using all my interest, for a friend and brother so +deservedly dear to me, and in whose happiness I shall ever find my own. + +Allow me now to speak of myself; I mean of my dearer self, your +amiable sister, for whom my tenderness, instead of decreasing, grows +every moment stronger. + +Yes, my friend, my sweet Lucy is every hour more an angel: her +desire of being beloved, renders her a thousand times more lovely; a +countenance animated by true tenderness will always charm beyond all +the dead uninformed features the hand of nature ever framed; love +embellishes the whole form, gives spirit and softness to the eyes, the +most vivid bloom to the complexion, dignity to the air, grace to every +motion, and throws round beauty almost the rays of divinity. + +In one word, my Lucy was always more lovely than any other woman; +she is now more lovely than even her former self. + +You, my Rivers, will forgive the over-flowings of my fondness, +because you know the merit of its object. + +Adieu! We die to embrace you! + + Your faithful + J. Temple. + + + +LETTER 144. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, May 21. + +Your letter, Madam, to Miss Fermor, which, by an accident, was first +read by me, has removed the veil which love had placed before mine +eyes, and shewed me, in one moment, the folly of all those dear hopes I +had indulged. + +You do me but justice in believing me incapable of suffering your +brother to sacrifice the peace, much less the life, of an amiable +mother, to my happiness: I have no doubt of his returning to England +the moment he receives your letters; but, knowing his tenderness, I +will not expose him to a struggle on this occasion: I will myself, +unknown to him, as he is fortunately absent, embark in a ship which has +wintered here, and will leave Quebec in ten days. + +Your invitation is very obliging; but a moment's reflection will +convince you of the extreme impropriety of my accepting it. + +Assure Mrs. Rivers, that her son will not lose a moment, that he +will probably be with her as soon as this letter; assure her also, that +the woman who has kept him from her, can never forgive herself for what +she suffers. + +I am too much afflicted to say more than that + + I am, Madam, + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 145. + + +To Miss Montague, at Silleri. + +Montreal, May 20. + +It is with a pleasure no words can express I tell my sweet Emily, I +have fixed on a situation which promises every advantage we can wish as +to profit, and which has every beauty that nature can give. + +The land is rich, and the wood will more than pay the expence of +clearing it; there is a settlement within a few leagues, on which there +is an extreme agreable family: a number of Acadians have applied to me +to be received as settlers: in short, my dear angel, all seems to smile +on our design. + +I have spent some days at the house of a German officer, lately in +our service, who is engaged in the same design, but a little advanced +in it. I have seen him increasing every hour his little domain, by +clearing the lands; he has built a pretty house in a beautiful rustic +style: I have seen his pleasing labors with inconceivable delight. I +already fancy my own settlement advancing in beauty: I paint to myself +my Emily adorning those lovely shades; I see her, like the mother of +mankind, admiring a new creation which smiles around her: we appear, to +my idea, like the first pair in paradise. + +I hope to be with you the 1st of June: will you allow me to set down +the 2d as the day which is to assure to me a life of happiness? + +My Acadians, your new subjects, are waiting in the next room to +speak with me. + +All good angels guard my Emily. + + Adieu! your + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 146. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, May 24. + +Emily has wrote to you, and appears more composed; she does not +however tell me what she has resolved; she has only mentioned a design +of spending a week at Quebec. I suppose she will take no resolution +till your brother comes down: he cannot be here in less than ten days. + +She has heard from him, and he has fixed on a settlement: depend +however on his return to England, even if it is not to stay. I wish he +could prevail on Mrs. Rivers to accompany him back. The advantages of +his design are too great to lose; the voyage is nothing; the climate +healthy beyond all conception. + +I fancy he will marry as soon as he comes down from Montreal, set +off in the first ship for England, leave Emily with me, and return to +us next year: at least, this is the plan my heart has formed. + +I wish Mrs. Rivers had born his absence better; her impatience to +see him has broken in on all our schemes; Emily and I had in fancy +formed a little Eden on Lake Champlain: Fitzgerald had promised me to +apply for lands near them; we should have been so happy in our little +new world of friendship. + +There is nothing certain in this vile state of existence: I could +philosophize extremely well this morning. + +All our little plans of amusement too for this summer are now at an +end; your brother was the soul of all our parties. This is a trifle, +but my mind to-day seeks for every subject of chagrin. + +Let but my Emily be happy, and I will not complain, even if I lose +her: I have a thousand fears, a thousand uneasy reflections: if you +knew her merit, you would not wish to break the attachment. + +My sweet Emily is going this morning to Quebec; I have promised to +accompany her, and she now waits for me. + +I cannot write: I have a heaviness about my heart, which has never +left me since I read your letter. 'Tis the only disagreable one I ever +received from my dear Lucy: I am not sure I love you so well as before +I saw this letter. There is something unfeeling in the style of it, +which I did not expect from you. + + Adieu! your faithful + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 147. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, May 25. + +I am unhappy beyond all words; my sweet Emily is gone to England; +the ship sailed this morning: I am just returned from the beach, after +conducting her on board. + +I used every art, every persuasion, in the power of friendship, to +prevent her going till your brother came down; but all I said was in +vain. She told me, she knew too well her own weakness to hazard seeing +him; that she also knew his tenderness, and was resolved to spare him +the struggle between his affection and his duty; that she was +determined never to marry him but with the consent of his mother; that +their meeting at Quebec, situated as they were, could only be the +source of unhappiness to both; that her heart doated on him, but that +she would never be the cause of his acting in a manner unworthy his +character: that she would see his family the moment she got to London, +and then retire to the house of a relation in Berkshire, where she +would wait for his arrival. + +That she had given you her promise, which nothing should make her +break, to embark in the first ship for England. + +She expressed no fears for herself as to the voyage, but trembled at +the idea of her Rivers's danger. + +She sat down several times yesterday to write to him, but her tears +prevented her: she at last assumed courage enough to tell him her +design; but it was in such terms as convinced me she could not have +pursued it, had he been here. + +She went to the ship with an appearance of calmness that astonished +me; but the moment she entered, all her resolution forsook her: she +retired with me to her room, where she gave way to all the agony of her +soul. + +The word was given to sail; I was summoned away; she rose hastily, +she pressed me to her bosom, "Tell him, said she, his Emily"--she +could say no more. + +Never in my life did I feel any sorrow equal to this separation. +Love her, my Lucy; you can never have half the tenderness for her she +merits. + +She stood on the deck till the ship turned Point Levi, her eyes +fixed passionately on our boat. + +Twelve o'clock. + +I have this moment a letter from your brother to Emily, which she +directed me to open, and send to her; I inclose it to you, as the +safest way of conveyance: there is one in it from Temple to him, on the +same subject with yours to me. + +Adieu! I will write again when my mind is more composed. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 148. + + +To Miss Montague, at Silleri. + +Montreal, May 28. + +It was my wish, my hope, my noblest ambition, my dear Emily, to see +you in a situation worthy of you; my sanguine temper flattered me with +the idea of seeing this wish accomplished in Canada, though fortune +denied it me in England. + +The letter which I inclose has put an end to those fond delusive +hopes: I must return immediately to England; did not my own heart +dictate this step, I know too well the goodness of yours, to expect the +continuance of your esteem, were I capable of purchasing happiness, +even the happiness of calling you mine, at the expence of my mother's +life, or even of her quiet. + +I must now submit to see my Emily in an humbler situation; to see +her want those pleasures, those advantages, those honors, which fortune +gives, and which she has so nobly sacrificed to true delicacy of mind, +and, if I do not flatter myself, to her generous and disinterested +affection for me. + +Be assured, my dearest angel, the inconveniencies attendant on a +narrow fortune, the only one I have to offer, shall be softened by all +which the most lively esteem, the most perfect friendship, the +tenderest love, can inspire; by that attention, that unwearied +solicitude to please, of which the heart alone knows the value. + +Fortune has no power over minds like ours; we possess a treasure to +which all she has to give is nothing, the dear exquisite delight of +loving, and of being beloved. + +Awake to all the finer feelings of tender esteem and elegant desire, +we have every real good in each other. + +I shall hurry down, the moment I have settled my affairs here; and +hope soon to have the transport of presenting the most charming of +friends, of mistresses, allow me to add, of wives, to a mother whom I +love and revere beyond words, and to whom she will soon be dearer than +myself. + +My going to England will detain me at Montreal a few days longer +than I intended; a delay I can very ill support. + +Adieu! my Emily! no language can express my tenderness or my +impatience. + + Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 149. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Montreal, May 28. + +I cannot enough, my dear Temple, thank you for your last, though it +destroys my air-built scheme of happiness. + +Could I have supposed my mother would thus severely have felt my +absence, I had never left England; to make her easier, was my only +motive for that step. + +I with pleasure sacrifice my design of settling here to her peace of +mind; no consideration, however, shall ever make me give up that of +marrying the best and most charming of women. + +I could have wished to have had a fortune worthy of her; this was my +wish, not that of my Emily; she will with equal pleasure share with me +poverty or riches: I hope her consent to marry me before I leave +Canada. I know the advantages of affluence, my dear Temple, and am too +reasonable to despise them; I would only avoid rating them above their +worth. + +Riches undoubtedly purchase a variety of pleasures which are not +otherwise to be obtained; they give power, they give honors, they give +consequence; but if, to enjoy these subordinate goods, we must give up +those which are more essential, more real, more suited to our natures, +I can never hesitate one moment to determine between them. + +I know nothing fortune has to bestow, which can equal the transport +of being dear to the most amiable, most lovely of womankind. + +The stream of life, my dear Temple, stagnates without the gentle +gale of love; till I knew my Emily, till the dear moment which assured +me of her tenderness, I could scarce be said to live. + + Adieu! Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 150. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, June 1. + +I can write, I can talk, of nothing but Emily; I never knew how much +I loved her till she was gone: I run eagerly to every place where we +have been together; every spot reminds me of her; I remember a +thousand conversations, endeared by confidence and affection: a tender +tear starts in spite of me: our walks, our airings, our pleasing little +parties, all rush at once on my memory: I see the same lovely scenes +around me, but they have lost half their power of pleasing. + +I visit every grove, every thicket, that she loved; I have a +redoubled fondness for every object in which she took pleasure. + +Fitzgerald indulges me in this enthusiasm of friendship; he leads me +to every place which can recall my Emily's idea; he speaks of her with +a warmth which shews the sensibility and goodness of his own heart; he +endeavors to soothe me by the most endearing attention. + +What infinite pleasure, my dear Lucy, there is in being truly +beloved! Fond as I have ever been of general admiration, that of all +mankind is nothing to the least mark of Fitzgerald's tenderness. + +Adieu! it will be some days before I can send this letter. + +June 4. + +The governor gives a ball in honor of the day; I am dressing to go, +but without my sweet companion: every hour I feel more sensibly her +absence. + +5th. + +We had last night, during the ball, the most dreadful storm I ever +heard; it seemed to shake the whole habitable globe. + +Heaven preserve my Emily from its fury: I have a thousand fears on +her account. + +Twelve o'clock. + +Your brother is arrived; he has been here about an hour: he flew to +Silleri, without going at all to Quebec; he enquired for Emily; he +would not believe she was gone. + +There is no expressing how much he was shocked when convinced she +had taken this voyage without him; he would have followed her in an +open boat, in hopes of overtaking her at Coudre, if my father had not +detained him almost by force, and at last convinced him of the +impossibility of overtaking her, as the winds, having been constantly +fair, must before this have carried them out of the river. + +He has sent his servant to Quebec, with orders to take passage for +him in the first ship that sails; his impatience is not to be +described. + +He came down in the hope of marrying her here, and conducting her +himself to England; he forms to himself a thousand dangers to her, +which he fondly fancies his presence could have averted: in short, he +has all the unreasonableness of a man in love. + +I propose sending this, and a large packet more, by your brother, +unless some unexpected opportunity offers before. + + Adieu! my dear! + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 151. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +6th. + +Your brother has taken his passage in a very fine ship, which will +sail the 10th; you may expect him every hour after you receive this; +which I send, with what I wrote yesterday, by a small vessel which +sails a week sooner then was intended. + +Rivers persuades Fitzgerald to apply for the lands which he had +fixed upon on Lake Champlain, as he has no thoughts of ever returning +hither. + +I will prevent this, however, if I have any influence: I cannot +think with patience of continuing in America, when my two amiable +friends have left it; I had no motive for wishing a settlement here, +but to form a little society of friends, of which they made the +principal part. + +Besides, the spirit of emulation would have kept up my courage, and +given fire and brilliancy to my fancy. + +Emily and I should have been trying who had the most lively genius +at creation; who could have produced the fairest flowers; who have +formed the woods and rocks into the most beautiful arbors, vistoes, +grottoes; have taught the streams to flow in the most pleasing +meanders; have brought into view the greatest number and variety of +those lovely little falls of water with which this fairy land abounds; +and shewed nature in the fairest form. + +In short, we should have been continually endeavoring, following the +luxuriancy of female imagination, to render more charming the sweet +abodes of love and friendship; whilst our heroes, changing their +swords into plough-shares, and engaged in more substantial, more +profitable labors, were clearing land, raising cattle and corn, and +doing every thing becoming good farmers; or, to express it more +poetically, + + "Taming the genius of the stubborn plain, + Almost as quickly as they conquer'd Spain:" + +By which I would be understood to mean the Havannah, where, vanity +apart, I am told both of them did their duty, and a little more, if a +man can in such a case be said to do more. + +In one word, they would have been studying the useful, to support +us; we the agreable, to please and amuse them; which I take to be +assigning to the two sexes the employments for which nature intended +them, notwithstanding the vile example of the savages to the contrary. + +There are now no farmeresses in Canada worth my contending with; +therefore the whole pleasure of the thing would be at an end, even on +the supposition that friendship had not been the soul of our design. + +Say every thing for me to Temple and Mrs. Rivers; and to my dearest +Emily, if arrived. + + Adieu! your faithful + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 152. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +Silleri, June 6, 1767. + +It is very true, my Lord, that the Jesuit missionaries still +continue in the Indian villages in Canada; and I am afraid it is no +less true, that they use every art to instill into those people an +aversion to the English; at least I have been told this by the Indians +themselves, who seem equally surprized and piqued that we do not send +missionaries amongst them. + +Their ideas of christianity are extremely circumscribed, and they +give no preference to one mode of our faith above another; they regard +a missionary of any nation as a kind father, who comes to instruct them +in the best way of worshiping the Deity, whom they suppose more +propitious to the Europeans than to themselves; and as an ambassador +from the prince whose subject he is: they therefore think it a mark of +honor, and a proof of esteem, to receive missionaries; and to our +remissness, and the French wise attention on this head, is owing the +extreme attachment the greater part of the savage nations have ever had +to the latter. + +The French missionaries, by studying their language, their manners, +their tempers, their dispositions; by conforming to their way of life, +and using every art to gain their esteem, have acquired an influence +over them which is scarce to be conceived; nor would it be difficult +for ours to do the same, were they judiciously chose, and properly +encouraged. + +I believe I have said, that there is a striking resemblance between +the manners of the Canadians and the savages; I should have explained +it, by adding, that this resemblance has been brought about, not by the +French having won the savages to receive European manners, but by the +very contrary; the peasants having acquired the savage indolence in +peace, their activity and ferocity in war; their fondness for field +sports, their hatred of labor; their love of a wandering life, and of +liberty; in the latter of which they have been in some degree indulged, +the laws here being much milder, and more favorable to the people, than +in France. + +Many of the officers also, and those of rank in the colony troops, +have been adopted into the savage tribes; and there is stronger +evidence than, for the honor of humanity, I would wish there was, that +some of them have led the death dance at the execution of English +captives, have even partook the horrid repast, and imitated them in all +their cruelties; cruelties, which to the eternal disgrace, not only of +our holy religion, but even of our nature, these poor people, whose +ignorance is their excuse, have been instigated to, both by the French +and English colonies, who, with a fury truly diabolical, have offered +rewards to those who brought in the scalps of their enemies. Rousseau +has taken great pains to prove that the most uncultivated nations are +the most virtuous: I have all due respect for this philosopher, of +whose writings I am an enthusiastic admirer; but I have a still greater +respect for truth, which I believe is not in this instance on his side. + +There is little reason to boast of the virtues of a people, who are +such brutal slaves to their appetites as to be unable to avoid +drinking brandy to an excess scarce to be conceived, whenever it falls +in their way, though eternally lamenting the murders and other +atrocious crimes of which they are so perpetually guilty when under its +influence. + +It is unjust to say we have corrupted them, that we have taught them +a vice to which we are ourselves not addicted; both French and English +are in general sober: we have indeed given them the means of +intoxication, which they had not before their intercourse with us; but +he must be indeed fond of praising them, who makes a virtue of their +having been sober, when water was the only liquor with which they were +acquainted. + +From all that I have observed, and heard of these people, it appears +to me an undoubted fact, that the most civilized Indian nations are +the most virtuous; a fact which makes directly against Rousseau's ideal +system. + +Indeed all systems make against, instead of leading to, the +discovery of truth. + +Pere Lafitau has, for this reason, in his very learned comparison of +the manners of the savages with those of the first ages, given a very +imperfect account of Indian manners; he is even so candid as to own, he +tells you nothing but what makes for the system he is endeavoring to +establish. + +My wish, on the contrary, is not to make truth subservient to any +favorite sentiment or idea, any child of my fancy; but to discover it, +whether agreable or not to my own opinion. + +My accounts may therefore be false or imperfect from mistake or +misinformation, but will never be designedly warped from truth. + +That the savages have virtues, candor must own; but only a love of +paradox can make any man assert they have more than polished nations. + +Your Lordship asks me what is the general moral character of the +Canadians; they are simple and hospitable, yet extremely attentive to +interest, where it does not interfere with that laziness which is their +governing passion. + +They are rather devout than virtuous; have religion without +morality, and a sense of honor without very strict honesty. + +Indeed I believe wherever superstition reigns, the moral sense is +greatly weakened; the strongest inducement to the practice of morality +is removed, when people are brought to believe that a few outward +ceremonies will compensate for the want of virtue. + +I myself heard a man, who had raised a large fortune by very +indirect means, confess his life had been contrary to every precept of +the Gospel; but that he hoped the pardon of Heaven for all his sins, as +he intended to devote one of his daughters to a conventual life as an +expiation. + +This way of being virtuous by proxy, is certainly very easy and +convenient to such sinners as have children to sacrifice. + +By Colonel Rivers, who leaves us in a few days, I intend myself the +honor of addressing your Lordship again. + + I have the honor to be + Your Lordship's, &c. + Wm. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 153. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +Silleri, June 9. + +Your Lordship will receive this from the hands of one of the most +worthy and amiable men I ever knew, Colonel Rivers, whom I am +particularly happy in having the honor to introduce to your Lordship, +as I know your delicacy in the choice of friends, and that there are so +few who have your perfect esteem and confidence, that the acquaintance +of one who merits both, at his time of life, will be regarded, even by +your Lordship, as an acquisition. + +'Tis to him I shall say the advantage I procure him, by making him +known to a nobleman, who, with the wisdom and experience of age, has +all the warmth of heart, the generosity, the noble confidence, the +enthusiasm, the fire, and vivacity of youth. + +Your Lordship's idea, in regard to Protestant convents here, on the +footing of that we visited together at Hamburgh, is extremely well +worth the consideration of those whom it may concern; especially if the +Romish ones are abolished, as will most probably be the case. + +The noblesse have numerous families, and, if there are no convents, +will be at a loss where to educate their daughters, as well as where to +dispose of those who do not marry in a reasonable time: the convenience +they find in both respects from these houses, is one strong motive to +them to continue in their ancient religion. + +As I would however prevent the more useful, by which I mean the +lower, part of the sex from entering into this state, I would wish only +the daughters of the seigneurs to have the privilege of becoming nuns: +they should be obliged, on taking the vow, to prove their noblesse for +at least three generations; which would secure them respect, and, at +the same time, prevent their becoming too numerous. + +They should take the vow of obedience, but not of celibacy; and +reserve the power, as at Hamburgh, of going out to marry, though on no +other consideration. + +Your Lordship may remember, every nun at Hamburgh has a right of +marrying, except the abbess; and that, on your Lordship's telling the +lady who then presided, and who was young and very handsome, you +thought this a hardship, she answered with great spirit, "O, my Lord, +you know it is in my power to resign." + +I refer your Lordship to Colonel Rivers for that farther information +in regard to this colony, which he is much more able to give you than I +am, having visited every part of Canada in the design of settling in +it. + + I have the honor to be, + My Lord, &c. + Wm. Fermor. + + +Your Lordship's mention of nuns has brought to my memory a little +anecdote on this subject, which I will tell you. + +I was, a few mornings ago, visiting a French lady, whose very +handsome daughter, of almost sixteen, told me, she was going into a +convent. I enquired which she had made choice of: she said, "The +General Hospital." + +"I am glad, Mademoiselle, you have not chose the Ursulines; the +rules are so very severe, you would have found them hard to conform +to." + +"As to the rules, Sir, I have no objection to their severity; but +the habit of the General Hospital--" + +I smiled. + +"Is so very light--" + +"And so becoming, Mademoiselle." + +She smiled in her turn, and I left her fully convinced of the +sincerity of her vocation, and the great propriety and humanity of +suffering young creatures to chuse a kind of life so repugnant to human +nature, at an age when they are such excellent judges of what will make +them happy. + + + +LETTER 154. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, June 9. + +I send this by your brother, who sails to-morrow. + +Time, I hope, will reconcile me to his and Emily's absence; but at +present I cannot think of losing them without a dejection of mind which +takes from me the very idea of pleasure. + +I conjure you, my dear Lucy, to do every thing possible to +facilitate their union; and remember, that to your request, and to Mrs. +Rivers's tranquillity, they have sacrificed every prospect they had of +happiness. + +I would say more; but my spirits are so affected, I am incapable of +writing. + +Love my sweet Emily, and let her not repent the generosity of her +conduct. + + Adieu! your affectionate + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 155. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, June 10, Evening. + +My poor Rivers! I think I felt more from his going than even from +Emily's: whilst he was here, I seemed not quite to have lost her: I now +feel doubly the loss of both. + +He begged me to shew attention to Madame Des Roches, who he assured +me merited my tenderest friendship; he wrote to her, and has left the +letter open in my care: it is to thank her, in the most affectionate +terms, for her politeness and friendship, as well to himself as to his +Emily; and to offer her his best services in England in regard to her +estate, part of which some people here have very ungenerously applied +for a grant of, on pretence of its not being all settled according to +the original conditions. + +He owned to me, he felt some regret at leaving this amiable woman in +Canada, and at the idea of never seeing her more. + +I love him for this sensibility; and for his delicate attention to +one whose disinterested affection for him most certainly deserves it. + +Fitzgerald is below, he does all possible to console me for the loss +of my friends; but indeed, Lucy, I feel their absence most severely. + +I have an opportunity of sending your brother's letter to Madame Des +Roches, which I must not lose, as they are not very frequent: 'tis by +a French gentleman who is now with my father. + + Adieu! your faithful, + A. Fermor. + +Twelve at night. + +We have been talking of your brother; I have been saying, there is +nothing I so much admire in him as that tenderness of soul, and almost +female sensibility, which is so uncommon in a sex, whose whole +education tends to harden their hearts. + +Fitzgerald admires his spirit, his understanding, his generosity, +his courage, the warmth of his friendship. + +My father his knowledge of the world; not that indiscriminate +suspicion of mankind which is falsely so called; but that clearness of +mental sight, and discerning faculty, which can distinguish virtue as +well as vice, wherever it resides. + +"I also love in him," said my father, "that noble sincerity, that +integrity of character, which is the foundation of all the virtues." + +"And yet, my dear papa, you would have had Emily prefer to him, that +_white curd of asses milk_, Sir George Clayton, whose highest +claim to virtue is the constitutional absence of vice, and who never +knew what it was to feel for the sorrows of another." + +"You mistake, Bell: such a preference was impossible; but she was +engaged to Sir George; and he had also a fine fortune. Now, in these +degenerate days, my dear, people must eat; we have lost all taste for +the airy food of romances, when ladies rode behind their enamored +knights, dined luxuriously on a banquet of haws, and quenched their +thirst at the first stream." + +"But, my dear papa--" + +"But my dear Bell--" + +I saw the sweet old man look angry, so chose to drop the subject; +but I do aver, now he is out of sight, that haws and a pillion, with +such a noble fellow as your brother, are preferable to ortolans and a +coach and six, with such a piece of still life and insipidity as Sir +George. + +Good night! my dear Lucy. + + + +LETTER 156. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, June 17. + +I have this moment received a packet of letters from my dear Lucy; I +shall only say, in answer to what makes the greatest part of them, that +in a fortnight I hope you will have the pleasure of seeing your +brother, who did not hesitate one moment in giving up to Mrs. Rivers's +peace of mind, all his pleasing prospects here, and the happiness of +being united to the woman he loved. + +You will not, I hope, my dear, forget his having made such a +sacrifice: but I think too highly of you to say more on this subject. +You will receive Emily as a friend, as a sister, who merits all your +esteem and tenderness, and who has lost all the advantages of fortune, +and incurred the censure of the world, by her disinterested attachment +to your brother. + +I am extremely sorry, but not surprized, at what you tell me of poor +Lady H----. I knew her intimately; she was sacrificed at eighteen, by +the avarice and ambition of her parents, to age, disease, ill-nature, +and a coronet; and her death is the natural consequence of her regret: +she had a soul formed for friendship; she found it not at home; her +elegance of mind, and native probity, prevented her seeking it abroad; +she died a melancholy victim to the tyranny of her friends, the +tenderness of her heart, and her delicate sense of honor. + +If her father has any of the feelings of humanity left, what must he +not suffer on this occasion? + +It is a painful consideration, my dear, that the happiness or misery +of our lives are generally determined before we are proper judges of +either. + +Restrained by custom, and the ridiculous prejudices of the world, we +go with the crowd, and it is late in life before we dare to think. + +How happy are you and I, Lucy, in having parents, who, far from +forcing our inclinations, have not even endeavored to betray us into +chusing from sordid motives! They have not labored to fill our young +hearts with vanity or avarice; they have left us those virtues, those +amiable qualities, we received from nature. They have painted to us the +charms of friendship, and not taught us to value riches above their +real price. + +My father, indeed, checks a certain excess of romance which there is +in my temper; but, at the same time, he never encouraged my receiving +the addresses of any man who had only the gifts of fortune to recommend +him; he even advised me, when very young, against marrying an officer +in his regiment, of a large fortune, but an unworthy character. + +If I have any knowledge of the human heart, it will be my own fault +if I am not happy with Fitzgerald. + +I am only afraid, that when we are married, and begin to settle into +a calm, my volatile disposition will carry me back to coquetry: my +passion for admiration is naturally strong, and has been increased by +indulgence; for without vanity I have been extremely the taste of the +men. + +I have a kind of an idea it won't be long before I try the strength +of my resolution, for I heard papa and Fitzgerald in high consultation +this morning. + +Do you know, that, having nobody to love but Fitzgerald, I am ten +times more enamored of the dear creature than ever? My love is now like +the rays of the sun collected. + +He is so much here, I wonder I don't grow tired of him; but somehow +he has the art of varying himself beyond any man I ever knew: it was +that agreable variety of character that first struck me; I considered +that with him I should have all the sex in one; he says the same of me; +and indeed, it must be owned we have both an infinity of agreable +caprice, which in love affairs is worth all the merit in the world. + +Have you never observed, Lucy, that the same person is seldom +greatly the object of both love and friendship? + +Those virtues which command esteem do not often inspire passion. + +Friendship seeks the more real, more solid virtues; integrity, +constancy, and a steady uniformity of character: love, on the contrary, +admires it knows not what; creates itself the idol it worships; finds +charms even in defects; is pleased with follies, with inconsistency, +with caprice: to say all in one line, + + "Love is a child, and like a child he plays." + +The moment Emily arrives, I entreat that one of you will write to +me: no words can speak my impatience: I am equally anxious to hear of +my dear Rivers. Heaven send them prosperous gales! + + Adieu! + Your faithful + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 157. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, June 30. + +You are extremely mistaken, my dear, in your idea of the society +here; I had rather live at Quebec, take it for all in all, than in any +town in England, except London; the manner of living here is uncommonly +agreable; the scenes about us are lovely, and the mode of amusements +make us taste those scenes in full perfection. + +Whilst your brother and Emily were here, I had not a wish to leave +Canada; but their going has left a void in my heart, which will not +easily be filled up: I have loved Emily almost from childhood, and +there is a peculiar tenderness in those friendships, which + + "Grow with our growth, and strengthen with our strength." + +There was also something romantic and agreable in finding her here, +and unexpectedly, after we had been separated by Colonel Montague's +having left the regiment in which my father served. + +In short, every thing concurred to make us dear to each other, and +therefore to give a greater poignancy to the pain of parting a second +time. + +As to your brother, I love him so much, that a man who had less +candor and generosity than Fitzgerald, would be almost angry at my very +lively friendship. + +I have this moment a letter from Madame Des Roches; she laments the +loss of our two amiable friends; begs me to assure them both of her +eternal remembrance: says, "she congratulates Emily on possessing the +heart of the man on earth most worthy of being beloved; that she cannot +form an idea of any human felicity equal to that of the woman, the +business of whose life it is to make Colonel Rivers happy. That, heaven +having denied her that happiness, she will never marry, nor enter into +an engagement which would make it criminal in her to remember him with +tenderness: that it is, however, she believes, best for her he has +left the country, for that it is impossible she should ever have seen +him with indifference." + +It is perhaps as prudent not to mention these circumstances either +to your brother or Emily; I thought of sending her letter to them, but +there is a certain fire in her style, mixed with tenderness, when she +speaks of Rivers, which would only have given them both regret, by +making them see the excess of her affection for him; her expressions +are much stronger than those in which I have given you the sense of +them. + +I intend to be very intimate with her, because she loves my dear +Rivers; she loves Emily too, at least she fancies she does, but I am a +little doubtful as to the friendships between rivals: at this distance, +however, I dare say, they will always continue on the best terms +possible, and I would have Emily write to her. + +Do you know she has desired me to contrive to get her a picture of +your brother, without his knowing it? I am not determined whether I +shall indulge her in this fancy or not; if I do, I must employ you as +my agent. It is madness in her to desire it; but, as there is a +pleasure in being mad, I am not sure my morality will let me refuse +her, since pleasures are not very thick sown in this world. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 158. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, July 10. + +By this time, my dear Lucy, I hope you are happy with your brother +and my sweet Emily: I am all impatience to know this from yourselves; +but it will be five or six weeks, perhaps much more, before I can have +that satisfaction. + +As to me--to be plain, my dear, I can hold no longer; I have been +married this fortnight. My father wanted to keep it a secret, for some +very foolish reasons; but it is not in my nature; I hate secrets, they +are only fit for politicians, and people whose thoughts and actions +will not bear the light. + +For my part, I am convinced the general loquacity of human kind, and +our inability to keep secrets without a natural kind of uneasiness, +were meant by Providence to guard against our laying deep schemes of +treachery against each other. + +I remember a very sensible man, who perfectly knew the world, used +to say, there was no such thing in nature as a secret; a maxim as true, +at least I believe so, as it is salutary, and which I would advise all +good mammas, aunts, and governesses, to impress strongly on the minds +of young ladies. + +So, as I was saying, _voilà Madame Fitzgerald!_ + +This is, however, yet a secret here; but, according to my present +doctrine, and following the nature of things, it cannot long continue +so. + +You never saw so polite a husband, but I suppose they are all so the +first fortnight, especially when married in so interesting and romantic +a manner; I am very fond of the fancy of being thus married _as it +were_; but I have a notion I shall blunder it out very soon: we were +married on a party to Three Rivers, nobody with us but papa and Madame +Villiers, who have not yet published the mystery. I hear some misses at +Quebec are scandalous about Fitzgerald's being so much here; I will +leave them in doubt a little, I think, merely to gratify their love of +scandal; every body should be amused in their way. + + Adieu! yours, + A. Fitzgerald. + + +Pray let Emily be married; every body marries but poor little Emily. + + + +LETTER 159. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +Silleri, July 10. + +I have the pleasure to tell your Lordship I have married my daughter +to a gentleman with whom I have reason to hope she will be happy. + +He is the second son of an Irish baronet of good fortune, and has +himself about five hundred pounds a year, independent of his +commission; he is a man of an excellent sense, and of honor, and has a +very lively tenderness for my daughter. + +It will, I am afraid, be some time before I can leave this country, +as I chuse to take my daughter and Mr. Fitzgerald with me, in order to +the latter's soliciting a majority, in which pursuit I shall without +scruple tax your Lordship's friendship to the utmost. + +I am extremely happy at this event, as Bell's volatile temper made +me sometimes afraid of her chusing inconsiderately: their marriage is +not yet declared, for some family reasons, not worth particularizing to +your Lordship. + +As soon as leave of absence comes from New York, for me and Mr. +Fitzgerald, we shall settle things for taking leave of Canada, which I +however assure your Lordship I shall do with some reluctance. + +The climate is all the year agreable and healthy, in summer divine; +a man at my time of life cannot leave this chearing, enlivening sun +without reluctance; the heat is very like that of Italy or the South of +France, without that oppressive closeness which generally attends our +hot weather in England. + +The manner of life here is chearful; we make the most of our fine +summers, by the pleasantest country parties you can imagine. Here are +some very estimable persons, and the spirit of urbanity begins to +diffuse itself from the centre: in short, I shall leave Canada at the +very time when one would wish to come to it. + +It is astonishing, in a small community like this, how much depends +on the personal character of him who governs. + +I am obliged to break off abruptly, the person who takes this to +England being going immediately on board. + + I have the honor to be, + My Lord, + Your Lordship's, &c. + Wm. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 160. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Silleri, July 13. + +I agree with you, my dear Temple, that nothing can be more pleasing +than an _awakened_ English woman; of which you and my _caro sposo_ +have, I flatter myself, the happy experience; and wish with you that +the character was more common: but I must own, and I am sorry to own +it, that my fair countrywomen and fellow citizens (I speak of the +nation in general, and not of the capital) have an unbecoming kind of +reserve, which prevents their being the agreable companions, and +amiable wives, which nature meant them. + +From a fear, and I think a prudish one, of being thought too +attentive to please your sex, they have acquired a certain distant +manner to men, which borders on ill-breeding: they take great pains to +veil, under an affected appearance of disdain, that winning sensibility +of heart, that delicate tenderness, which renders them doubly lovely. + +They are even afraid to own their friendships, if not according to +the square and rule; are doubtful whether a modest woman may own she +loves even her husband; and seem to think affections were given them +for no purpose but to hide. + +Upon the whole, with at least as good a native right to charm as any +women on the face of the globe, the English have found the happy secret +of pleasing less. + +Is my Emily arrived? I can say nothing else. + +Twelve o'clock. + +I am the happiest woman in the creation: papa has just told me, we +are to go home in six or seven weeks. + +Not but this is a divine country, and our farm a terrestrial +paradise; but we have lived in it almost a year, and one grows tired of +every thing in time, you know, Temple. + +I shall see my Emily, and flirt with Rivers; to say nothing of you +and my little Lucy. + +Adieu! I am grown very lazy since I married; for the future, I shall +make Fitzgerald write all my letters, except billet-doux, in which I +think I excel him. + + Yours, + A. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 161. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Dover, July 8. + +I am this moment arrived, my dear Bell, after a very agreable +passage, and am setting out immediately for London, from whence I shall +write to you the moment I have seen Mrs. Rivers; I will own to you I +tremble at the idea of this interview, yet am resolved to see her, and +open all my soul to her in regard to her son; after which, I shall +leave her the mistress of my destiny; for, ardently as I love him, I +will never marry him but with her approbation. + +I have a thousand anxious fears for my Rivers's safety: may heaven +protect him from the dangers his Emily has escaped! + +I have but a moment to write, a ship being under way which is bound +to Quebec; a gentleman, who is just going off in a boat to the ship, +takes the care of this. + +May every happiness attend my dear girl. Say every thing +affectionate for me to Captain Fermor and Mr. Fitzgerald. + + Adieu! Yours, + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 162. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +London, July 19. + +I got to town last night, my dear, and am at a friend's, from whence +I have this morning sent to Mrs. Rivers; I every moment expect her +answer; my anxiety of mind is not to be expressed; my heart sinks; I +almost dread the return of my messenger. + +If the affections, my dear friend, give us the highest happiness of +which we are capable, they are also the source of our keenest misery; +what I feel at this instant, is not to be described: I have been near +resolving to go into the country without seeing or sending to Mrs. +Rivers. If she should receive me with coldness--why should I have +exposed myself to the chance of such a reception? It would have been +better to have waited for Rivers's arrival; I have been too +precipitate; my warmth of temper has misled me: what had I to do to +seek his family? I would give the world to retract my message, though +it was only to let her know I was arrived; that her son was well, and +that she might every hour expect him in England. + +There is a rap at the door: I tremble I know not why; the servant +comes up, he announces Mr. and Mrs. Temple: my heart beats, they are at +the door. + +One o'clock. + +They are gone, and return for me in an hour; they insist on my +dining with them, and tell me Mrs. Rivers is impatient to see me. +Nothing was ever so polite, so delicate, so affectionate, as the +behaviour of both; they saw my confusion, and did every thing to +remove it: they enquired after Rivers, but without the least hint of +the dear interest I take in him: they spoke of the happiness of knowing +me: they asked my friendship, in a manner the most flattering that can +be imagined. How strongly does Mrs. Temple, my dear, resemble her +amiable brother! her eyes have the same sensibility, the same pleasing +expression; I think I scarce ever saw so charming a woman; I love her +already; I feel a tenderness for her, which is inconceivable; I caught +myself two or three times looking at her, with an attention for which I +blushed. + +How dear to me is every friend of my Rivers! + +I believe, there was something very foolish in my behaviour; but +they had the good-breeding and humanity not to seem to observe it. + +I had almost forgot to tell you, they said every thing obliging and +affectionate of you and Captain Fermor. + +My mind is in a state not to be described; I feel joy, I feel +anxiety, I feel doubt, I feel a timidity I cannot conquer, at the +thought of seeing Mrs. Rivers. + +I have to dress; therefore must finish this when I return. + +Twelve at night. + +I am come back, my dearest Bell; I have gone through the scene I so +much dreaded, and am astonished I should ever think of it but with +pleasure. How much did I injure this most amiable of women! Her +reception of me was that of a tender parent, who had found a long-lost +child; she kissed me, she pressed me to her bosom; her tears flowed +in abundance; she called me her daughter, her other Lucy: she asked me +a thousand questions of her son; she would know all that concerned him, +however minute: how he looked, whether he talked much of her, what were +his amusements; whether he was as handsome as when he left England. + +I answered her with some hesitation, but with a pleasure that +animated my whole soul; I believe, I never appeared to such advantage +as this day. + +You will not ascribe it to an unmeaning vanity, when I tell you, I +never took such pains to please; I even gave a particular attention to +my dress, that I might, as much as possible, justify my Rivers's +tenderness: I never was vain for myself; but I am so for him: I am +indifferent to admiration as Emily Montague; but as the object of his +love, I would be admired by all the world; I wish to be the first of +my sex in all that is amiable and lovely, that I might make a sacrifice +worthy of my Rivers, in shewing to all his friends, that he only can +inspire me with tenderness, that I live for him alone. + +Mrs. Rivers pressed me extremely to pass a month with her: my heart +yielded too easily to her request; but I had courage to resist my own +wishes, as well as her solicitations; and shall set out in three days +for Berkshire: I have, however, promised to go with them to-morrow, on +a party to Richmond, which Mr. Temple was so obliging as to propose on +my account. + +Late as the season is, there is one more ship going to Quebec, which +sails to-morrow. + +You shall hear from me again in a few days by the packet. + + Adieu! my dearest friend! + Your faithful + Emily Montague. + +Surely it will not be long before Rivers arrives; you, my dear +Bell, will judge what must be my anxiety till that moment. + + + +LETTER 163. + + +To Captain Fermor, at Silleri. + +Dover, July 24, eleven o'clock. + +I am arrived, my dear friend, after a passage agreable in itself; +but which my fears for Emily made infinitely anxious and painful: every +wind that blew, I trembled for her; I formed to myself ideal dangers +on her account, which reason had not power to dissipate. + +We had a very tumultuous head-sea a great part of the voyage, though +the wind was fair; a certain sign there had been stormy weather, with a +contrary wind. I fancied my Emily exposed to those storms; there is no +expressing what I suffered from this circumstance. + +On entering the channel of England, we saw an empty boat, and some +pieces of a wreck floating; I fancied it part of the ship which +conveyed my lovely Emily; a sudden chillness seized my whole frame, my +heart died within me at the sight: I had scarce courage, when I landed, +to enquire whether she was arrived. + +I asked the question with a trembling voice, and had the transport +to find the ship had passed by, and to hear the person of my Emily +described amongst the passengers who landed; it was not easy to mistake +her. + +I hope to see her this evening: what do I not feel from that dear +hope! + +Chance gives me an opportunity of forwarding this by New York; I +write whilst my chaise is getting ready. + + Adieu! yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + +I shall write to my dear little Bell as soon as I get to town. There +is no describing what I felt at first seeing the coast of England: I +saw the white cliffs with a transport mixed with veneration; a +transport, which, however, was checked by my fears for the dearer part +of myself. + +My chaise is at the door. + + Adieu! + Your faithful, &c. + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 164. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Rochester, July 24. + +I am obliged to wait ten minutes for a Canadian gentleman who is +with me, and has some letters to deliver here: how painful is this +delay! But I cannot leave a stranger alone on the road, though I lose +so many minutes with my charming Emily. + +To soften this moment as much as possible, I will begin a letter to +my dear Bell: our sweet Emily is safe; I wrote to Captain Fermor this +morning. + +My heart is gay beyond words: my fellow-traveller is astonished at +the beauty and riches of England, from what he has seen of Kent: for my +part, I point out every fine prospect, and am so proud of my country, +that my whole soul seems to be dilated; for which perhaps there are +other reasons. The day is fine, the numerous herds and flocks on the +side of the hills, the neatness of the houses, of the people, the +appearance of plenty; all exhibit a scene which must strike one who has +been used only to the wild graces of nature. + +Canada has beauties; but they are of another kind. + +This unreasonable man; he has no mistress to see in London; he is +not expected by the most amiable of mothers, by a family he loves as I +do mine. + +I will order another chaise, and leave my servant to attend him. + +He comes. Adieu! my dear little Bell! at this moment a gentleman is +come into the inn, who is going to embark at Dover for New York; I will +send this by him. Once more adieu! + + + +LETTER 165. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Clarges Street, July 25. + +I am the only person here, my dear Bell, enough composed to tell you +Rivers is arrived in town. He stopped in his post chaise, at the end of +the street, and sent for me, that I might prepare my mother to see him, +and prevent a surprize which might have hurried her spirits too much. + +I came back, and told her I had seen a gentleman, who had left him +at Dover, and that he would soon be here; he followed me in a few +minutes. + +I am not painter enough to describe their meeting; though prepared, +it was with difficulty we kept my mother from fainting; she pressed +him in her arms, she attempted to speak, her voice faltered, tears +stole softly down her cheeks: nor was Rivers less affected, though in a +different manner; I never saw him look so handsome; the manly +tenderness, the filial respect, the lively joy, that were expressed in +his countenance, gave him a look to which it is impossible to do +justice: he hinted going down to Berkshire to-night; but my mother +seemed so hurt at the proposal, that he wrote to Emily, and told her +his reason for deferring it till to-morrow, when we are all to go in my +coach, and hope to bring her back with us to town. + +You judge rightly, my dear Bell, that they were formed for each +other; never were two minds so similar; we must contrive some method of +making them happy: nothing but a too great delicacy in Rivers prevents +their being so to-morrow; were our situations changed, I should not +hesitate a moment to let him make me so. + +Lucy has sent for me. Adieu! + + Believe me, + Your faithful and devoted, + J. Temple. + + + +LETTER 166. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Pall Mall, July 29. + +I am the happiest of human beings: my Rivers is arrived, he is well, +he loves me; I am dear to his family; I see him without restraint; I +am every hour more convinced of the excess of his affection; his +attention to me is inconceivable; his eyes every moment tell me, I am +dearer to him than life. + +I am to be for some time on a visit to his sister; he is at Mrs. +Rivers's, but we are always together: we go down next week to Mr. +Temple's, in Rutland; they only stayed in town, expecting Rivers's +arrival. His seat is within six miles of Rivers's little paternal +estate, which he settled on his mother when he left England; she +presses him to resume it, but he peremptorily refuses: he insists on +her continuing her house in town, and being perfectly independent, and +mistress of herself. + +I love him a thousand times more for this tenderness to her; though +it disappoints my dear hope of being his. Did I think it possible, my +dear Bell, he could have risen higher in my esteem? + +If we are never united, if we always live as at present, his +tenderness will still make the delight of my life; to see him, to hear +that voice, to be his friend, the confidante of all his purposes, of +all his designs, to hear the sentiments of that generous, that exalted +soul--I would not give up this delight, to be empress of the world. + +My ideas of affection are perhaps uncommon; but they are not the less +just, nor the less in nature. + +A blind man may as well judge of colors as the mass of mankind of +the sentiments of a truly enamored heart. + +The sensual and the cold will equally condemn my affection as +romantic: few minds, my dear Bell, are capable of love; they feel +passion, they feel esteem; they even feel that mixture of both which is +the best counterfeit of love; but of that vivifying fire, that lively +tenderness which hurries us out of ourselves, they know nothing; that +tenderness which makes us forget ourselves, when the interest, the +happiness, the honor, of him we love is concerned; that tenderness +which renders the beloved object all that we see in the creation. + +Yes, my Rivers, I live, I breathe, I exist, for you alone: be happy, +and your Emily is so. + +My dear friend, you know love, and will therefore bear with all the +impertinence of a tender heart. + +I hope you have by this time made Fitzgerald happy; he deserves you, +amiable as you are, and you cannot too soon convince him of your +affection: you sometimes play cruelly with his tenderness: I have been +astonished to see you torment a heart which adores you. + +I am interrupted. + + Adieu! my dear Bell. + Your affectionate + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 167. + + +To Captain Fermor, at Silleri. + +Clarges Street, Aug. 1. + +Lord ---- not being in town, I went to his villa at Richmond, to +deliver your letter. + +I cannot enough, my dear Sir, thank you for this introduction; I +passed part of the day at Richmond, and never was more pleasingly +entertained. + +His politeness, his learning, his knowledge of the world, however +amiable, are in character at his season of life; but his vivacity is +astonishing. + +What fire, what spirit, there is in his conversation! I hardly +thought myself a young man near him. What must he have been at five and +twenty? + +He desired me to tell you, all his interest should be employed for +Fitzgerald, and that he wished you to come to England as soon as +possible. + +We are just setting off for Temple's house in Rutland. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 168. + + +To Captain Fermor, at Silleri. + +Temple-house, Aug. 4. + +I enjoy, my dear friend, in one of the pleasantest houses, and most +agreable situations imaginable, the society of the four persons in the +world most dear to me; I am in all respects as much at home as if +master of the family, without the cares attending that station; my +wishes, my desires, are prevented by Temple's attention and friendship, +and my mother and sister's amiable anxiety to oblige me; I find an +unspeakable softness in seeing my lovely Emily every moment, in seeing +her adored by my family, in seeing her without restraint, in being in +the same house, in living in that easy converse which is born from +friendship alone: yet I am not happy. + +It is that we lose the present happiness in the pursuit of greater: +I look forward with impatience to that moment which will make Emily +mine; and the difficulties, which I see on every side arising, embitter +hours which would otherwise be exquisitely happy. + +The narrowness of my fortune, which I see in a much stronger light +in this land of luxury, and the apparent impossibility of placing the +most charming of women in the station my heart wishes, give me +anxieties which my reason cannot conquer. + +I cannot live without her, I flatter myself our union is in some +degree necessary to her happiness; yet I dread bringing her into +distresses, which I am doubly obliged to protect her from, because she +would with transport meet them all, from tenderness to me. + +I have nothing which I can call my own, but my half-pay, and four +thousand pounds: I have lived amongst the first company in England; all +my connexions have been rather suited to my birth than fortune. My +mother presses me to resume my estate, and let her live with us +alternately; but against this I am firmly determined; she shall have +her own house, and never change her manner of living. + +Temple would share his estate with me, if I would allow him; but I +am too fond of independence to accept favors of this kind even from +him. + +I have formed a thousand schemes, and as often found them abortive; +I go to-morrow to see our little estate, with my mother; it is a +private party of our own, and nobody is in the secret; I will there +talk over every thing with her. + +My mind is at present in a state of confusion not to be expressed; I +must determine on something; it is improper Emily should continue long +with my sister in her present situation; yet I cannot live without +seeing her. + +I have never asked about Emily's fortune; but I know it is a small +one; perhaps two thousand pounds; I am pretty certain, not more. + +We can live on little, but we must live in some degree on a genteel +footing: I cannot let Emily, who refused a coach and six for me, pay +visits on foot; I will be content with a post-chaise, but cannot with +less; I have a little, a very little pride, for my Emily. + +I wish it were possible to prevail on my mother to return with us to +Canada: I could then reconcile my duty and happiness, which at present +seem almost incompatible. + +Emily appears perfectly happy, and to look no further than to the +situation in which we now are; she seems content with being my friend +only, without thinking of a nearer connexion; I am rather piqued at a +composure which has the air of indifference: why should not her +impatience equal mine? + +The coach is at the door, and my mother waits for me. + +Every happiness attend my friend, and all connected with him, in +which number I hope I may, by this time, include Fitzgerald. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 169. + + +To Captain Fermor, at Silleri. + +Aug. 6. + +I have been taking an exact survey of the house and estate with my +mother, in order to determine on some future plan of life. + +'Tis inconceivable what I felt on returning to a place so dear to +me, and which I had not seen for many years; I ran hastily from one +room to another; I traversed the garden with inexpressible eagerness: +my eye devoured every object; there was not a tree, not a bush, which +did not revive some pleasing, some soft idea. + +I felt, to borrow a very pathetic expression of Thomson's, + + "A thousand little tendernesses throb," + +on revisiting those dear scenes of infant happiness; which were +increased by having with me that estimable, that affectionate mother, +to whose indulgence all my happiness had been owing. + +But to return to the purpose of our visit: the house is what most +people would think too large for the estate, even had I a right to call +it all my own; this is, however, a fault, if it is one, which I can +easily forgive. + +There is furniture enough in it for my family, including my mother; +it is unfashionable, but some of it very good: and I think Emily has +tenderness enough for me to live with me in a house, the furniture of +which is not perfectly in taste. + +In short, I know her much above having the slightest wish of vanity, +where it comes in competition with love. + +We can, as to the house, live here commodiously enough; and our only +present consideration is, on what we are to live: a consideration, +however, which as lovers, I believe in strictness we ought to be much +above! + +My mother again solicits me to resume this estate; and has proposed +my making over to her my half-pay instead of it, though of much less +value, which, with her own two hundred pounds a year, will, she says, +enable her to continue her house in town, a point I am determined never +to suffer her to give up; because she loves London; and because I +insist on her having her own house to go to, if she should ever chance +to be displeased with ours. + +I am inclined to like this proposal: Temple and I will make a +calculation; and, if we find it will answer every necessary purpose to +my mother, I owe it to Emily to accept of it. + +I endeavor to persuade myself, that I am obliging my mother, by +giving her an opportunity of shewing her generosity, and of making me +happy: I have been in spirits ever since she mentioned it. + +I have already projected a million of improvements; have taught new +streams to flow, planted ideal groves, and walked, fancy-led, in shades +of my own raising. + +The situation of the house is enchanting; and with all my passion +for the savage luxuriance of America, I begin to find my taste return +for the more mild and regular charms of my native country. + +We have no Chaudieres, no Montmorencis, none of those magnificent +scenes on which the Canadians have a right to pride themselves; but we +excel them in the lovely, the smiling; in enameled meadows, in waving +corn-fields, in gardens the boast of Europe; in every elegant art which +adorns and softens human life; in all the riches and beauty which +cultivation can give. + +I begin to think I may be blest in the possession of my Emily, +without betraying her into a state of want; we may, I begin to flatter +myself, live with decency, in retirement; and, in my opinion, there +are a thousand charms in retirement with those we love. + +Upon the whole, I believe we shall be able to live, taking the word +_live_ in the sense of lovers, not of the _beau monde_, who will +never allow a little country squire of four hundred pounds a year to +_live_. + +Time may do more for us; at least, I am of an age and temper to +encourage hope. + +All here are perfectly yours. + + Adieu! my dear friend, + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 170. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, Aug. 6. + +The leave of absence for my father and Fitzgerald being come some +weeks sooner than we expected, we propose leaving Canada in five or six +days. + +I am delighted with the idea of revisiting dear England, and seeing +friends whom I so tenderly love: yet I feel a regret, which I had no +idea I should have felt, at leaving the scenes of a thousand past +pleasures; the murmuring rivulets to which Emily and I have sat +listening, the sweet woods where I have walked with my little circle of +friends: I have even a strong attachment to the scenes themselves, +which are infinitely lovely, and speak the inimitable hand of nature +which formed them: I want to transport this fairy ground to England. + +I sigh when I pass any particularly charming spot; I feel a +tenderness beyond what inanimate objects seem to merit. + +I must pay one more visit to the naiads of Montmorenci. + +Eleven at night. + +I am just come from the general's assembly; where, I should have +told you, I was this day fortnight announced _Madame Fitzgerald_, +to the great mortification of two or three cats, who had very +sagaciously determined, that Fitzgerald had too much understanding ever +to think of such a flirting, coquetish creature as a wife. + +I was grave at the assembly to-night, in spite of all the pains I +took to be otherwise: I was hurt at the idea it would probably be +_the last_ at which I should be; I felt a kind of concern at parting, +not only with the few I loved, but with those who had till to-night +been indifferent to me. + +There is something affecting in the idea of _the last time_ of +seeing even those persons or places, for which we have no particular +affection. + +I go to-morrow to take leave of the nuns, at the Ursuline convent; I +suppose I shall carry this melancholy idea with me there, and be hurt +at seeing them too _for the last time_. + +I pay visits every day amongst the peasants, who are very fond of +me. I talk to them of their farms, give money to their children, and +teach their wives to be good huswives: I am the idol of the country +people five miles round, who declare me the most amiable, most generous +woman in the world, and think it a thousand pities I should be damned. + +Adieu! say every thing for me to my sweet friends, if arrived. + +7th, Eleven o'clock. + +I have this moment a large packet of letters for Emily from Mrs. +Melmoth, which I intend to take the care of myself, as I hope to be in +England almost as soon as this. + + Good morrow! + Yours ever, &c. + A. Fitzgerald. + +Three o'clock. + +I am just come from visiting the nuns; they expressed great concern +at my leaving Canada, and promised me their prayers on my voyage; for +which proof of affection, though a good protestant, I thanked them very +sincerely. + +I wished exceedingly to have brought some of them away with me; my +nun, as they call the amiable girl I saw take the veil, paid me the +flattering tribute of a tear at parting; her fine eyes had a concern in +them, which affected me extremely. + +I was not less pleased with the affection the late superior, my good +old countrywoman, expressed for me, and her regret at seeing me _for +the last time_. + +Surely there is no pleasure on earth equal to that of being beloved! +I did not think I had been such a favorite in Canada: it is almost a +pity to leave it; perhaps nobody may love me in England. + +Yes, I believe Fitzgerald will; and I have a pretty party enough of +friends in your family. + +Adieu! I shall write a line the day we embark, by another ship, +which may possibly arrive before us. + + + +LETTER 171. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, Aug. 11. + +We embark to-morrow, and hope to see you in less than a month, if +this fine wind continues. + +I am just come from Montmorenci, where I have been paying my +devotions to the tutelary deities of the place _for the last time_. + +I had only Fitzgerald with me; we visited every grotto on the lovely +banks, where we dined; kissed every flower, raised a votive altar on +the little island, poured a libation of wine to the river goddess; and, +in short, did every thing which it became good heathens to do. + +We stayed till day-light began to decline, which, with the idea of +_the last time_, threw round us a certain melancholy solemnity; a +solemnity which + + "Deepen'd the murmur of the falling floods, + And breath'd a browner horror on the woods." + +I have twenty things to do, and but a moment to do them in. Adieu! + +I am called down; it is to Madame Des Roches: she is very obliging +to come thus far to see me. + +12th. + +We go on board at one; Madame Des Roches goes down with us as far as +her estate, where her boat is to fetch her on shore. She has made me a +present of a pair of extreme pretty bracelets; has sent your brother an +elegant sword-knot, and Emily a very beautiful cross of diamonds. + +I don't believe she would be sorry if we were to run away with her +to England: I protest I am half inclined; it is pity such a woman +should be hid all her life in the woods of Canada: besides, one might +convert her you know; and, on a religious principle, a little +deviation from rules is allowable. + +Your brother is an admirable missionary amongst unbelieving ladies: +I really think I shall carry her off; if it is only for the good of her +soul. + +I have but one objection; if Fitzgerald should take a fancy to +prefer the tender to the lively, I should be in some danger: there is +something very seducing in her eyes, I assure you. + + + +LETTER 172. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Kamaraskas, Aug. 14. + +By Madame Des Roches, who is going on shore, I write two or three +lines, to tell you we have got thus far, and have a fair wind; she will +send it immediately to Quebec, to be put on board any ship going, that +you may have the greater variety of chances to hear of me. + +There is a French lady on board, whose superstition bids fair to +amuse us; she has thrown half her little ornaments over-board for a +wind, and has promised I know not how many votive offerings of the same +kind to St. Joseph, the patron of Canada, if we get safe to land; on +which I shall only observe, that there is nothing so like ancient +absurdity as modern: she has classical authority for this manner of +playing the fool. Horace, when afraid on a voyage, having, if my memory +quotes fair, vowed + + "His dank and dropping weeds + To the stern god of sea." + +The boat is ready, and Madame Des Roches going; I am very unwilling +to part with her; and her present concern at leaving me would be very +flattering, if I did not think the remembrance of your brother had the +greatest share in it. + +She has wrote four or five letters to him, since she came on board, +very tender ones I fancy, and destroyed them; she has at last wrote a +meer complimentary kind of card, only thanking him for his offers of +service; yet I see it gives her pleasure to write even this, however +cold and formal; because addressed to him: she asked me, if I thought +there was any impropriety in her writing to him, and whether it would +not be better to address herself to Emily. I smiled at her simplicity, +and she finished her letter; she blushed and looked down when she gave +it me. + +She is less like a sprightly French widow, than a foolish English +girl, who loves for the first time. + +But I suppose, when the heart is really touched, the feelings of all +nations have a pretty near resemblance: it is only that the French +ladies are generally more coquets, and less inclined to the romantic +style of love, than the English; and we are, therefore, surprized when +we find in them this trembling sensibility. + +There are exceptions, however, to all rules; and your little Bell +seems, in point of love, to have changed countries with Madame Des +Roches. + +The gale encreases, it flutters in the sails; my fair friend is +summoned; the captain chides our delay. + +Adieu! _ma chere Madame Des Roches_. I embrace her; I feel the +force of its being _for the last time_. I am afraid she feels it +yet more strongly than I do: in parting with the last of his friends, +she seems to part with her Rivers for ever. + +One look more at the wild graces of nature I leave behind. + +Adieu! Canada! adieu! sweet abode of the wood-nymphs! never shall I +cease to remember with delight the place where I have passed so many +happy hours. + +Heaven preserve my dear Lucy, and give prosperous gales to her +friends! + + Your faithful + A. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 173. + + +To Miss Montague. + +Isle of Bic, Aug. 16. + +You are little obliged to me, my dear, for writing to you on +ship-board; one of the greatest miseries here, being the want of +employment: I therefore write for my own amusement, not yours. + +We have some French ladies on board, but they do not resemble Madame +Des Roches. I am weary of them already, though we have been so few +days together. + +The wind is contrary, and we are at anchor under this island; +Fitzgerald has proposed going to dine on shore: it looks excessively +pretty from the ship. + +Seven in the evening. + +We are returned from Bic, after passing a very agreable day. + +We dined on the grass, at a little distance from the shore, under +the shelter of a very fine wood, whose form, the trees rising above +each other in the same regular confusion, brought the dear shades of +Silleri to our remembrance. + +We walked after dinner, and picked rasberries, in the wood; and in +our ramble came unexpectedly to the middle of a visto, which, whilst +some ships of war lay here, the sailors had cut through the island. + +From this situation, being a rising ground, we could see directly +through the avenue to both shores: the view of each was wildly +majestic; the river comes finely in, whichever way you turn your sight; +but to the south, which is more sheltered, the water just trembling to +the breeze, our ship which had put all her streamers out, and to which +the tide gave a gentle motion, with a few scattered houses, faintly +seen amongst the trees at a distance, terminated the prospect, in a +manner which was inchanting. + +I die to build a house on this island; it is pity such a sweet spot +should be uninhabited: I should like excessively to be Queen of Bic. + +Fitzgerald has carved my name on a maple, near the shore; a pretty +piece of gallantry in a husband, you will allow: perhaps he means it as +taking possession for me of the island. + +We are going to cards. Adieu! for the present. + +Aug. 18. + +'Tis one of the loveliest days I ever saw: we are fishing under the +Magdalen islands; the weather is perfectly calm, the sea just dimpled, +the sun-beams dance on the waves, the fish are playing on the surface +of the water: the island is at a proper distance to form an agreable +point of view; and upon the whole the scene is divine. + +There is one house on the island, which, at a distance, seems so +beautifully situated, that I have lost all desire of fixing at Bic: I +want to land, and go to the house for milk, but there is no good +landing place on this side; the island seems here to be fenced in by a +regular wall of rock. + +A breeze springs up; our fishing is at an end for the present: I am +afraid we shall not pass many days so agreably as we have done this. I +feel horror at the idea of so soon losing sight of land, and launching +on the _vast Atlantic_. + + Adieu! yours, + A. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 174. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Aug. 26, at Sea. + +We have just fallen in with a ship from New York to London, and, as +it is a calm, the master of it is come on board; whilst he is drinking +a bottle of very fine madeira, which Fitzgerald has tempted him with on +purpose to give me this opportunity, as it is possible he may arrive +first, I will write a line, to tell my dear Lucy we are all well, and +hope soon to have the happiness of telling her so in person; I also +send what I scribbled before we lost sight of land; for I have had no +spirits to write or do any thing since. + +There is inexpressible pleasure in meeting a ship at sea, and +renewing our commerce with the human kind, after having been so +absolutely separated from them. I feel strongly at this moment the +inconstancy of the species: we naturally grow tired of the company on +board our own ship, and fancy the people in every one we meet more +agreable. + +For my part, this spirit is so powerful in me, that I would gladly, +if I could have prevailed on my father and Fitzgerald, have gone on +board with this man, and pursued our voyage in the New York ship. I +have felt the same thing on land in a coach, on seeing another pass. + +We have had a very unpleasant passage hitherto, and weather to +fright a better sailor than your friend: it is to me astonishing, that +there are men found, and those men of fortune too, who can fix on a sea +life as a profession. + +How strong must be the love of gain, to tempt us to embrace a life +of danger, pain, and misery; to give up all the beauties of nature and +of art, all the charms of society, and separate ourselves from mankind, +to amass wealth, which the very profession takes away all possibility +of enjoying! + +Even glory is a poor reward for a life passed at sea. + +I had rather be a peasant on a sunny bank, with peace, safety, +obscurity, bread, and a little garden of roses, than lord high admiral +of the British fleet. + +Setting aside the variety of dangers at sea, the time passed there +is a total suspension of one's existence: I speak of the best part of +our time there, for at least a third of every voyage is positive +misery. + +I abhor the sea, and am peevish with every creature about me. + +If there were no other evil attending this vile life, only think of +being cooped up weeks together in such a space, and with the same +eternal set of people. + +If cards had not a little relieved me, I should have died of meer +vexation before I had finished half the voyage. + +What would I not give to see the dear white cliffs of Albion! + +Adieu! I have not time to say more. + + Your affectionate + A. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 175. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Dover, Sept. 8. + +We are this instant landed, my dear, and shall be in town to-morrow. + +My father stops one day on the road, to introduce Mr. Fitzgerald to +a relation of ours, who lives a few miles from Canterbury. + +I am wild with joy at setting foot once more on dry land. + +I am not less happy to have traced your brother and Emily, by my +enquiries here, for we left Quebec too soon to have advice there of +their arrival. + +Adieu! If in town, you shall see us the moment we get there; if in +the country, write immediately, to the care of the agent. + +Let me know where to find Emily, whom I die to see: is she still +Emily Montague? + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + A. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 176. + + +To Mrs. Fitzgerald. + +Temple-house, Sept. 11. + +Your letter, my dear Bell, was sent by this post to the country. + +It is unnecessary to tell you the pleasure it gives us all to hear +of your safe arrival. + +All our argosies have now landed their treasures: you will believe +us to have been more anxious about friends so dear to us, than the +merchant for his gold and spices; we have suffered the greater +anxiety, by the circumstance of your having returned at different +times. + +I flatter myself, the future will pay us for the past. + +You may now, my dear Bell, revive your coterie, with the addition of +some friends who love you very sincerely. + +Emily (still Emily Montague) is with a relation in Berkshire, +settling some affairs previous to her marriage with my brother, to +which we flatter ourselves there will be no further objections. + +I assure you, I begin to be a little jealous of this Emily of yours; +she rivals me extremely with my mother, and indeed with every body +else. + +We all come to town next week, when you will make us very unhappy if +you do not become one of our family in Pall Mall, and return with us +for a few months to the country. + +My brother is at his little estate, six miles from hence, where he +is making some alterations, for the reception of Emily; he is fitting +up her apartment in a style equally simple and elegant, which, however, +you must not tell her, because she is to be surprized: her dressing +room, and a little adjoining closet of books, will be enchanting; yet +the expence of all he has done is a mere trifle. + +I am the only person in the secret; and have been with him this +morning to see it: there is a gay, smiling air in the whole apartment, +which pleases me infinitely; you will suppose he does not forget jars +of flowers, because you know how much they are Emily's taste: he has +forgot no ornament which he knew was agreable to her. + +Happily for his fortune, her pleasures are not of the expensive +kind; he would ruin himself if they were. + +He has bespoke a very handsome post chaise, which is also a secret +to Emily, who insists on not having one. + +Their income will be about five hundred pounds a year: it is not +much; yet, with their dispositions, I think it will make them happy. + +My brother will write to Mr. Fitzgerald next post: say every thing +affectionate for us all to him and Captain Fermor. + + Adieu! Yours, + Lucy Temple. + + + +LETTER 177. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Sept. 13. + +I congratulate you, my dear friend, on your safe arrival, and on +your marriage. + +You have got the start of me in happiness; I love you, however, too +sincerely to envy you. + +Emily has promised me her hand, as soon as some little family +affairs are settled, which I flatter myself will not take above another +week. + +When she gave me this promise, she begged me to allow her to return +to Berkshire till our marriage took place; I felt the propriety of +this step, and therefore would not oppose it: she pleaded having some +business also to settle with her relation there. + +My mother has given back the deed of settlement of my estate, and +accepted of an assignment on my half pay: she is greatly a loser; but +she insisted on making me happy, with such an air of tenderness, that I +could not deny her that satisfaction. + +I shall keep some land in my own hands, and farm; which will enable +me to have a post chaise for Emily, and my mother, who will be a good +deal with us; and a constant decent table for a friend. + +Emily is to superintend the dairy and garden; she has a passion for +flowers, with which I am extremely pleased, as it will be to her a +continual source of pleasure. + +I feel such delight in the idea of making her happy, that I think +nothing a trifle which can be in the least degree pleasing to her. + +I could even wish to invent new pleasures for her gratification. + +I hope to be happy; and to make the loveliest of womankind so, +because my notions of the state, into which I am entering, are I hope +just, and free from that romantic turn so destructive to happiness. + +I have, once in my life, had an attachment nearly resembling +marriage, to a widow of rank, with whom I was acquainted abroad; and +with whom I almost secluded myself from the world near a twelvemonth, +when she died of a fever, a stroke I was long before I recovered. + +I loved her with tenderness; but that love, compared to what I feel +for Emily, was as a grain of sand to the globe of earth, or the weight +of a feather to the universe. + +A marriage where not only esteem, but passion is kept awake, is, I +am convinced, the most perfect state of sublunary happiness: but it +requires great care to keep this tender plant alive; especially, I +blush to say it, on our side. + +Women are naturally more constant, education improves this happy +disposition: the husband who has the politeness, the attention, and +delicacy of a lover, will always be beloved. + +The same is generally, but not always, true on the other side: I +have sometimes seen the most amiable, the most delicate of the sex, +fail in keeping the affection of their husbands. + +I am well aware, my friend, that we are not to expect here a life of +continual rapture; in the happiest marriage there is danger of some +languid moments: to avoid these, shall be my study; and I am certain +they are to be avoided. + +The inebriation, the tumult of passion, will undoubtedly grow less +after marriage, that is, after peaceable possession; hopes and fears +alone keep it in its first violent state: but, though it subsides, it +gives place to a tenderness still more pleasing, to a soft, and, if you +will allow the expression, a voluptuous tranquillity: the pleasure does +not cease, does not even lessen; it only changes its nature. + +My sister tells me, she flatters herself, you will give a few months +to hers and Mr. Temple's friendship; I will not give up the claim I +have to the same favor. + +My little farm will induce only friends to visit us; and it is not +less pleasing to me for that circumstance: one of the misfortunes of a +very exalted station, is the slavery it subjects us to in regard to the +ceremonial world. + +Upon the whole, I believe, the most agreable, as well as most free +of all situations, to be that of a little country gentleman, who lives +upon his income, and knows enough of the world not to envy his richer +neighbours. + +Let me hear from you, my dear Fitzgerald, and tell me, if, little as +I am, I can be any way of the least use to you. + +You will see Emily before I do; she is more lovely, more enchanting, +than ever. + +Mrs. Fitzgerald will make me happy if she can invent any commands +for me. + + Adieu! Believe me, + Your faithful, &c. + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 178. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland. + +London, Sept. 15. + +Every mark of your friendship, my dear Rivers, must be particularly +pleasing to one who knows your worth as I do: I have, therefore, to +thank you as well for your letter, as for those obliging offers of +service, which I shall make no scruple of accepting, if I have occasion +for them. + +I rejoice in the prospect of your being as happy as myself: nothing +can be more just than your ideas of marriage; I mean, of a marriage +founded on inclination: all that you describe, I am so happy as to +experience. + +I never loved my sweet girl so tenderly as since she has been mine; +my heart acknowledges the obligation of her having trusted the future +happiness or misery of her life in my hands. She is every hour more +dear to me; I value as I ought those thousand little attentions, by +which a new softness is every moment given to our affection. + +I do not indeed feel the same tumultuous emotion at seeing her; but +I feel a sensation equally delightful: a joy more tranquil, but not +less lively. + +I will own to you, that I had strong prejudices against marriage, +which nothing but love could have conquered; the idea of an +indissoluble union deterred me from thinking of a serious engagement: I +attached myself to the most seducing, most attractive of women, +without thinking the pleasure I found in seeing her of any consequence; +I thought her lovely, but never suspected I loved; I thought the +delight I tasted in hearing her, merely the effects of those charms +which all the world found in her conversation; my vanity was gratified +by the flattering preference she gave me to the rest of my sex; I +fancied this all, and imagined I could cease seeing the little syren +whenever I pleased. + +I was, however, mistaken; love stole upon me imperceptibly, and +_en badinant_; I was enslaved, when I only thought myself amused. + +We have not yet seen Miss Montague; we go down on Friday to +Berkshire, Bell having some letters for her, which she was desired to +deliver herself. + +I will write to you again the moment I have seen her. + +The invitation Mr. and Mrs. Temple have been so obliging as to give +us, is too pleasing to ourselves not to be accepted; we also expect +with impatience the time of visiting you at your farm. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + J. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 179. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Stamford, Sept. 16, Evening. + +Being here on some business, my dear friend, I receive your letter +in time to answer it to-night. + +We hope to be in town this day seven-night; and I flatter myself, +my dearest Emily will not delay my happiness many days longer: I grudge +you the pleasure of seeing her on Friday. + +I triumph greatly in your having been seduced into matrimony, +because I never knew a man more of a turn to make an agreable husband; +it was the idea that occurred to me the first moment I saw you. + +Do you know, my dear Fitzgerald, that, if your little syren had not +anticipated my purpose, I had designs upon you for my sister? + +Through that careless, inattentive look of yours, I saw so much +right sense, and so affectionate a heart, that I wished nothing so much +as that she might have attached you; and had laid a scheme to bring you +acquainted, hoping the rest from the merit so conspicuous in you both. + +Both are, however, so happily disposed of elsewhere, that I have no +reason to regret my scheme did not succeed. + +There is something in your person, as well as manner, which I am +convinced must be particularly pleasing to women; with an extremely +agreable form, you have a certain manly, spirited air, which promises +them a protector; a look of understanding, which is the indication of a +pleasing companion; a sensibility of countenance, which speaks a friend +and a lover; to which I ought to add, an affectionate, constant +attention to women, and a polite indifference to men, which above all +things flatters the vanity of the sex. + +Of all men breathing, I should have been most afraid of you as a +rival; Mrs. Fitzgerald has told me, you have said the same thing of me. + +Happily, however, our tastes were different; the two amiable +objects of our tenderness were perhaps equally lovely; but it is not +the meer form, it is the character that strikes: the fire, the spirit, +the vivacity, the awakened manner, of Miss Fermor won you; whilst my +heart was captivated by that bewitching languor, that seducing +softness, that melting sensibility, in the air of my sweet Emily, which +is, at least to me, more touching than all the sprightliness in the +world. + +There is in true sensibility of soul, such a resistless charm, that +we are even affected by that of which we are not ourselves the object: +we feel a degree of emotion at being witness to the affection which +another inspires. + +'Tis late, and my horses are at the door. + + Adieu! Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 180. + + +To Miss Montague, Rose-hill, Berkshire. + +Temple-house, Sept. 16. + +I have but a moment, my dearest Emily, to tell you heaven favors +your tenderness: it removes every anxiety from two of the worthiest and +most gentle of human hearts. + +You and my brother have both lamented to me the painful necessity +you were under, of reducing my mother to a less income than that to +which she had been accustomed. + +An unexpected event has restored to her more than what her +tenderness for my brother had deprived her of. + +A relation abroad, who owed every thing to her father's friendship, +has sent her, as an acknowledgement of that friendship, a deed of gift, +settling on her four hundred pounds a year for life. + +My brother is at Stamford, and is yet unacquainted with this +agreable event. + +You will hear from him next post. + + Adieu! my dear Emily! + Your affectionate + L. Temple. + + +END OF VOL. III. + + + + +THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE. + + +Vol. IV + + + +LETTER 181. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland. + +Rose-hill, Sept. 17. + +Can you in earnest ask such a question? can you suppose I ever felt +the least degree of love for Sir George? No, my Rivers, never did your +Emily feel tenderness till she saw the loveliest, the most amiable of +his sex, till those eyes spoke the sentiments of a soul every idea of +which was similar to her own. + +Yes, my Rivers, our souls have the most perfect resemblance: I never +heard you speak without finding the feelings of my own heart developed; +your conversation conveyed your Emily's ideas, but cloathed in the +language of angels. + +I thought well of Sir George; I saw him as the man destined to be my +husband; I fancied he loved me, and that gratitude obliged me to a +return; carried away by the ardor of my friends for this marriage, I +rather suffered than approved his addresses; I had not courage to +resist the torrent, I therefore gave way to it; I loved no other, I +fancied my want of affection a native coldness of temper. I felt a +languid esteem, which I endeavored to flatter myself was love; but the +moment I saw you, the delusion vanished. + +Your eyes, my Rivers, in one moment convinced me I had a heart; you +staid some weeks with us in the country: with what transport do I +recollect those pleasing moments! how did my heart beat whenever you +approached me! what charms did I find in your conversation! I heard you +talk with a delight of which I was not mistress. I fancied every woman +who saw you felt the same emotions: my tenderness increased +imperceptibly without my perceiving the consequences of my indulging +the dear pleasure of seeing you. + +I found I loved, yet was doubtful of your sentiments; my heart, +however, flattered me yours was equally affected; my situation +prevented an explanation; but love has a thousand ways of making +himself understood. + +How dear to me were those soft, those delicate attentions, which +told me all you felt for me, without communicating it to others! + +Do you remember that day, my Rivers, when, sitting in the little +hawthorn grove, near the borders of the river, the rest of the company, +of which Sir George was one, ran to look at a ship that was passing: I +would have followed; you asked me to stay, by a look which it was +impossible to mistake; nothing could be more imprudent than my stay, +yet I had not resolution to refuse what I saw gave you pleasure: I +stayed; you pressed my hand, you regarded me with a look of unutterable +love. + +My Rivers, from that dear moment your Emily vowed never to be +another's: she vowed not to sacrifice all the happiness of her life to +a romantic parade of fidelity to a man whom she had been betrayed into +receiving as a lover; she resolved, if necessary, to own to him the +tenderness with which you had inspired her, to entreat from his esteem, +from his compassion, a release from engagements which made her +wretched. + +My heart burns with the love of virtue, I am tremblingly alive to +fame: what bitterness then must have been my portion had I first seen +you when the wife of another! + +Such is the powerful sympathy that unites us, that I fear, that +virtue, that strong sense of honor and fame, so powerful in minds most +turned to tenderness, would only have served to make more poignant the +pangs of hopeless, despairing love. + +How blest am I, that we met before my situation made it a crime to +love you! I shudder at the idea how wretched I might have been, had I +seen you a few months later. + +I am just returned from a visit at a few miles distance. I find a +letter from my dear Bell, that she will be here to-morrow; how do I +long to see her, to talk to her of my Rivers! + +I am interrupted. + + Adieu! Yours, + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 182. + + +To Mrs. Temple. + +Rose-hill, Sept. 18, Morning. + +I have this moment, my dear Mrs. Temple's letter: she will imagine +my transport at the happy event she mentions; my dear Rivers has, in +some degree, sacrificed even filial affection to his tenderness for me; +the consciousness of this has ever cast a damp on the pleasure I should +otherwise have felt, at the prospect of spending my life with the most +excellent of mankind: I shall now be his, without the painful +reflection of having lessened the enjoyments of the best parent that +ever existed. + +I should be blest indeed, my amiable friend, if I did not suffer +from my too anxious tenderness; I dread the possibility of my becoming +in time less dear to your brother; I love him to such excess that I +could not survive the loss of his affection. + +There is no distress, no want, I could not bear with delight for +him; but if I lose his heart, I lose all for which life is worth +keeping. + +Could I bear to see those looks of ardent love converted into the +cold glances of indifference! + +You will, my dearest friend, pity a heart, whose too great +sensibility wounds itself: why should I fear? was ever tenderness equal +to that of my Rivers? can a heart like his change from caprice? It +shall be the business of my life to merit his tenderness. + +I will not give way to fears which injure him, and, indulged, would +destroy all my happiness. + +I expect Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald every moment. Adieu! + + Your affectionate + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 183. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Sept. 17. + +You say true, my dear Fitzgerald: friendship, like love, is more the +child of sympathy than of reason; though inspired by qualities very +opposite to those which give love, it strikes like that in a moment: +like that, it is free as air, and, when constrained, loses all its +spirit. + +In both, from some nameless cause, at least some cause to us +incomprehensible, the affections take fire the instant two persons, +whose minds are in unison, observe each other, which, however, they may +often meet without doing. + +It is therefore as impossible for others to point out objects of our +friendship as love; our choice must be uninfluenced, if we wish to find +happiness in either. + +Cold, lifeless esteem may grow from a long tasteless acquaintance; +but real affection makes a sudden and lively impression. + +This impression is improved, is strengthened by time, and a more +intimate knowledge of the merit of the person who makes it; but it is, +it must be, spontaneous, or be nothing. + +I felt this sympathy powerfully in regard to yourself; I had the +strongest partiality for you before I knew how very worthy you were of +my esteem. + +Your countenance and manner made an impression on me, which inclined +me to take your virtues upon trust. + +It is not always safe to depend on these preventive feelings; but in +general the face is a pretty faithful index of the mind. + +I propose being in town in four or five days. + +Twelve o'clock. + +My mother has this moment a second letter from her relation, who is +coming home, and proposes a marriage between me and his daughter, to +whom he will give twenty thousand pounds now, and the rest of his +fortune at his death. + +As Emily's fault, if love can allow her one, is an excess of +romantic generosity, the fault of most uncorrupted female minds, I am +very anxious to marry her before she knows of this proposal, lest she +should think it a proof of tenderness to aim at making me wretched, in +order to make me rich. + +I therefore entreat you and Mrs. Fitzgerald to stay at Rose-hill, +and prevent her coming to town, till she is mine past the power of +retreat. + +Our relation may have mentioned his design to persons less prudent +than our little party; and she may hear of it, if she is in London. + +But, independently of my fear of her spirit of romance, I feel that +it would be an indelicacy to let her know of this proposal at present, +and look like attempting to make a merit of my refusal. + +It is not to you, my dear friend, I need say the gifts of fortune +are nothing to me without her for whose sake alone I wish to possess +them: you know my heart, and you also know this is the sentiment of +every man who loves. + +But I can with truth say much more; I do not even wish an increase +of fortune, considering it abstractedly from its being incompatible +with my marriage with the loveliest of women; I am indifferent to all +but independence; wealth would not make me happier; on the contrary, it +might break in on my present little plan of enjoyment, by forcing me to +give to common acquaintance, of whom wealth will always attract a +crowd, those precious hours devoted to friendship and domestic +pleasure. + +I think my present income just what a wise man would wish, and very +sincerely join in the philosophical prayer of the royal prophet, "Give +me neither poverty nor riches." + +I love the vale, and had always an aversion to very extensive +prospects. + +I will hasten my coming as much as possible, and hope to be at +Rose-hill on Monday next: I shall be a prey to anxiety till Emily is +irrevocably mine. + +Tell Mrs. Fitzgerald, I am all impatience to kiss her hand. + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 184. + + +To Captain Fermor. + +Richmond, Sept. 18. + +I am this moment returned to Richmond from a journey: I am rejoiced +at your arrival, and impatient to see you; for I am so happy as not to +have out-lived my impatience. + +How is my little Bell? I am as much in love with her as ever; this +you will conceal from Captain Fitzgerald, lest he should be alarmed, +for I am as formidable a rival as a man of fourscore can be supposed to +be. + +I am extremely obliged to you, my dear Fermor, for having introduced +me to a very amiable man, in your friend Colonel Rivers. + +I begin to be so sensible I am an old fellow, that I feel a very +lively degree of gratitude to the young ones who visit me; and look on +every agreable new acquaintance under thirty as an acquisition I had no +right to expect. + +You know I have always thought personal advantages of much more real +value than accidental ones; and that those who possessed the former had +much the greatest right to be proud. + +Youth, health, beauty, understanding, are substantial goods; wealth +and title comparatively ideal ones; I therefore think a young man who +condescends to visit an old one, the healthy who visit the sick, the +man of sense who spends his time with a fool, and even a handsome +fellow with an ugly one, are the persons who confer the favor, +whatever difference there may be in rank or fortune. + +Colonel Rivers did me the honor to spend a day with me here, and I +have not often lately passed a pleasanter one: the desire I had not to +discredit your partial recommendation, and my very strong inclinations +to seduce him to come again, made me intirely discard the old man; and +I believe your friend will tell you the hours did not pass on leaden +wings. + +I expect you, with Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald, to pass some time with +me at Richmond. + +I have the best claret in the universe, and as lively a relish for +it as at five and twenty. + + Adieu! Your affectionate + H---- + + + +LETTER 185. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland. + +Rose-hill, Sept. 18. + +Since I sent away my letter, I have your last. + +You tell me, my dear Rivers, the strong emotion I betrayed at seeing +Sir George, when you came together to Montreal, made you fear I loved +him; that you were jealous of the blush which glowed on my cheek, when +he entered the room: that you still remember it with regret; that you +still fancy I had once some degree of tenderness for him, and beg me to +account for the apparent confusion I betrayed at his sight. + +I own that emotion; my confusion was indeed too great to be +concealed: but was he alone, my Rivers? can you forget that he had with +him the most lovely of mankind? + +Sir George was handsome; I have often regarded his person with +admiration, but it was the admiration we give to a statue. + +I listened coldly to his love, I felt no emotion at his sight; but +when you appeared, my heart beat, I blushed, I turned pale by turns, my +eyes assumed a new softness, I trembled, and every pulse confessed the +master of my soul. + +My friends are come: I am called down. Adieu! Be assured your Emily +never breathed a sigh but for her Rivers! + + Adieu! Yours, + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 186. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland. + +London, Sept. 18. + +I have this moment your letter; we are setting out in ten minutes +for Rose-hill, where I will finish this, and hope to give you a +pleasing account of your Emily. + +You are certainly right in keeping this proposal secret at present; +depend on our silence; I could, however, wish you the fortune, were it +possible to have it without the lady. + +Were I to praise your delicacy on this occasion, I should injure +you; it was not in your power to act differently; you are only +consistent with yourself. + +I am pleased with your idea of a situation: a house embosomed in the +grove, where all the view is what the eye can take in, speaks a happy +master, content at home; a wide-extended prospect, one who is looking +abroad for happiness. + +I love the country: the taste for rural scenes is the taste born +with us. After seeking pleasure in vain amongst the works of art, we +are forced to come back to the point from whence we set out, and find +our enjoyment in the lovely simplicity of nature. + +Rose-hill, Evening. + +I am afraid Emily knows your secret; she has been in tears almost +ever since we came; the servant is going to the post-office, and I have +but a moment to tell you we will stay here till your arrival, which +you will hasten as much as possible. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + J. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 187. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland. + +Rose-hill, Sept. 18. + +If I was not certain of your esteem and friendship, my dear Rivers, +I should tremble at the request I am going to make you. + +It is to suspend our marriage for some time, and not ask me the +reason of this delay. + +Be assured of my tenderness; be assured my whole soul is yours, that +you are dearer to me than life, that I love you as never woman loved; +that I live, I breathe but for you; that I would die to make you happy. + +In what words shall I convey to the most beloved of his sex, the +ardent tenderness of my soul? how convince him of what I suffer from +being forced to make a request so contrary to the dictates of my heart? + +He cannot, will not doubt his Emily's affection: I cannot support +the idea that it is possible he should for one instant. What I suffer +at this moment is inexpressible. + +My heart is too much agitated to say more. + +I will write again in a few days. + +I know not what I would say; but indeed, my Rivers, I love you; you +yourself can scarce form an idea to what excess! + + Adieu! Your faithful + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 188. + + +To Miss Montague, Rose-hill, Berkshire. + +Bellfield, Sept. 20. + +No, Emily, you never loved; I have been long hurt by your +tranquillity in regard to our marriage; your too scrupulous attention +to decorum in leaving my sister's house might have alarmed me, if love +had not placed a bandage before my eyes. + +Cruel girl! I repeat it; you never loved; I have your friendship, +but you know nothing of that ardent passion, that dear enthusiasm, +which makes us indifferent to all but itself: your love is from the +imagination, not the heart. + +The very professions of tenderness in your last, are a proof of your +consciousness of indifference; you repeat too often that you love me; +you say too much; that anxiety to persuade me of your affection, shews +too plainly you are sensible I have reason to doubt it. + +You have placed me on the rack; a thousand fears, a thousand doubts, +succeed each other in my soul. Has some happier man-- + +No, my Emily, distracted as I am, I will not be unjust: I do not +suspect you of inconstancy; 'tis of your coldness only I complain: you +never felt the lively impatience of love; or you would not condemn a +man, whom you at least esteem, to suffer longer its unutterable +tortures. + +If there is a real cause for this delay, why conceal it from me? +have I not a right to know what so nearly interests me? but what cause? +are you not mistress of yourself? + +My Emily, you blush to own to me the insensibility of your heart: +you once fancied you loved; you are ashamed to say you were mistaken. + +You cannot surely have been influenced by any motive relative to our +fortune; no idle tale can have made you retract a promise, which +rendered me the happiest of mankind: if I have your heart, I am richer +than an oriental monarch. + +Short as life is, my dearest girl, is it of consequence what part we +play in it? is wealth at all essential to happiness? + +The tender affections are the only sources of true pleasure; the +highest, the most respectable titles, in the eye of reason, are the +tender ones of friend, of husband, and of father: it is from the dear +soft ties of social love your Rivers expects his felicity. + +You have but one way, my dear Emily, to convince me of your +tenderness: I shall set off for Rose-hill in twelve hours; you must +give me your hand the moment I arrive, or confess your Rivers was never +dear to you. + +Write, and send a servant instantly to meet me at my mother's house +in town: I cannot support the torment of suspense. + +There is not on earth so wretched a being as I am at this moment; I +never knew till now to what excess I loved: you must be mine, my Emily, +or I must cease to live. + + + +LETTER 189. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald, Rose-hill, Berkshire. + +Bellfield, Sept. 20. + +All I feared has certainly happened; Emily has undoubtedly heard of +this proposal, and, from a parade of generosity, a generosity however +inconsistent with love, wishes to postpone our marriage till my +relation arrives. + +I am hurt beyond words, at the manner in which she has wrote to me +on this subject; I have, in regard to Sir George, experienced that +these are not the sentiments of a heart truly enamored. + +I therefore fear this romantic step is the effect of a coldness of +which I thought her incapable; and that her affection is only a more +lively degree of friendship, with which, I will own to you, my heart +will not be satisfied. + +I would engross, I would employ, I would absorb, every faculty of +that lovely mind. + +I have too long suffered prudence to delay my happiness: I cannot +longer live without her: if she loves me, I shall on Tuesday call her +mine. + +Adieu! I shall be with you almost as soon as this letter. + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 190. + + +To Colonel Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Rose-hill, Sept. 21. + +Is it then possible? can my Rivers doubt his Emily's tenderness? + +Do I only esteem you, my Rivers? can my eyes have so ill explained +the feelings of my heart? + +You accuse me of not sharing your impatience: do you then allow +nothing to the modesty, the blushing delicacy, of my sex? + +Could you see into my soul, you would cease to call me cold and +insensible. + +Can you forget, my Rivers, those moments, when, doubtful of the +sentiments of your heart, mine every instant betrayed its weakness? +when every look spoke the resistless fondness of my soul! when, lost in +the delight of seeing you, I forgot I was almost the wife of another? + +But I will say no more; my Rivers tells me I have already said too +much: he is displeased with his Emily's tenderness; he complains, that +I tell him too often I love him. + +You say I can give but one certain proof of my affection. + +I will give you that proof: I will be yours whenever you please, +though ruin should be the consequence to both; I despise every other +consideration, when my Rivers's happiness is at stake: is there any +request he is capable of making, which his Emily will refuse? + +You are the arbiter of my fate: I have no will but yours; yet I +entreat you to believe no common cause could have made me hazard giving +a moment's pain to that dear bosom: you will one time know to what +excess I have loved you. + +Were the empire of the world or your affection offered me, I should +not hesitate one moment on the choice, even were I certain never to see +you more. + +I cannot form an idea of happiness equal to that of being beloved by +the most amiable of mankind. + +Judge then, if I would lightly wish to defer an event, which is to +give me the transport of passing my life in the dear employment of +making him happy. + +I only entreat that you will decline asking me, till I judge proper +to tell you, why I first begged our marriage might be deferred: let it +be till then forgot I ever made such a request. + +You will not, my dear Rivers, refuse this proof of complaisance to +her who too plainly shews she can refuse you nothing. + + Adieu! Yours, + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 191. + + +To Miss Montague, Rose-hill, Berkshire. + +Clarges Street, Sept. 21, Two o'clock. + +Can you, my angel, forgive my insolent impatience, and attribute it +to the true cause, excess of love? + +Could I be such a monster as to blame my sweet Emily's dear +expressions of tenderness? I hate myself for being capable of writing +such a letter. + +Be assured, I will strictly comply with all she desires: what +condition is there on which I would not make the loveliest of women +mine? + +I will follow the servant in two hours; I shall be at Rose-hill by +eight o'clock. + + Adieu! my dearest Emily! + Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 192. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Temple-house, Rutland. + +Sept. 21, Nine at night. + +The loveliest of women has consented to make me happy: she +remonstrated, she doubted; but her tenderness conquered all her +reluctance. To-morrow I shall call her mine. + +We shall set out immediately for your house, where we hope to be the +next day to dinner: you will therefore postpone your journey to town a +week, at the end of which we intend going to Bellfield. Captain Fermor +and Mrs. Fitzgerald accompany us down. Emily's relation, Mrs. H----, has +business which prevents her; and Fitzgerald is obliged to stay another +month in town, to transact the affair of his majority. + +Never did Emily look so lovely as this evening: there is a sweet +confusion, mixed with tenderness, in her whole look and manner, which +is charming beyond all expression. + +Adieu! I have not a moment to spare: even this absence from her is +treason to love. Say every thing for me to my mother and Lucy. + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 193. + + +To John Temple, Esq. Temple-house, Rutland. + +Rose-hill, Sept. 22, Ten o'clock. + +She is mine, my dear Temple; and I am happy almost above mortality. + +I cannot paint to you her loveliness; the grace, the dignity, the +mild majesty of her air, is softened by a smile like that of angels: +her eyes have a tender sweetness, her cheeks a blush of refined +affection, which must be seen to be imagined. + +I envy Captain Fermor the happiness of being in the same chaise with +her; I shall be very bad company to Bell, who insists on my being her +cecisbeo for the journey. + +Adieu! The chaises are at the door. + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 194. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Temple-house, Sept. 29. + +I regret your not being with us, more than I can express. + +I would have every friend I love a witness of my happiness. + +I thought my tenderness for Emily as great as man could feel, yet +find it every moment increase; every moment she is more dear to my +soul. + +The angel delicacy of that lovely mind is inconceivable; had she no +other charm, I should adore her: what a lustre does modesty throw round +beauty! + +We remove to-morrow to Bellfield: I am impatient to see my sweet +girl in her little empire: I am tired of the continual crowd in which +we live at Temple's: I would not pass the life he does for all his +fortune; I sigh for the power of spending my time as I please, for the +dear shades of retirement and friendship. + +How little do mankind know their own happiness! every pleasure worth +a wish is in the power of almost all mankind. + +Blind to true joy, ever engaged in a wild pursuit of what is always +in our power, anxious for that wealth which we falsely imagine +necessary to our enjoyments, we suffer our best hours to pass +tastelessly away; we neglect the pleasures which are suited to our +natures; and, intent on ideal schemes of establishments at which we +never arrive, let the dear hours of social delight escape us. + +Hasten to us, my dear Fitzgerald: we want only you, to fill our +little circle of friends. + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 195. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Oct. 3. + +What delight is there in obliging those we love! + +My heart dilated with joy at seeing Emily pleased with the little +embellishments of her apartment, which I had made as gay and smiling +as the morn; it looked, indeed, as if the hand of love had adorned it: +she has a dressing room and closet of books, into which I shall never +intrude: there is a pleasure in having some place which we can say is +peculiarly our own, some _sanctum sanctorum_, whither we can +retire even from those most dear to us. + +This is a pleasure in which I have been indulged almost from +infancy, and therefore one of the first I thought of procuring for my +sweet Emily. + +I told her I should, however, sometimes expect to be amongst her +guests in this little retirement. + +Her look, her tender smile, the speaking glance of grateful love, +gave me a transport, which only minds turned to affection can conceive. +I never, my dear Fitzgerald, was happy before: the attachment I once +mentioned was pleasing; but I felt a regret, at knowing the object of +my tenderness had forfeited the good opinion of the world, which +embittered all my happiness. + +She possessed my esteem, because I knew her heart; but I wanted to +see her esteemed by others. + +With Emily I enjoy this pleasure in its utmost extent: she is the +adoration of all who see her; she is equally admired, esteemed, +respected. + +She seems to value the admiration she excites, only as it appears to +gratify the pride of her lover; what transport, when all eyes are fixed +on her, to see her searching around for mine, and attentive to no other +object, as if insensible to all other approbation! + +I enjoy the pleasures of friendship as well as those of love: were +you here, my dear Fitzgerald, we should be the happiest groupe on the +globe; but all Bell's sprightliness cannot preserve her from an air of +chagrin in your absence. + +Come as soon as possible, my dear friend, and leave us nothing to +wish for. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 196. + + +To Colonel Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland. + +London, Oct. 8. + +You are very cruel, my dear Rivers, to tantalize me with your +pictures of happiness. + +Notwithstanding this spite, I am sorry I must break in on your +groupe of friends; but it is absolutely necessary for Bell and my +father to return immediately to town, in order to settle some family +business, previous to my purchase of the majority. + +Indeed, I am not very fond of letting Bell stay long amongst you; +for she gives me such an account of your attention and complaisance to +Mrs. Rivers, that I am afraid she will think me a careless fellow when +we meet again. + +You seem in the high road, not only to spoil your own wife, but mine +too; which it is certainly my affair to prevent. + +Say every thing for me to the ladies of your family. + + Adieu! Your affectionate + J. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 197. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Oct. 10. + +You are a malicious fellow, Fitzgerald, and I am half inclined to +keep the sweet Bell by force; take all the men away if you please, but +I cannot bear the loss of a woman, especially of such a woman. + +If I was not more a lover than a husband, I am not sure I should not +wish to take my revenge. + +To make me happy, you must place me in a circle of females, all as +pleasing as those now with me, and turn every male creature out of the +house. + +I am a most intolerable monopolizer of the sex; in short, I have +very little relish for any conversation but theirs: I love their sweet +prattle beyond all the sense and learning in the world. + +Not that I would insinuate they have less understanding than we, or +are less capable of learning, or even that it less becomes them. + +On the contrary, all such knowledge as tends to adorn and soften +human life and manners, is, in my opinion, peculiarly becoming in +women. + +You don't deserve a longer letter. + + Adieu! Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 198. + + +To Mrs. Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Oct. 12. + +I am very conscious, my dear Bell, of not meriting the praises my +Rivers lavishes on me, yet the pleasure I receive from them is not the +less lively for that consideration; on the contrary, the less I deserve +these praises, the more flattering they are to me, as the stronger +proofs of his love; of that love which gives ideal charms, which +adorns, which embellishes its object. + +I had rather be lovely in his eyes, than in those of all mankind; +or, to speak more exactly, if I continue to please him, the admiration +of all the world is indifferent to me: it is for his sake alone I wish +for beauty, to justify the dear preference he has given me. + +How pleasing are these sweet shades! were they less so, my Rivers's +presence would give them every charm: every object has appeared to me +more lovely since the dear moment when I first saw him; I seem to have +acquired a new existence from his tenderness. + +You say true, my dear Bell: heaven doubtless formed us to be happy, +even in this world; and we obey its dictates in being so, when we can +without encroaching on the happiness of others. + +This lesson is, I think, plain from the book providence has spread +before us: the whole universe smiles, the earth is clothed in lively +colors, the animals are playful, the birds sing: in being chearful with +innocence, we seem to conform to the order of nature, and the will of +that beneficent Power to whom we owe our being. + +If the Supreme Creator had meant us to be gloomy, he would, it seems +to me, have clothed the earth in black, not in that lively green, which +is the livery of chearfulness and joy. + +I am called away. + + Adieu! my dearest Bell. + Your faithful + Emily Rivers. + + + +LETTER 199. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Oct. 14. + +You flatter me most agreably, my dear Fitzgerald, by praising Emily; +I want you to see her again; she is every hour more charming: I am +astonished any man can behold her without love. + +Yet, lovely as she is, her beauty is her least merit; the finest +understanding, the most pleasing kind of knowledge; tenderness, +sensibility, modesty, and truth, adorn her almost with rays of +divinity. + +She has, beyond all I ever saw in either sex, the polish of the +world, without having lost that sweet simplicity of manner, that +unaffected innocence, and integrity of heart, which are so very apt to +evaporate in a crowd. + +I ride out often alone, in order to have the pleasure of returning +to her: these little absences give new spirit to our tenderness. Every +care forsakes me at the sight of this temple of real love; my sweet +Emily meets me with smiles; her eyes brighten when I approach; she +receives my friends with the most lively pleasure, because they are my +friends; I almost envy them her attention, though given for my sake. + +Elegant in her dress and house, she is all transport when any little +ornament of either pleases me; but what charms me most, is her +tenderness for my mother, in whose heart she rivals both me and Lucy. + +My happiness, my friend, is beyond every idea I had formed; were I a +little richer, I should not have a wish remaining. Do not, however, +imagine this wish takes from my felicity. + +I have enough for myself, I have even enough for Emily; love makes +us indifferent to the parade of life. + +But I have not enough to entertain my friends as I wish, nor to +enjoy the god-like pleasure of beneficence. + +We shall be obliged, in order to support the little appearance +necessary to our connexions, to give an attention rather too strict to +our affairs; even this, however, our affection for each other will make +easy to us. + +My whole soul is so taken up with this charming woman, I am afraid I +shall become tedious even to you; I must learn to restrain my +tenderness, and write on common subjects. + +I am more and more pleased with the way of life I have chose; and, +were my fortune ever so large, would pass the greatest part of the year +in the country: I would only enlarge my house, and fill it with +friends. + +My situation is a very fine one, though not like the magnificent +scenes to which we have been accustomed in Canada: the house stands on +the sunny side of a hill, at the foot of which, the garden intervening, +runs a little trout stream, which to the right seems to be lost in an +island of oziers, and over which is a rustic bridge into a very +beautiful meadow, where at present graze a numerous flock of sheep. + +Emily is planning a thousand embellishments for the garden, and will +next year make it a wilderness of sweets, a paradise worthy its lovely +inhabitant: she is already forming walks and flowery arbors in the +wood, and giving the whole scene every charm which taste, at little +expence, can bestow. + +I, on my side, am selecting spots for plantations of trees; and +mean, like a good citizen, to serve at once myself and the public, by +raising oaks, which may hereafter bear the British thunder to distant +lands. + +I believe we country gentlemen, whilst we have spirit to keep +ourselves independent, are the best citizens, as well as subjects, in +the world. + +Happy ourselves, we wish not to destroy the tranquillity of others; +intent on cares equally useful and pleasing, with no views but to +improve our fortunes by means equally profitable to ourselves and to +our country, we form no schemes of dishonest ambition; and therefore +disturb no government to serve our private designs. + +It is the profuse, the vicious, the profligate, the needy, who are +the Clodios and Catilines of this world. + +That love of order, of moral harmony, so natural to virtuous minds, +to minds at ease, is the strongest tie of rational obedience. + +The man who feels himself prosperous and happy, will not easily be +perswaded by factious declamation that he is undone. + +Convinced of the excellency of our constitution, in which liberty +and prerogative are balanced with the steadiest hand, he will not +endeavor to remove the boundaries which secure both: he will not +endeavor to root it up, whilst he is pretending to give it +nourishment: he will not strive to cut down the lovely and venerable +tree under whose shade he enjoys security and peace. + +In short, and I am sure you will here be of my opinion, the man who +has competence, virtue, true liberty, and the woman he loves, will +chearfully obey the laws which secure him these blessings, and the +prince under whose mild sway he enjoys them. + + Adieu! + Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 200. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Oct. 17. + +I every hour see more strongly, my dear Fitzgerald, the wisdom, as +to our own happiness, of not letting our hearts be worn out by a +multitude of intrigues before marriage. + +Temple loves my sister, he is happy with her; but his happiness is +by no means of the same kind with yours and mine; she is beautiful, and +he thinks her so; she is amiable, and he esteems her; he prefers her to +all other women, but he feels nothing of that trembling delicacy of +sentiment, that quick sensibility, which gives to love its most +exquisite pleasures, and which I would not give up for the wealth of +worlds. + +His affection is meer passion, and therefore subject to change; ours +is that heartfelt tenderness, which time renders every moment more +pleasing. + +The tumult of desire is the fever of the soul; its health, that +delicious tranquillity where the heart is gently moved, not violently +agitated; that tranquillity which is only to be found where friendship +is the basis of love, and where we are happy without injuring the +object beloved: in other words, in a marriage of choice. + +In the voyage of life, passion is the tempest, love the gentle gale. + +Dissipation, and a continued round of amusements at home, will +probably secure my sister all of Temple's heart which remains; but his +love would grow languid in that state of retirement, which would have a +thousand charms for minds like ours. + +I will own to you, I have fears for Lucy's happiness. + +But let us drop so painful a subject. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 201. + + +To Colonel Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland. + +Oct. 19. + +Nothing, my dear Rivers, shews the value of friendship more than the +envy it excites. + +The world will sooner pardon us any advantage, even wealth, genius, +or beauty, than that of having a faithful friend; every selfish bosom +swells with envy at the sight of those social connexions, which are the +cordials of life, and of which our narrow prejudices alone prevent our +enjoyment. + +Those who have neither hearts to feel this generous affection, nor +merit to deserve it, hate all who are in this respect happier than +themselves; they look on a friend as an invaluable blessing, and a +blessing out of their reach; and abhor all who possess the treasure for +which they sigh in vain. + +For my own part, I had rather be the dupe of a thousand false +professions of friendship, than, for fear of being deceived, give up +the pursuit. + +Dupes are happy at least for a time; but the cold, narrow, +suspicious heart never knows the glow of social pleasure. + +In the same proportion as we lose our confidence in the virtues of +others, we lose our proper happiness. + +The observation of this mean jealousy, so humiliating to human +nature, has influenced Lord Halifax, in his Advice to a Daughter, the +school of art, prudery, and selfish morals, to caution her against all +friendships, or, as he calls them, _dearnesses_, as what will make +the world envy and hate her. + +After my sweet Bell's tenderness, I know no pleasure equal to your +friendship; nor would I give it up for the revenue of an eastern +monarch. + +I esteem Temple, I love his conversation; he is gay and amusing; +but I shall never have for him the affection I feel for you. + +I think you are too apprehensive in regard to your sister's +happiness: he loves her, and there is a certain variety in her manner, +a kind of agreable caprice, that I think will secure the heart of a man +of his turn, much more than her merit, or even the loveliness of her +person. + +She is handsome, exquisitely so; handsomer than Bell, and, if you +will allow me to say so, than Emily. + +I mean, that she is so in the eye of a painter; for in that of a +lover his mistress is the only beautiful object on earth. + +I allow your sister to be very lovely, but I think Bell more +desirable a thousand times; and, rationally speaking, she who has, +_as to me_, the art of inspiring the most tenderness is, _as to me_, +to all intents and purposes the most beautiful woman. + +In which faith I chuse to live and die. + +I have an idea, Rivers, that you and I shall continue to be happy: a +real sympathy, a lively taste, mixed with esteem, led us to marry; the +delicacy, tenderness, and virtue, of the two most charming of women, +promise to keep our love alive. + +We have both strong affections: both love the conversation of women; +and neither of our hearts are depraved by ill-chosen connexions with the +sex. + +I am broke in upon, and must bid you adieu! + + Your affectionate + J. Fitzgerald. + +Bell is writing to you. I shall be jealous. + + + +LETTER 202. + + +To Colonel Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland. + +London, Oct. 19. + +I die to come to Bellfield again, my dear Rivers; I have a passion +for your little wood; it is a mighty pretty wood for an English wood, +but nothing to your Montmorencis; the dear little Silleri too-- + +But to return to the shades of Bellfield: your little wood is +charming indeed; not to particularize detached pieces of your scenery, +the _tout ensemble_ is very inviting; observe, however, I have no +notion of paradise without an Adam, and therefore shall bring +Fitzgerald with me next time. + +What could induce you, with this sweet little retreat, to cross that +vile ocean to Canada? I am astonished at the madness of mankind, who +can expose themselves to pain, misery, and danger; and range the world +from motives of avarice and ambition, when the rural cot, the fanning +gale, the clear stream, and flowery bank, offer such delicious +enjoyments at home. + +You men are horrid, rapacious animals, with your spirit of +enterprize, and your nonsense: ever wanting more land than you can +cultivate, and more money than you can spend. + +That eternal pursuit of gain, that rage of accumulation, in which +you are educated, corrupts your hearts, and robs you of half the +pleasures of life. + +I should not, however, make so free with the sex, if you and my +_caro sposo_ were not exceptions. + +You two have really something of the sensibility and generosity of +women. + +Do you know, Rivers, I have a fancy you and Fitzgerald will always +be happy husbands? this is something owing to yourselves, and something +to us; you have both that manly tenderness, and true generosity, which +inclines you to love creatures who have paid you the compliment of +making their happiness or misery depend entirely on you, and partly to +the little circumstance of your being married to two of the most +agreable women breathing. + +To speak _en philosophe_, my dear Rivers, you are not to be +told, that the fire of love, like any other fire, is equally put out +by too much or too little fuel. + +Now Emily and I, without vanity, besides our being handsome and +amazingly sensible, to say nothing of our pleasing kind of sensibility, +have a certain just idea of causes and effects, with a natural blushing +reserve, and bridal delicacy, which I am apt to flatter myself-- + +Do you understand me, Rivers? I am not quite clear I understand +myself. + +All that I would insinuate is, that Emily and I are, take us for all +in all, the two most charming women in the world, and that, whoever +leaves us, must change immensely for the worse. + +I believe Lucy equally pleasing, but I think her charms have not so +good a subject to work upon. + +Temple is a handsome fellow, and loves her; but he has not the +tenderness of heart that I so much admire in two certain youths of my +acquaintance. + +He is rich indeed; but who cares? + +Certainly, my dear Rivers, nothing can be more absurd, or more +destructive to happiness, than the very wrong turn we give our +children's imaginations about marriage. + +If miss and master are good, she is promised a rich husband, and a +coach and six, and he a wife with a monstrous great fortune. + +Most of these fine promises must fail; and where they do not, the +poor things have only the consolation of finding, when too late to +retreat, that the objects to which all their wishes were pointed have +really nothing to do with happiness. + +Is there a nabobess on earth half as happy as the two foolish little +girls about whom I have been writing, though married to such poor +devils as you and Fitzgerald? _Certainement_ no. + +And so ends my sermon. + + Adieu! + Your most obedient, + A. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 203. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Temple-house, Rutland. + +Bellfield, Oct. 21. + +You ridicule my enthusiasm, my dear Temple, without considering +there is no exertion of the human mind, no effort of the understanding, +imagination, or heart, without a spark of this divine fire. + +Without enthusiasm, genius, virtue, pleasure, even love itself, +languishes; all that refines, adorns, softens, exalts, ennobles life, +has its source in this animating principle. + +I glory in being an enthusiast in every thing; but in nothing so +much as in my tenderness for this charming woman. + +I am a perfect Quixote in love, and would storm enchanted castles, +and fight giants, for my Emily. + +Coldness of temper damps every spring that moves the human heart; it +is equally an enemy to pleasure, riches, fame, to all which is worth +living for. + +I thank you for your wishes that I was rich, but am by no means +anxious myself on the subject. + +You sons of fortune, who possess your thousands a year, and find +them too little for your desires, desires which grow from that very +abundance, imagine every man miserable who wants them; in which you are +greatly mistaken. + +Every real pleasure is within the reach of my little fortune, and I +am very indifferent about those which borrow their charms, not from +nature, but from fashion and caprice. + +My house is indeed less than yours; but it is finely situated, and +large enough for my fortune: that part of it which belongs peculiarly +to my Emily is elegant. + +I have an equipage, not for parade but use; and the loveliest of +women prefers it with me to all that luxury and magnificence could +bestow with another. + +The flowers in my garden bloom as fair, the peach glows as deep, as +in yours: does a flower blush more lovely, or smell more sweet; a peach +look more tempting than its fellows, I select it for my Emily, who +receives it with delight, as the tender tribute of love. + +In some respects, we are the more happy for being less rich: the +little avocations, which our mediocrity of fortune makes necessary to +both, are the best preventives of that languor, from being too +constantly together, which is all that love founded on taste and +friendship has to fear. + +Had I my choice, I should wish for a very small addition only to my +income, and that for the sake of others, not myself. + +I love pleasure, and think it our duty to make life as agreable as +is consistent with what we owe to others; but a true pleasurable +philosopher seeks his enjoyments where they are really to be found; not +in the gratifications of a childish pride, but of those affections +which are born with us, and which are the only rational sources of +enjoyment. + +When I am walking in these delicious shades with Emily; when I see +those lovely eyes, softened with artless fondness, and hear the music +of that voice; when a thousand trifles, unobserved but by the prying +sight of love, betray all the dear sensations of that bosom, where +truth and delicate tenderness have fixed their seat, I know not the +Epicurean of whom I do not deserve to be the envy. + +Does your fortune, my dear Temple, make you more than happy? if not, +why so very earnestly wish an addition to mine? believe me, there is +nothing about which I am more indifferent. I am ten times more anxious +to get the finest collection of flowers in the world for my Emily. + +You observe justly, that there is nothing so insipid as women who +have conversed with women only; let me add, nor so brutal as men who +have lived only amongst men. + +The desire of pleasing on each side, in an intercourse enlivened by +taste, and governed by delicacy and honor, calls forth all the graces +of the person and understanding, all the amiable sentiments of the +heart: it also gives good-breeding, ease, and a certain awakened +manner, which is not to be acquired but in mixed conversation. + +Remember, you and my dear Lucy dine with us to-morrow; it is to be a +little family party, to indulge my mother in the delight of seeing her +children about her, without interruption: I have saved all my best +fruit for this day; we are to drink tea and sup in Emily's apartment. + + Adieu! Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + +I will to-morrow shew you better grapes than any you have at +Temple-house: you rich men fancy nobody has any thing good but +yourselves; but I hope next year to shew you that you are mistaken in a +thousand instances. I will have such roses and jessamines, such bowers +of intermingled sweets--you shall see what astonishing things Emily's +taste and my industry can do. + + + +LETTER 204. + + +To Mrs. Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Oct. 22. + +Finish your business, my dear girl, and let us see you again at +Bellfield. I need not tell you the pleasure Mr. Fitzgerald's +accompanying you will give us. + +I die to see you, my dear Bell; it is not enough to be happy, unless +I have somebody to tell every moment that I am so: I want a confidante +of my tenderness, a friend like my Bell, indulgent to all my follies, +to talk to of the loveliest and most beloved of mankind. I want to tell +you a thousand little instances of that ardent, that refined affection, +which makes all the happiness of my life! I want to paint the +flattering attention, the delicate fondness of that dear lover, who is +only the more so for being a husband. + +You are the only woman on earth to whom I can, without the +appearance of insult, talk of my Rivers, because you are the only one I +ever knew as happy as myself. + +Fitzgerald, in the tenderness and delicacy of his mind, resembles +strongly-- + +I am interrupted: adieu! for a moment. + +It was my Rivers, he brought me a bouquet; I opened the door, +supposing it was my mother; conscious of what I had been writing, I was +confused at seeing him; he smiled, and guessing the reason of my +embarrassment, "I must leave you, Emily; you are writing, and, by your +blushes, I know you have been talking of your lover." + +I should have told you, he insists on never seeing the letters I +write, and gives this reason for it, That he should be a great loser by +seeing them, as it would restrain my pen when I talk of him. + +I believe, I am very foolish in my tenderness; but you will forgive +me. + +Rivers yesterday was throwing flowers at me and Lucy, in play, as we +were walking in the garden; I catched a wallflower, and, by an +involuntary impulse, kissed it, and placed it in my bosom. + +He observed me, and his look of pleasure and affection is impossible +to be described. What exquisite pleasure there is in these agreable +follies! + +He is the sweetest trifler in the world, my dear Bell: but in what +does he not excel all mankind! + +As the season of autumnal flowers is almost over, he is sending for +all those which blow early in the spring: he prevents every wish his +Emily can form. + +Did you ever, my dear, see so fine an autumn as this? you will, +perhaps, smile when I say, I never saw one so pleasing; such a season +is more lovely than even the spring: I want you down before this +agreable weather is all over. + +I am going to air with my mother; my Rivers attends us on horseback; +you cannot think how amiable his attention is to both. + +Adieu! my dear; my mother has sent to let me know she is ready. + + Your affectionate + Emily Rivers. + + + +LETTER 205. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Oct. 24. + +Some author has said, "The happiness of the next world, to the +virtuous, will consist in enjoying the society of minds like their +own." + +Why then should we not do our best to possess as much as possible of +this happiness here? + +You will see this is a preface to a very earnest request to see +Captain Fitzgerald and the lovely Bell immediately at our farm: take +notice, I will not admit even business as an excuse much longer. + +I am just come from a walk in the wood behind the house, with my +mother and Emily; I want you to see it before it loses all its charms; +in another fortnight, its present variegated foliage will be literally +_humbled in the dust_. + +There is something very pleasing in this season, if it did not give +us the idea of the winter, which is approaching too fast. + +The dryness of the air, the soft western breeze, the tremulous +motion of the falling leaves, the rustling of those already fallen +under our feet, their variety of lively colors, give a certain spirit +and agreable fluctuation to the scene, which is unspeakably pleasing. + +By the way, we people of warm imaginations have vast advantages over +others; we scorn to be confined to present scenes, or to give +attention to such trifling objects as times and seasons. + +I already anticipate the spring; see the woodbines and wild roses +bloom in my grove, and almost catch the gale of perfume. + +Twelve o'clock. + +I have this moment received your letter. + +I am sorry for what you tell me of Miss H----; whose want of art has +led her into indiscretions. + +'Tis too common to see the most innocent, nay, even the most +laudable actions censured by the world; as we cannot, however, +eradicate the prejudices of others, it is wisdom to yield to them in +things which are indifferent. + +One ought to conform to, and respect the customs, as well as the +laws and religion of our country, where they are not contrary to +virtue, and to that moral sense which heaven has imprinted on our +souls; where they are contrary, every generous mind will despise them. + +I agree with you, my dear friend, that two persons who love, not +only _seem_, but really are, handsomer to each other than to the +rest of the world. + +When we look at those we ardently love, a new softness steals +unperceived into the eyes, the countenance is more animated, and the +whole form has that air of tender languor which has such charms for +sensible minds. + +To prove the truth of this, my Emily approaches, fair as the rising +morn, led by the hand of the Graces; she sees her lover, and every +charm is redoubled; an involuntary smile, a blush of pleasure, speak a +passion, which is the pride of my soul. + +Even her voice, melodious as it is by nature, is softened when she +addresses her happy Rivers. + +She comes to ask my attendance on her and my mother; they are going +to pay a morning visit a few miles off. + +Adieu! tell the little Bell I kiss her hand. + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 206. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Three o'clock. + +We are returned, and have met with an adventure, which I must tell +you. + +About six miles from home, at the entrance of a small village, as I +was riding very fast, a little before the chaise, a boy about four +years old, beautiful as a Cupid, came out of a cottage on the +right-hand, and, running cross the road, fell almost under my horse's +feet. + +I threw myself off in a moment; and snatching up the child, who was, +however, unhurt, carried him to the house. + +I was met at the door by a young woman, plainly drest; but of a form +uncommonly elegant: she had seen the child fall, and her terror for him +was plainly marked in her countenance; she received him from me, +pressed him to her bosom, and, without speaking, melted into tears. + +My mother and Emily had by this time reached the cottage; the +humanity of both was too much interested to let them pass: they +alighted, came into the house, and enquired about the child, with an +air of tenderness which was not lost on the young person, whom we +supposed his mother. + +She appeared about two and twenty, was handsome, with an air of the +world, which the plainness of her dress could not hide; her countenance +was pensive, with a mixture of sensibility which instantly prejudiced +us all in her favor; her look seemed to say, she was unhappy, and that +she deserved to be otherwise. + +Her manner was respectful, but easy and unconstrained; polite, +without being servile; and she acknowledged the interest we all seemed +to take in what related to her, in a manner that convinced us she +deserved it. + +Though every thing about us, the extreme neatness, the elegant +simplicity of her house and little garden, her own person, that of the +child, both perfectly genteel, her politeness, her air of the world, in +a cottage like that of the meanest laborer, tended to excite the most +lively curiosity; neither good-breeding, humanity, nor the respect due +to those who appear unfortunate, would allow us to make any enquiries: +we left the place full of this adventure, convinced of the merit, as +well as unhappiness, of its fair inhabitant, and resolved to find out, +if possible, whether her misfortunes were of a kind to be alleviated, +and within our little power to alleviate. + +I will own to you, my dear Fitzgerald, I at that moment felt the +smallness of my fortune: and I believe Emily had the same sensations, +though her delicacy prevented her naming them to me, who have made her +poor. + +We can talk of nothing but the stranger; and Emily is determined to +call on her again to-morrow, on pretence of enquiring after the health +of the child. + +I tremble lest her story, for she certainly has one, should be such +as, however it may entitle her to compassion, may make it impossible +for Emily to shew it in the manner she seems to wish. + + Adieu! + Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 207. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Oct. 24. + +We have been again at the cottage; and are more convinced than +ever, that this amiable girl is not in the station in which she was +born; we staid two hours, and varied the conversation in a manner +which, in spite of her extreme modesty, made it impossible for her to +avoid shewing she had been educated with uncommon care: her style is +correct and elegant; her sentiments noble, yet unaffected; we talked +of books, she said little on the subject; but that little shewed a +taste which astonished us. + +Anxious as we are to know her true situation, in order, if she +merits it, to endeavor to serve her, yet delicacy made it impossible +for us to give the least hint of a curiosity which might make her +suppose we entertained ideas to her prejudice. + +She seemed greatly affected with the humane concern Emily expressed +for the child's danger yesterday, as well as with the polite and even +affectionate manner in which she appeared to interest herself in all +which related to her; Emily made her general offers of service with a +timid kind of softness in her air, which seemed to speak rather a +person asking a favor than wishing to confer an obligation. + +She thanked my sweet Emily with a look of surprize and gratitude to +which it is not easy to do justice; there was, however, an +embarrassment in her countenance at those offers, which a little alarms +me; she absolutely declined coming to Bellfield: I know not what to +think. + +Emily, who has taken a strong prejudice in her favor, will answer +for her conduct with her life; but I will own to you, I am not without +my doubts. + +When I consider the inhuman arts of the abandoned part of one sex, +and the romantic generosity and too unguarded confidence, of the most +amiable of the other; when I reflect that where women love, they love +without reserve; that they fondly imagine the man who is dear to them +possessed of every virtue; that their very integrity of mind prevents +their suspicions; when I think of her present retirement, so +apparently ill suited to her education; when I see her beauty, her +elegance of person, with that tender and melancholy air, so strongly +expressive of the most exquisite sensibility; when, in short, I see the +child, and observe her fondness for him, I have fears for her, which I +cannot conquer. + +I am as firmly convinced as Emily of the goodness of her heart; but +I am not so certain that even that very goodness may not have been, +from an unhappy concurrence of circumstances, her misfortune. + +We have company to dine. + +Adieu! till the evening. + +Ten at night. + +About three hours ago, Emily received the inclosed, from our fair +cottager. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + +"To Mrs. Rivers. + +"Madam, + +"Though I have every reason to wish the melancholy event which +brought me here, might continue unknown; yet your generous concern for +a stranger, who had no recommendation to your notice but her appearing +unhappy, and whose suspicious situation would have injured her in a +mind less noble than yours, has determined me to lay before you a +story, which it was my resolution to conceal for ever. + +"I saw, Madam, in your countenance, when you honored me by calling +at my house this morning, and I saw with an admiration no words can +speak, the amiable struggle between the desire of knowing the nature of +my distress in order to soften it, and the delicacy which forbad your +enquiries, lest they should wound my sensibility and self-love. + +"To such a heart I run no hazard in relating what in the world +would, perhaps, draw on me a thousand reproaches; reproaches, however, +I flatter myself, undeserved. + +"You have had the politeness to say, there is something in my +appearance which speaks my birth above my present situation: in this, +Madam, I am so happy as not to deceive your generous partiality. + +"My father, who was an officer of family and merit, had the +misfortune to lose my mother whilst I was an infant. + +"He had the goodness to take on himself the care of directing my +education, and to have me taught whatever he thought becoming my sex, +though at an expence much too great for his income. + +"As he had little more than his commission, his parental tenderness +got so far the better of his love for his profession, that, when I was +about fifteen, he determined on quitting the army, in order to provide +better for me; but, whilst he was in treaty for this purpose, a fever +carried him off in a few days, and left me to the world, with little +more than five hundred pounds, which, however, was, by his will, +immediately in my power. + +"I felt too strongly the loss of this excellent parent to attend to +any other consideration; and, before I was enough myself to think what +I was to do for a subsistence, a friend of my own age, whom I tenderly +loved, who was just returning from school to her father's, in the north +of England, insisted on my accompanying her, and spending some time +with her in the country. + +"I found in my dear Sophia, all the consolation my grief could +receive; and, at her pressing solicitation, and that of her father, who +saw his daughter's happiness depended on having me with her, I +continued there three years, blest in the calm delights of friendship, +and those blameless pleasures, with which we should be too happy, if +the heart could content itself, when a young baronet, whose form was +as lovely as his soul was dark, came to interrupt our felicity. + +"My Sophia, at a ball, had the misfortune to attract his notice; she +was rather handsome, though without regular features; her form was +elegant and feminine, and she had an air of youth, of softness, of +sensibility, of blushing innocence, which seemed intended to inspire +delicate passions alone, and which would have disarmed any mind less +depraved than that of the man, who only admired to destroy. + +"She was the rose-bud yet impervious to the sun. + +"Her heart was tender, but had never met an object which seemed +worthy of it; her sentiments were disinterested, and romantic to +excess. + +"Her father was, at that time, in Holland, whither the death of a +relation, who had left him a small estate, had called him: we were +alone, unprotected, delivered up to the unhappy inexperience of youth, +mistresses of our own conduct; myself, the eldest of the two, but just +eighteen, when my Sophia's ill-fate conducted Sir Charles Verville to +the ball where she first saw him. + +"He danced with her, and endeavored to recommend himself by all +those little unmeaning, but flattering attentions, by which our +credulous sex are so often misled; his manner was tender, yet timid, +modest, respectful; his eyes were continually fixed on her, but when he +met hers, artfully cast down, as if afraid of offending. + +"He asked permission to enquire after her health the next day; he +came, he was enchanting; polite, lively, soft, insinuating, adorned +with every outward grace which could embellish virtue, or hide vice +from view, to see and to love him was almost the same thing. + +"He entreated leave to continue his visits, which he found no +difficulty in obtaining: during two months, not a day passed without +our seeing him; his behaviour was such as would scarce have alarmed the +most suspicious heart; what then could be expected of us, young, +sincere, totally ignorant of the world, and strongly prejudiced in +favor of a man, whose conversation spoke his soul the abode of every +virtue? + +"Blushing I must own, nothing but the apparent preference he gave to +my lovely friend, could have saved my heart from being a prey to the +same tenderness which ruined her. + +"He addressed her with all the specious arts which vice could invent +to seduce innocence; his respect, his esteem, seemed equal to his +passion; he talked of honor, of the delight of an union where the +tender affections alone were consulted; wished for her father's +return, to ask her of him in marriage; pretended to count impatiently +the hours of his absence, which delayed his happiness: he even +prevailed on her to write her father an account of his addresses. + +"New to love, my Sophia's young heart too easily gave way to the +soft impression; she loved, she idolized this most base of mankind; +she would have thought it a kind of sacrilege to have had any will in +opposition to his. + +"After some months of unremitted assiduity, her father being +expected in a few days, he dropped a hint, as if by accident, that he +wished his fortune less, that he might be the more certain he was loved +for himself alone; he blamed himself for this delicacy, but charged it +on excess of love; vowed he would rather die than injure her, yet +wished to be convinced her fondness was without reserve. + +"Generous, disinterested, eager to prove the excess and sincerity of +her passion, she fell into the snare; she agreed to go off with him, +and live some time in a retirement where she was to see only himself, +after which he engaged to marry her publicly. + +"He pretended extasies at this proof of affection, yet hesitated to +accept it; and, by piquing the generosity of her soul, which knew no +guile, and therefore suspected none, led her to insist on devoting +herself to wretchedness. + +"In order, however, that this step might be as little known as +possible, as he pretended the utmost concern for that honor he was +contriving to destroy, it was agreed between them, that he should go +immediately to London, and that she should follow him, under pretence +of a visit to a relation at some distance; the greatest difficulty was, +how to hide this design from me. + +"She had never before concealed a thought from her beloved Fanny; +nor could he now have prevailed on her to deceive me, had he not +artfully perswaded her I was myself in love with him; and that, +therefore, it would be cruel, as well as imprudent, to trust me with +the secret. + +"Nothing shews so strongly the power of love, in absorbing every +faculty of the soul, as my dear Sophia's being prevailed on to use art +with the friend most dear to her on earth. + +"By an unworthy piece of deceit, I was sent to a relation for some +weeks; and the next day Sophia followed her infamous lover, leaving +letters for me and her father, calculated to perswade us, they were +privately married. + +"My distress, and that of the unhappy parent, may more easily be +conceived than described; severe by nature, he cast her from his heart +and fortune for ever, and settled his estate on a nephew, then at the +university. + +"As to me, grief and tenderness were the only sensations I felt: I +went to town, and took every private method to discover her retreat, +but in vain; till near a year after, when, being in London, with a +friend of my mother's, a servant, who had lived with my Sophia, saw me +in the street, and knew me: by her means, I discovered that she was in +distress, abandoned by her lover, in that moment when his tenderness +was most necessary. + +"I flew to her, and found her in a miserable apartment, in which +nothing but an extreme neatness would have made me suppose she had ever +seen happier days: the servant who brought me to her attended her. + +"She was in bed, pale, emaciated; the lovely babe you saw with me in +her arms. + +"Though prepared for my visit, she was unable to bear the shock of +seeing me; I ran to her, she raised herself in the bed, and, throwing +her feeble arms round my neck, could only say, 'My Fanny! is this +possible!' and fainted away. + +"Our cares having recovered her, she endeavored to compose herself; +her eyes were fixed tenderly on me, she pressed my hand between hers, +the tears stole silently down her cheeks; she looked at her child, then +at me; she would have spoke, but the feelings of her heart were too +strong for expression. + +"I begged her to be calm, and promised to spend the day with her; +I did not yet dare, lest the emotion should be too much for her weak +state, to tell her we would part no more. + +"I took a room in the house, and determined to give all my attention +to the restoration of her health; after which, I hoped to contrive to +make my little fortune, with industry, support us both. + +"I sat up with her that night; she got a little rest, she seemed +better in the morning; she told me the particulars I have already +related; she, however, endeavored to soften the cruel behaviour of the +wretch, whose name I could not hear without horror. + +"She had in the afternoon a little fever; I sent for a physician, +he thought her in danger; what did not my heart feel from this +information? she grew worse, I never left her one moment. + +"The next morning she called me to her; she took my hand, and +looking at me with a tenderness no language can describe, + +"'My dear, my only friend,' said she, 'I am dying; you are come to +receive the last breath of your unhappy Sophia: I wish with ardor for +my father's blessing and forgiveness, but dare not ask them. + +"'The weakness of my heart has undone me; I am lost, abandoned by him +on whom my soul doated; by him, for whom I would have sacrificed a +thousand lives; he has left me with my babe to perish, yet I still love +him with unabated fondness: the pang of losing him sinks me to the +grave!' + +"Her speech here failed her for a time; but recovering, she +proceeded, + +"'Hard as this request may seem, and to whatever miseries it may +expose my angel friend, I adjure you not to desert my child; save him +from the wretchedness that threatens him; let him find in you a mother +not less tender, but more virtuous, than his own. + +"'I know, my Fanny, I undo you by this cruel confidence; but who else +will have mercy on this innocent?' + +"Unable to answer, my heart torn with unutterable anguish, I +snatched the lovely babe to my bosom, I kissed him, I bathed him with +my tears. + +"She understood me, a gleam of pleasure brightened her dying eyes, +the child was still pressed to my heart, she gazed on us both with a +look of wild affection; then, clasping her hands together, and +breathing a fervent prayer to heaven, sunk down, and expired without a +groan-- + +"To you, Madam, I need not say the rest. + +"The eloquence of angels could not paint my distress; I saw the +friend of my soul, the best and most gentle of her sex, a breathless +corse before me; her heart broke by the ingratitude of the man she +loved, her honor the sport of fools, her guiltless child a sharer in +her shame. + +"And all this ruin brought on by a sensibility of which the best +minds alone are susceptible, by that noble integrity of soul which made +it impossible for her to suspect another. + +"Distracted with grief, I kissed my Sophia's pale lips, talked to +her lifeless form; I promised to protect the sweet babe, who smiled on +me, and with his little hand pressed mine, as if sensible of what I +said. + +"As soon as my grief was enough calmed to render me capable of any +thing, I wrote an account of Sophia's death to her father, who had the +inhumanity to refuse to see her child. + +"I disdained an application to her murderer; and retiring to this +place, where I was, and resolved to continue, unknown, determined to +devote my life to the sweet infant, and to support him by an industry +which I did not doubt heaven would prosper. + +"The faithful girl who had attended Sophia, begged to continue with +me; we work for the milleners in the neighbouring towns, and, with the +little pittance I have, keep above want. + +"I know the consequence of what I have undertaken; I know I give up +the world and all hopes of happiness to myself: yet will I not desert +this friendless little innocent, nor betray the confidence of my +expiring friend, whose last moments were soothed with the hope of his +finding a parent's care in me. + +"You have had the goodness to wish to serve me. Sir Charles Verville +is dead: a fever, the consequence of his ungoverned intemperance, +carried him off suddenly: his brother Sir William has a worthy +character; if Colonel Rivers, by his general acquaintance with the +great world, can represent this story to him, it possibly may procure +my little Charles happier prospects than my poverty can give him. + +"Your goodness, Madam, makes it unnecessary to be more explicit: to +be unhappy, and not to have merited it, is a sufficient claim to your +protection. + +"You are above the low prejudices of common minds; you will pity the +wretched victim of her own unsuspecting heart, you will abhor the +memory of her savage undoer, you will approve my complying with her +dying request, though in contradiction to the selfish maxims of the +world: you will, if in your power, endeavor to serve my little +prattler. + +"'Till I had explained my situation, I could not think of accepting +the honor you allowed me to hope for, of enquiring after your health at +Bellfield; if the step I have taken meets with your approbation, I +shall be most happy to thank you and Colonel Rivers for your attention +to one, whom you would before have been justified in supposing +unworthy of it. + +"I am, Madam, with the most perfect respect and gratitude, + + "Your obliged + and obedient servant, + F. Williams." + + +Your own heart, my dear Fitzgerald, will tell you what were our +reflections on reading the inclosed: Emily, whose gentle heart feels +for the weaknesses as well as misfortunes of others, will to-morrow +fetch this heroic girl and her little ward, to spend a week at +Bellfield; and we will then consider what is to be done for them. + +You know Sir William Verville; go to him from me with the inclosed +letter, he is a man of honor, and will, I am certain, provide for the +poor babe, who, had not his father been a monster of unfeeling +inhumanity, would have inherited the estate and title Sir William now +enjoys. + +Is not the midnight murderer, my dear friend, white as snow to this +vile seducer? this betrayer of unsuspecting, trusting, innocence? what +transport is it to me to reflect, that not one bosom ever heaved a sigh +of remorse of which I was the cause! + +I grieve for the poor victim of a tenderness, amiable in itself, +though productive of such dreadful consequences when not under the +guidance of reason. + +It ought to be a double tie on the honor of men, that the woman who +truely loves gives up her will without reserve to the object of her +affection. + +Virtuous less from reasoning and fixed principle, than from +elegance, and a lovely delicacy of mind; naturally tender, even to +excess; carried away by a romance of sentiment; the helpless sex are +too easily seduced, by engaging their confidence, and piquing their +generosity. + +I cannot write; my heart is softened to a degree which makes me +incapable of any thing. + +Do not neglect one moment going to Sir William Verville. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 208. + + +To Colonel Rivers. + +Oct. 28. + +The story you have told me has equally shocked and astonished me: my +sweet Bell has dropped a pitying tear on poor Sophia's grave. + +Thank heaven! we meet with few minds like that of Sir Charles +Verville; such a degree of savage insensibility is unnatural. + +The human heart is created weak, not wicked: avid of pleasure and of +gain; but with a mixture of benevolence which prevents our seeking +either to the destruction of others. + +Nothing can be more false than that we are naturally inclined to +evil: we are indeed naturally inclined to gratify the selfish passions +of every kind; but those passions are not evil in themselves, they only +become so from excess. + +The malevolent passions are not inherent in our nature. They are +only to be acquired by degrees, and generally are born from chagrin and +disappointment; a wicked character is a depraved one. + +What must this unhappy girl have suffered! no misery can equal the +struggles of a virtuous mind wishing to act in a manner becoming its +own dignity, yet carried by passions to do otherwise. + +One o'clock. + +I have been at Sir William Verville's, who is at Bath; I will write, +and inclose the letter to him this evening; you shall have his answer +the moment I receive it. + +We are going to dine at Richmond with Lord H----. + +Adieu! my dear Rivers; Bell complains you have never answered her +letter: I own, I thought you a man of more gallantry than to neglect a +lady. + + Adieu! + Your faithful + J. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 209. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Oct. 30. + +I am very impatient, my dear friend, till you hear from Sir William, +though I have no doubt of his acting as he ought: our cottagers shall +not leave us till their fate is determined; I have not told Miss +Williams the step I have taken. + +Emily is more and more pleased with this amiable girl: I wish +extremely to be able to keep her here; as an agreable companion of her +own age and sex, whose ideas are similar, and who, from being in the +same season of life, sees things in the same point of view, is all that +is wanting to Emily's happiness. + +'Tis impossible to mention similarity of ideas, without observing +how exactly ours coincide; in all my acquaintance with mankind, I +never yet met a mind so nearly resembling my own; a tie of affection +much stronger than all your merit would be without that similarity. + +I agree with you, that mankind are born virtuous, and that it is +education and example which make them otherwise. + +The believing other men knaves is not only the way to make them so, +but is also an infallible method of becoming such ourselves. + +A false and ill-judged method of instruction, by which we imbibe +prejudices instead of truths, makes us regard the human race as beasts +of prey; not as brothers, united by one common bond, and promoting the +general interest by pursuing our own particular one. + +There is nothing of which I am more convinced than that, + + "True self-love and social are the same:" + +That those passions which make the happiness of individuals tend +directly to the general good of the species. + +The beneficent Author of nature has made public and private +happiness the same; man has in vain endeavored to divide them; but in +the endeavor he has almost destroyed both. + +'Tis with pain I say, that the business of legislation in most +countries seems to have been to counter-work this wise order of +providence, which has ordained, that we shall make others happy in +being so ourselves. + +This is in nothing so glaring as in the point on which not only the +happiness, but the virtue of almost the whole human race is concerned: +I mean marriage; the restraints on which, in almost every country, not +only tend to encourage celibacy, and a destructive libertinism the +consequence of it, to give fresh strength to domestic tyranny, and +subject the generous affections of uncorrupted youth to the guidance of +those in whom every motive to action but avarice is dead; to condemn +the blameless victims of duty to a life of indifference, of disgust, +and possibly of guilt; but, by opposing the very spirit of our +constitution, throwing property into a few hands, and favoring that +excessive inequality, which renders one part of the species wretched, +without adding to the happiness of the other; to destroy at once the +domestic felicity of individuals, contradict the will of the Supreme +Being, as clearly wrote in the book of nature, and sap the very +foundations of the most perfect form of government on earth. + +A pretty long-winded period this: Bell would call it true +Ciceronian, and quote + + "--Rivers for a period of a mile." + +But to proceed. The only equality to which parents in general +attend, is that of fortune; whereas a resemblance in age, in temper, in +personal attractions, in birth, in education, understanding, and +sentiment, are the only foundations of that lively taste, that tender +friendship, without which no union deserves the sacred name of +marriage. + +Timid, compliant youth may be forced into the arms of age and +disease; a lord may invite a citizen's daughter he despises to his bed, +to repair a shattered fortune; and she may accept him, allured by the +rays of a coronet: but such conjunctions are only a more shameful +species of prostitution. + +Men who marry from interested motives are inexcusable; but the very +modesty of women makes against their happiness in this point, by giving +them a kind of bashful fear of objecting to such persons as their +parents recommend as proper objects of their tenderness. + +I am prevented by company from saying all I intended. + + Adieu! Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 210. + + +To Colonel Rivers. + +Temple-house, Nov. 1. + +You wrong me excessively, my dear Rivers, in accusing me of a +natural levity in love and friendship. + +As to the latter, my frequent changes, which I freely acknowledge, +have not been owing to any inconstancy, but to precipitation and want +of caution in contracting them. + +My general fault has been the folly of chusing my friends for some +striking and agreable accomplishment, instead of giving to solid merit +the preference which most certainly is its due. + +My inconstancy in love has been meerly from vanity. + +There is something so flattering in the general favor of women, that +it requires great firmness of mind to resist that kind of gallantry +which indulges it, though absolutely destructive to real happiness. + +I blush to say, that when I first married I have more than once been +in danger, from the mere boyish desire of conquest, notwithstanding my +adoration for your lovely sister: such is the force of habit, for I +must have been infinitely a loser by changing. + +I am now perfectly safe; my vanity has taken another turn: I pique +myself on keeping the heart of the loveliest woman that ever existed, +as a nobler conquest than attracting the notice of a hundred coquets, +who would be equally flattered by the attention of any other man, at +least any other man who had the good fortune to be as fashionable. + +Every thing conspires to keep me in the road of domestic happiness: +the manner of life I am engaged in, your friendship, your example, and +society; and the very fear I am in of losing your esteem. + +That I have the seeds of constancy in my nature, I call on you and +your lovely sister to witness; I have been _your_ friend from +almost infancy, and am every hour more _her_ lover. + +She is my friend, my companion, as well as mistress; her wit, her +sprightliness, her pleasing kind of knowledge, fill with delight those +hours which are so tedious with a fool, however lovely. + +With my Lucy, possession can never cure the wounded heart. + +Her modesty, her angel purity of mind and person, render her +literally, + + "My ever-new delight." + +She has convinced me, that if beauty is the mother, delicacy is the +nurse of love. + +Venus has lent her her cestus, and shares with her the attendance of +the Graces. + +My vagrant passions, like the rays of the sun collected in a burning +glass, are now united in one point. + +Lucy is here. Adieu! I must not let her know her power. + +You spend to-morrow with us; we have a little ball, and are to have +a masquerade next week. + +Lucy wants to consult Emily on her dress; you and I are not to be in +the secret: we have wrote to ask the Fitzgeralds to the masquerade; I +will send Lucy's post coach for them the day before, or perhaps fetch +them myself. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + J. Temple. + + + +LETTER 211. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Nov. 1. + +I have this moment a letter from Temple which has set my heart at +rest: he writes like a lover, yet owns his past danger, with a +frankness which speaks more strongly than any professions could do, the +real present state of his heart. + +My anxiety for my sister has a little broke in on my own happiness; +in England, where the married women are in general the most virtuous in +the world, it is of infinite consequence they should love their +husbands, and be beloved by them; in countries where gallantry is more +permitted, it is less necessary. + +Temple will make her happy whilst she preserves his heart; but, if +she loses it, every thing is to be feared from the vivacity of his +nature, which can never support one moment a life of indifference. + +He has that warmth of temper which is the natural soil of the +virtues; but which is unhappily, at the same time, most apt to produce +indiscretions. + +Tame, cold, dispassionate minds resemble barren lands; warm, +animated ones, rich ground, which, if properly cultivated, yields the +noblest fruit; but, if neglected, from its luxuriance is most +productive of weeds. + +His misfortune has been losing both his parents when almost an +infant; and having been master of himself and a noble fortune, at an +age when the passions hurry us beyond the bounds of reason. + +I am the only person on earth by whom he would ever bear to be +controlled in any thing; happily for Lucy, I preserve the influence +over him which friendship first gave me. + +That influence, and her extreme attention to study his taste in +every thing; with those uncommon graces both of mind and person she has +received from nature, will, I hope, effectually fix this wandering +star. + +She tells me, she has asked you to a masquerade at Temple-house, to +which you will extremely oblige us all by coming. + +You do not tell us, whether the affair of your majority is settled: +if obliged to return immediately, Temple will send you back. + + Adieu! Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + +I have this moment your last letter: you are right, we American +travellers are under great disadvantages; our imaginations are +restrained; we have not the pomp of the orient to describe, but the +simple and unadorned charms of nature. + + + +LETTER 212. + + +To Colonel Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland. + +Nov. 4. + +Sir William Verville is come back to town; I was with him this +morning; he desires to see the child; he tells me, his brother, in his +last moments, mentioned this story in all the agony of remorse, and +begged him to provide for the little innocent, if to be found; that he +had made many enquiries, but hitherto in vain; and that he thought +himself happy in the discovery. + +He talks of settling three thousand pounds on the child, and taking +the care of educating him into his own hands. + +I hinted at some little provision for the amiable girl who had saved +him from perishing, and had the pleasure to find Sir William listen to +me with attention. + +I am sorry it is not possible for me to be at your masquerade; but +my affair is just at the crisis: Bell expects a particular account of +it from Mrs. Rivers, and desires to be immediately in the secret of the +ladies dresses, though you are not: she begs you will send your fair +cottager and little charge to us, and we will take care to introduce +them properly to Sir William. + +I am too much hurried to say more. + + Adieu! my dear Rivers! + Your affectionate + J. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 213. + + +To Mrs. Fitzgerald. + +Nov. 8. + +Yes, my dear Bell, politeness is undoubtedly a moral virtue. + +As we are beings formed for, and not capable of being happy without, +society, it is the duty of every one to endeavor to make it as easy and +agreable as they can; which is only to be done by such an attention to +others as is consistent with what we owe to ourselves; all we give them +in civility will be re-paid us in respect: insolence and ill-breeding +are detestable to all mankind. + +I long to see you, my dear Bell; the delight I have had in your +society has spoiled my relish for that of meer acquaintance, however +agreable. + +'Tis dangerous to indulge in the pleasures of friendship; they +weaken one's taste too much for common conversation. + +Yet what other pleasures are worth the name? what others have spirit +and delicacy too? + +I am preparing for the masquerade, which is to be the 18th; I am +extremely disappointed you will not be with us. + +My dress is simple and unornamented, but I think becoming and +prettily fancied; it is that of a French _paisanne_: Lucy is to +be a sultana, blazing with diamonds: my mother a Roman matron. + +I chuse this dress because I have heard my dear Rivers admire it; to +be one moment more pleasing in his eyes, is an object worthy all my +attention. + + Adieu! + Your faithful + Emily Rivers. + + + +LETTER 214. + + +To Mrs. Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland. + +London, Nov. 10. + +Certainly, my dear, friendship is a mighty pretty invention, and, +next to love, gives of all things the greatest spirit to society. + +And yet the prudery of the age will hardly allow us poor women even +this pleasure, innocent as it is. + +I remember my aunt Cecily, who died at sixty-six, without ever +having felt the least spark of affection for any human being, used to +tell me, a prudent modest woman never loved any thing but herself. + +For my part, I think all the kind propensities of the heart ought +rather to be cherished than checked; that one is allowed to esteem +merit even in the naughty creature, man. + +I love you very sincerely, Emily: but I like friendships for the men +best; and think prudery, by forbidding them, robs us of some of the +most lively as well as innocent pleasures of the heart. + +That desire of pleasing; which one feels much the most strongly for +a _male_ friend, is in itself a very agreable emotion. + +You will say, I am a coquet even in friendship; and I am not quite +sure you are not in the right. + +I am extremely in love with my husband; yet chuse other men should +regard me with complacency, am as fond of attracting the attention of +the dear creatures as ever, and, though I do justice to your wit, +understanding, sentiment, and all that, prefer Rivers's conversation +infinitely to yours. + +Women cannot say civil things to each other; and if they could, they +would be something insipid; whereas a male friend-- + +'Tis absolutely another thing, my dear; and the first system of +ethics I write, I will have a hundred pages on the subject. + +Observe, my dear, I have not the least objection to your having a +friendship for Fitzgerald. I am the best-natured creature in the world, +and the fondest of increasing the circle of my husband's innocent +amusements. + +_A propos_ to innocent amusements, I think your fair +sister-in-law an exquisite politician; calling the pleasures to Temple +at home, is the best method in the world to prevent his going abroad +in pursuit of them. + +I am mortified I cannot be at your masquerade; it is my passion, +and I have the prettiest dress in the world by me. I am half inclined +to elope for a day or two. + + Adieu! Your faithful + A. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 215. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Nov. 12. + +Please to inform the little Bell, I won't allow her to spoil my +Emily. + +I enter a caveat against male friendships, which are only fit for +ladies of the _salamandrine_ order. + +I desire to engross all Emily's _kind propensities_ to myself; +and should grudge the least share in her heart, or, if you please in +her _friendship_, to an archangel. + +However, not to be too severe, since prudery expects women to have +no propensities at all, I allow single ladies, of all ranks, sizes, +ages, and complexions, to spread the veil of friendship between their +hearts and the world. + +'Tis the finest day I ever saw, though the middle of November; a dry +soft west wind, the air as mild as in April, and an almost Canadian +sunshine. + +I have been bathing in the clear stream, at the end of my garden; +the same stream in which I laved my careless bosom at thirteen; an +idea which gave me inconceivable delight; and the more, as my bosom is +as gay and tranquil at this moment as in those dear hours of +chearfulness and innocence. + +Of all local prejudices, that is the strongest as well as most +pleasing, which attaches us to the place of our birth. + +Sweet home! only seat of true and genuine happiness. + +I am extremely in the humor to write a poem to the houshold gods. + +We neglect these amiable deities, but they are revenged; true +pleasure is only to be found under their auspices. + +I know not how it is, my dear Fitzgerald; but I don't find my +passion for the country abate. + +I still find the scenes around me lovely; though, from the change +of season, less smiling than when I first fixed at Bellfield; we have +rural business enough to amuse, not embarrass us; we have a small but +excellent library of books, given us by my mother; she and Emily are +two of the most pleasing companions on earth; the neighbourhood is full +of agreable people, and, what should always be attended to in fixing in +the country, of fortunes not superior to our own. + +The evenings grow long, but they are only the more jovial; I love +the pleasures of the table, not for their own sakes, for no man is more +indifferent on this subject; but because they promote social, +convivial joy, and bring people together in good humor with themselves +and each other. + +My Emily's suppers are enchanting; but our little income obliges us +to have few: if I was rich, this would be my principal extravagance. + +To fill up my measure of content, Emily is pleased with my +retirement, and finds all her happiness in my affection. + +We are so little alone, that I find our moments of unreserved +conversation too short; whenever I leave her, I recollect a thousand +things I had to say, a thousand new ideas to communicate, and am +impatient for the hour of seeing again, without restraint, the most +amiable and pleasing of woman-kind. + +My happiness would be complete, if I did not sometimes see a cloud +of anxiety on that dear countenance, which, however, is dissipated the +moment my eyes meet hers. + +I am going to Temple's, and the chaise is at the door. + + Adieu! my dear friend! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 216. + + +To Colonel Rivers. + +Nov. 14. + +So you disapprove male friendships, my sweet Colonel! I thought you +had better ideas of things in general. + +Fitzgerald and I have been disputing on French and English manners, +in regard to gallantry. + +The great question is, Whether a man is more hurt by the imprudent +conduct of his daughter or his wife? + +Much may be said on both sides. + +There is some hazard in suffering coquetry in either; both +contribute to give charms to conversation, and introduce ease and +politeness into society; but both are dangerous to manners. + +Our customs, however, are most likely to produce good effects, as +they give opportunity for love marriages, the only ones which can make +worthy minds happy. + +The coquetry of single women has a point of view consistent with +honor; that of married women has generally no point of view at all; it +is, however of use _pour passer le tems_. + +As to real gallantry, the French style depraves the minds of men +least, ours is most favorable to the peace of families. + +I think I preserve the balance of argument admirably. + +My opinion, however, is, that if people married from affection, +there would be no such thing as gallantry at all. + +Pride, and the parade of life, destroy all happiness: our whole +felicity depends on our choice in marriage, yet we chuse from motives +more trifling than would determine us in the common affairs of life. + +I knew a gentleman who fancied himself in love, yet delayed marrying +his mistress till he could afford a set of plate. + +Modern manners are very unfavorable to the tender affections. + +Ancient lovers had only dragons to combat; ours have the worse +monsters of avarice and ambition. + +All I shall say further on the subject is, that the two happiest +people I ever knew were a country clergyman and his wife, whose whole +income did not exceed one hundred pounds a year. + +A pretty philosophical, sentimental, dull kind of an epistle this! + +But you deserve it, for not answering my last, which was divine. + +I am pleased with Emily's ideas about her dress at the masquerade; +it is a proof you are still lovers. + +I remember, the first symptoms I discovered of my _tendresse_ +for Fitzgerald was my excessive attention to this article: I have +tried on twenty different caps when I expected him at Silleri. + +Before we drop the subject of gallantries, I must tell you I am +charmed with you and my _sposo_, for never giving the least hint +before Emily and me that you have had any; it is a piece of delicacy +which convinces me of your tenderness more than all the vows that ever +lovers broke would do. + +I have been hurt at the contrary behaviour in Temple; and have +observed Lucy to be so too, though her excessive attention not to give +him pain prevented her shewing it: I have on such an occasion seen a +smile on her countenance, and a tear of tender regret starting into her +eyes. + +A woman who has vanity without affection will be pleased to hear of +your past conquests, and regard them as victims immolated to her +superior charms: to her, therefore, it is right to talk of them; but +to flatter the _heart_, and give delight to a woman who truly +loves, you should appear too much taken up with the present passion to +look back to the past: you should not even present to her imagination +the thought that you have had other engagements: we know such things +are, but had rather the idea should not be awakened: I may be wrong, +but I speak from my own feelings. + +I am excessively pleased with a thought I met with in a little +French novel: + +"Un homme qui ne peut plus compter ses bonnes fortunes, est de tous, +celui qui connoît le moins les _faveurs_. C'est le coeur qui les +accorde, & ce n'est pas le coeur qu'un homme à la mode interesse. Plus +on est _prôné_ par les femmes, plus il est facile de les avoir, +mais moins il est possible de les enflammer." + +To which truth I most heartily set my hand. + +Twelve o'clock. + +I have just heard from your sister, who tells me, Emily is turned a +little natural philosopher, reads Ray, Derham, and fifty other strange +old fellows that one never heard of, and is eternally poring through a +microscope to discover the wonders of creation. + +How amazingly learned matrimony makes young ladies! I suppose we +shall have a volume of her discoveries bye and bye. + +She says too, you have little pets like sweethearts, quarrel and +make it up again in the most engaging manner in the world. + +This is just what I want to bring Fitzgerald to; but the perverse +monkey won't quarrel with me, do all I can: I am sure this is not my +fault, for I give him reason every day of his life. + +Shenstone says admirably, "That reconciliation is the tenderest part +of love and friendship: the soul here discovers a kind of elasticity, +and, being forced back, returns with an additional violence." + +Who would not quarrel for the pleasure of reconciliation! I shall be +very angry with Fitzgerald if he goes on in this mild way. + +Tell your sister, she cannot be more mortified than I am, that it is +impossible for me to be at her masquerade. + + Adieu! Your affectionate + A. Fitzgerald. + + +Don't you think, my dear Rivers, that marriage, on prudent +principles, is a horrid sort of an affair? It is really cruel of papas +and mammas to shut up two poor innocent creatures in a house together, +to plague and torment one another, who might have been very happy +separate. + +Where people take their own time, and chuse for themselves, it is +another affair, and I begin to think it possible affection may last +through life. + +I sometimes fancy to myself Fitzgerald and I loving on, from the +impassioned hour when I first honored him with my hand, to that +tranquil one, when we shall take our afternoon's nap _vis a vis_ +in two arm chairs, by the fire-side, he a grave country justice, and I +his worship's good sort of a wife, the Lady Bountiful of the parish. + +I have a notion there is nothing so very shocking in being an oldish +gentlewoman; what one loses in charms, is made up in the happy liberty +of doing and saying whatever one pleases. Adieu! + + + +LETTER 217. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Nov. 16. + +My relation, Colonel Willmott, is just arrived from the East Indies, +rich, and full of the project of marrying his daughter to me. + +My mother has this morning received a letter from him, pressing the +affair with an earnestness which rather makes me feel for his +disappointment, and wish to break it to him as gently as possible. + +He talks of being at Bellfield on Wednesday evening, which is +Temple's masquerade; I shall stay behind at Bellfield, to receive him, +have a domino ready, and take him to Temple-house. + +He seems to know nothing of my marriage or my sister's, and I wish +him not to know of the former till he has seen Emily. + +The best apology I can make for declining his offer, is to shew him +the lovely cause. + +I will contrive they shall converse together at the masquerade, and +that he shall sit next her at supper, without their knowing any thing +of each other. + +If he sees her, if he talks with her, without that prejudice which +the knowledge of her being the cause of his disappointment might give, +he cannot fail of having for her that admiration which I never yet met +with a mind savage enough to refuse her. + +His daughter has been educated abroad, which is a circumstance I am +pleased with, as it gives me the power of refusing her without wounding +either her vanity, or her father's, which, had we been acquainted, +might have been piqued at my giving the preference to another. + +She is not in England, but is hourly expected: the moment she +arrives, Lucy and I will fetch her to Temple-house: I shall be anxious +to see her married to a man who deserves her. Colonel Willmott tells +me, she is very amiable; at least as he is told, for he has never seen +her. + +I could wish it were possible to conceal this offer for ever from +Emily; my delicacy is hurt at the idea of her knowing it, at least from +me or my family. + +My mother behaves like an angel on this occasion; expresses herself +perfectly happy in my having consulted my heart alone in marrying, and +speaks of Emily's tenderness as a treasure above all price. + +She does not even hint a wish to see me richer than I am. + +Had I never seen Emily, I would not have married this lady unless +love had united us. + +Do not, however, suppose I have that romantic contempt for fortune, +which is so pardonable, I had almost said so becoming, at nineteen. + +I have seen more of the world than most men of my age, and I have +seen the advantages of affluence in their strongest light. + +I think a worthy man not only may have, but ought to have, an +attention to making his way in the world, and improving his situation +in it, by every means consistent with probity and honor, and with his +own real happiness. + +I have ever had this attention, and ever will, but not by base +means: and, in my opinion, the very basest is that of selling one's +hand in marriage. + +With what horror do we regard a man who is kept! and a man who +marries from interested views alone, is kept in the strongest sense of +the word. + +He is equally a purchased slave, with no distinction but that his +bondage is of longer continuance. + +Adieu! I may possibly write again on Wednesday. + + Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 218. + + +To Colonel Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland. + +London, Nov. 18. + +Fitzgerald is busy, and begs me to write to you. + +Your cottagers are arrived; there is something very interesting in +Miss Williams, and the little boy is an infant Adonis. + +Heaven send he may be an honester man than his father, or I foresee +terrible devastations amongst the sex. + +We have this moment your letter; I am angry with you for blaspheming +the sweet season of nineteen: + + "O lovely source + Of generous foibles, youth! when opening minds + Are honest as the light, lucid as air, + As fostering breezes kind, as linnets gay, + Tender as buds, and lavish as the spring." + +You will find out I am in a course of Shenstone, which I prescribe +to all minds tinctured with the uncomfortable selfishness of the +present age. + +The only way to be good, is to retain the generous mistakes, if they +are such, of nineteen through life. + +As to you, my dear Rivers, with all your airs of prudence and +knowing the world, you are, in this respect, as much a boy as ever. + +Witness your extreme joy at having married a woman with two thousand +pounds, when you might have had one with twenty times the sum. + +You are a boy, Rivers, I am a girl; and I hope we shall remain so as +long as we live. + +Do you know, my dear friend, that I am a daughter of the Muses, and +that I wrote pastorals at seven years old? + +I am charmed with this, because an old physician once told me it was +a symptom, not only of long life, but of long youth, which is much +better. + +He explained this, by saying something about animal spirits, which I +do not at all understand, but which perhaps you may. + +I should have been a pretty enough kind of a poetess, if papa had +not attempted to teach me how to be one, and insisted on seeing my +scribbles as I went on: these same Muses are such bashful misses, they +won't bear to be looked at. + +Genius is like the sensitive plant; it shrinks from the touch. + +So your nabob cousin is arrived: I hope he will fall in love with +Emily; and remember, if he had obligations to Mrs. Rivers's father, he +had exactly the same to your grandfather. + +He might spare ten thousand pounds very well, which would improve +your _petits soupers_. + +Adieu! Sir William Verville dines here, and I have but just time to +dress. + + Yours, + A. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 219. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Nov. 17, Morning. + +I have had a letter from Colonel Willmott myself to-day; he is still +quite unacquainted with the state of our domestic affairs; supposes me +a batchelor, and talks of my being his son-in-law as a certainty, not +attending to the probability of my having other engagements. + +His history, which he tells me in this letter, is a very romantic +one. He was a younger brother, and provided for accordingly: he loved, +when about twenty, a lady who was as little a favorite of fortune as +himself: their families, who on both sides had other views, joined +their interest to get him sent to the East Indies; and the young lady +was removed to the house of a friend in London, where she was to +continue till he had left England. + +Before he went, however, they contrived to meet, and were privately +married; the marriage was known only to her brother, who was +Willmott's friend. + +He left her in the care of her brother, who, under pretence of +diverting her melancholy, and endeavoring to cure her passion, obtained +leave of his father to take her with him to France. + +She was there delivered of this child, and expired a few days after. + +Her brother, without letting her family know the secret, educated +the infant, as the daughter of a younger brother who had been just +before killed in a duel in France; her parents, who died in a few +years, were, almost in their last moments, informed of these +circumstances, and made a small provision for the child. + +In the mean time, Colonel Willmott, after experiencing a great +variety of misfortunes for many years, during which he maintained a +constant correspondence with his brother-in-law, and with no other +person in Europe, by a train of lucky accidents, acquired very rapidly +a considerable fortune, with which he resolved to return to England, +and marry his daughter to me, as the only method to discharge fully +his obligations to my grandfather, who alone, of all his family, had +given him the least assistance when he left England. He wrote to his +daughter, letting her know his design, and directing her to meet him in +London; but she is not yet arrived. + +Six in the evening. + +My mother and Emily went to Temple's to dinner; they are to dress +there, and I am to be surprized. + +Seven. + +Colonel Willmott is come: he is an extreme handsome man; tall, +well-made, with an air of dignity which one seldom sees; he is very +brown, and, what will please Bell, has an aquiline nose: he looks about +fifty, but is not so much; change of climate has almost always the +disagreable effect of adding some years to the look. + +He is dressing, to accompany me to the masquerade; I must attend +him: I have only time to say, + + I am yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 220. + + +To Mrs. Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland. + +London, Nov. 18, twelve at night. + +Who should I dine and sup with to-day, at a merchant's in the city, +but your old love, Sir George Clayton, as gay and amusing as ever! + +What an entertaining companion have you lost, my dear Emily! + +He was a little disconcerted at seeing me, and blushed extremely; +but soon recovered his amiable, uniform insipidity of countenance, and +smiled and simpered as usual. + +He never enquired after you, nor even mentioned your name; being +asked for a toast, I had the malice to give Rivers; he drank him, +without seeming ever to have heard of him before. + +The city misses admire him prodigiously, and he them; they are +charmed with his beauty, and he with their wit. + +His mother, poor woman! could not bring the match she wrote about to +bear: the family approved him; but the fair one made a better choice, +and gave herself last week, at St. George's, Hanover-square, to a very +agreable fellow of our acquaintance, Mr. Palmer; a man of sense and +honor, who deserves her had she been ten times richer: he has a small +estate in Lincolnshire, and his house is not above twenty miles from +you: I must bring you and Mrs. Palmer acquainted. + +I suppose you are now the happiest of beings; Rivers finding a +thousand new beauties in his _belle paisanne_, and you exulting in +your charms, or, in other words, glorying in your strength. + +So the maiden aunts in your neighbourhood think Miss Williams no +better than she should be? + +Either somebody has said, or the idea is my own; after all, I +believe it Shenstone's, That those are generally the best people, whose +characters have been most injured by slanderers, as we usually find +that the best fruit which the birds have been pecking at. + +I will, however, allow appearances were a little against your +cottager; and I would forgive the good old virgins, if they had always +as suspicious circumstances to determine from. + +But they generally condemn from trifling indiscretions, and settle +the characters of their own sex from their conduct at a time of life +when they are themselves no judges of its propriety; they pass sentence +on them for small errors, when it is an amazing proof of prudence not +to commit great ones. + +For my own part, I think those who never have been guilty of any +indiscretion, are generally people who have very little active virtue. + +The waving line holds in moral as well as in corporeal beauty. + + Adieu! + Yours ever, + A. Fitzgerald. + + +All I can say is, that if imprudence is a sin, heaven help your poor +little Bell! + +On those principles, Sir George is the most virtuous man in the +world; to which assertion, I believe, you will enter a caveat. + + + +LETTER 221. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland. + +London, Nov. 19. + +You are right, my little Rivers: I like your friend, Colonel +Willmott vastly better for his aquiline nose; I never yet saw one on +the face of a fool. + +He is a fortunate man to be introduced to such a party of fine women +at his arrival; it is literally _to feed among the lilies_. + +Fitzgerald says, he should be jealous of him in your esteem, if he +was fifteen years younger; but that the strongest friendships are, +where there is an equality in age; because people of the same age have +the same train of thinking, and see things in the same light. + +Every season of life has its peculiar set of ideas; and we are +greatly inclined to think nobody in the right, but those who are of the +same opinion with ourselves. + +Don't you think it a strong proof of my passion for my _sposo_, +that I repeat his sentiments? + +But to business: Sir William is charmed with his little nephew; has +promised to settle on him what he before mentioned, to allow Miss +Williams an hundred pounds a year, which is to go to the child after +her death, and to be at the expence of his education himself. + +I die to hear whether your oriental Colonel is in love with Emily. + +Pray tell us every thing. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + A. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 222. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Temple-house, Thursday morning, 11 o'clock. + +Our masquerade last night was really charming; I never saw any thing +equal to it out of London. + +Temple has taste, and had spared no expence to make it agreable; the +decorations of the grand saloon were magnificent. + +Emily was the loveliest _paisanne_ that ever was beheld; her +dress, without losing sight of the character, was infinitely becoming: +her beauty never appeared to such advantage. + +There was a noble simplicity in her air, which it is impossible to +describe. + +The easy turn of her shape, the lovely roundness of her arm, the +natural elegance of her whole form, the waving ringlets of her +beautiful dark hair, carelessly fastened with a ribbon, the unaffected +grace of her every motion, all together conveyed more strongly than +imagination can paint, the pleasing idea of a wood nymph, deigning to +visit some favored mortal. + +Colonel Willmott gazed on her with rapture; and asked me, if the +rural deities had left their verdant abodes to visit Temple-house. + +I introduced him to her, and left her to improve the impression: +'tis well I was married in time; a nabob is a dangerous rival. + +Lucy looked lovely, but in another style; she was a sultana in all +the pride of imperial beauty: her charms awed, but Emily's invited; her +look spoke resistless command, Emily's soft persuasion. + +There were many fine women; but I will own to you, I had, as to +beauty, no eyes but for Emily. + +We are going this morning to see Burleigh: when we return, I shall +announce Colonel Willmott to Emily, and introduce them properly to each +other; they are to go in the same chaise; she at present only knows him +as a friend of mine, and he her as his _belle paisanne_. + + Adieu! I am summoned. + Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + +I should have told you, I acquainted Colonel Willmott with my +sister's marriage before I took him to Temple-house, and found an +opportunity of introducing him to Temple unobserved. + +Emily is the only one here to whom he is a stranger: I will caution +him not to mention to her his past generous design in my favor. Adieu! + + + +LETTER 223. + + +To Mrs. Fitzgerald. + +Temple-house, Thursday morning. + +Your Emily was happy beyond words last night: amongst a crowd of +beauties, her Rivers's eyes continually followed her; he seemed to see +no other object: he would scarce let me wait till supper to unmask. + +But you will call me a foolish romantic girl; therefore I will only +say, I had the delight to see him pleased with my dress, and charmed +with the complaisance which was shewed me by others. + +There was a gentleman who came with Rivers, who was particularly +attentive to me; he is not young, but extremely amiable: has a very +fine person, with a commanding air; great politeness, and, as far as +one can judge by a few hours conversation, an excellent understanding. + +I never in my life met with a man for whom I felt such a partiality +at first sight, except Rivers, who tells me, I have made a conquest of +his friend. + +He is to be my cavalier this morning to Burleigh. + +It has this moment struck me, that Rivers never introduced his +friend and me to each other, but as masks; I never thought of this +before: I suppose he forgot it in the hurry of the masquerade. + +I do not even know this agreable stranger's name; I only found out +by his conversation he had served in the army. + +There is no saying how beautiful Lucy looked last night; her dress +was rich, elegantly fancied, and particularly becoming to her graceful +form, which I never saw look so graceful before. + +All who attempted to be fine figures, shrunk into nothing before her. + +Lucy carries her head, you know, remarkably well; which, with the +advantage of her height, the perfect standard of women, her fine +proportion, the native dignity of her air, the majestic flow of her +robe, and the blaze of her diamonds, gave her a look of infinite +superiority; a superiority which some of the company seemed to feel in +a manner, which rather, I will own, gave me pain. + +In a place consecrated to joy, I hate to see any thing like an +uneasy sensation; yet, whilst human passions are what they are, it is +difficult to avoid them. + +There were four or five other sultanas, who seemed only the slaves +of her train. + +In short, + + "She look'd a goddess, and she mov'd a queen." + +I was happy the unassuming simplicity of the character in which I +appeared, prevented comparisons which must have been extremely to my +disadvantage. + +I was safe in my littleness, like a modest shrub by the side of a +cedar; and, being in so different a style, had the better chance to be +taken notice of, even where Lucy was. + +She was radiant as the morning star, and even dazzlingly lovely. + +Her complexion, for Temple would not suffer her to wear a mask at +all, had the vivid glow of youth and health, heightened by pleasure, +and the consciousness of universal admiration. + +Her eyes had a fire which one could scarce look at. + +Temple's vanity and tenderness were gratified to the utmost: he +drank eagerly the praises which envy itself could not have refused her. + +My mother extremely became her character; and, when talking to +Rivers, gave me the idea of the Roman Aurelia, whose virtues she has +equalled. + +He looked at her with a delight which rendered him a thousand times +more dear to me: she is really one of the most pleasing women that +ever existed. + +I am called: we are just setting out for Burleigh, which I have not +yet seen. + + Adieu! Yours + Emily Rivers. + + + +LETTER 224. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Thursday, two o'clock. + +We are returned: Colonel Willmott is charmed with Burleigh, and more +in love with Emily than ever. + +He is gone to his apartment, whither I shall follow him, and +acquaint him with my marriage; he is exactly in the disposition I +could wish. + +He will, I am sure, pardon any offence of which his _belle paisanne_ +is the cause. + +I am returned. + +He is disappointed, but not surprized; owns no human heart could +have resisted Emily; begs she will allow his daughter a place in her +friendship. + +He insists on making her a present of diamonds; the only condition, +he tells me, on which he will forgive my marriage. + +I am going to introduce him to her in her apartment. + +Adieu! for a moment. + +Fitzgerald!--I scarce respire--the tumult of my joy--this +daughter whom I have refused--my Emily--could you have believed--my +Emily is the daughter of Colonel Willmott. + +When I announced him to her by that name, her color changed; but +when I added that he was just returned from the East Indies, she +trembled, her cheeks had a dying paleness, her voice faltered, she +pronounced faintly, "My father!" and sunk breathless on a sofa. + +He ran to her, he pressed her wildly to his bosom, he kissed her +pale cheek, he demanded if she was indeed his child? his Emily? the +dear pledge of his Emily Montague's tenderness? + +Her senses returned, she fixed her eyes eagerly on him, she kissed +his hand, she would have spoke, but tears stopped her voice. + +The scene that followed is beyond my powers of description. + +I have left them a moment, to share my joy with you: the time is too +precious to say more. To-morrow you shall hear from me. + + Adieu! Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 225. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Temple-house, Friday. + +Your friend is the happiest of mankind. + +Every anxiety is removed from my Emily's dear bosom: a father's +sanction leaves her nothing to desire. + +You may remember, she wished to delay our marriage: her motive was, +to wait Colonel Willmott's return. + +Though promised by him to another, she hoped to bring him to leave +her heart free; little did she think the man destined for her by her +father, was the happy Rivers her heart had chosen. + +Bound by a solemn vow, she concealed the circumstances of her birth +even from me. + +She resolved never to marry another, yet thought duty obliged her to +wait her father's arrival. + +She kindly supposed he would see me with her eyes, and, when he knew +me, change his design in my favor: she fancied he would crown her love +as the reward of her obedience in delaying her marriage. + +My importunity, and the fear of giving me room to doubt her +tenderness, as her vow prevented such an explanation as would have +satisfied me, bore down her duty to a father whom she had never seen, +and whom she had supposed dead, till the arrival of Mrs. Melmoth's +letters; having been two years without hearing any thing of him. + +She married me, determined to give up her right to half his fortune +in favor of the person for whom he designed her; and hoped, by that +means, to discharge her father's obligations, which she could not pay +at the expence of sacrificing her heart. + +But she writes to Mrs. Fitzgerald, and will tell you all. + +Come and share the happiness of your friends. + + Adieu! + Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 226. + + +To Mrs. Fitzgerald. + +Temple-house, Friday. + +My Rivers has told you--my sweet friend, in what words shall I +convey to you an adequate idea of your Emily's transport, at a +discovery which has reconciled all her duties! + +Those anxieties, that sense of having failed in filial obedience, +which cast a damp on the joy of being wife to the most beloved of +mankind, are at an end. + +This husband whom I so dreaded, whom I determined never to accept, +was my Rivers. + +My father forgives me; he pardons the crime of love: he blesses that +kind providence which conducted us to happiness. + +How many has this event made happy! + +The most amiable of mothers shares my joy; she bends in grateful +thanks to that indulgent power who has rewarded her son for all his +goodness to her. + +Rivers hears her, and turns away to hide his tears: her tenderness +melts him to the softness of a woman. + +What gratitude do we not owe to heaven! may the sense of it be for +ever engraven on our hearts! + +My Lucy too; all, all are happy. + +But I will tell you. Rivers has already acquainted you with part of +my story. + +My uncle placed me, with a servant, in whom he could confide, in a +convent in France, till I was seven years old; he then sent for me to +England, and left me at school eight years longer; after which, he took +me with him to his regiment in Kent, where, you know, our friendship +began, and continued till he changed into another, then in America, +whither I attended him. + +My father's affairs were, at that time, in a situation, which +determined my uncle to take the first opportunity of marrying me to +advantage. + +I regarded him as a father; he had always been more than a parent to +me; I had the most implicit deference to his will. + +He engaged me to Sir George Clayton; and, when dying, told me the +story of my birth, to which I had till then been a stranger, exacting +from me, however, an oath of secresy till I saw my father. + +He died, leaving me, with a trifle left in trust to him for my use +from my grandfather, about two thousand pounds, which was all I, at +that time, ever expected to possess. + +My father was then thought ruined; there was even a report of his +death, and I imagined myself absolute mistress of my own actions. + +I was near two years without hearing any thing of him; nor did I +know I had still a father, till the letters you brought me from Mrs. +Melmoth. + +A variety of accidents, and our being both abroad, and in such +distant parts of the world, prevented his letters arriving. + +In this situation, the kind hand of heaven conducted my Rivers to +Montreal. + +I saw him; and, from that moment, my whole soul was his. + +Formed for each other, our love was sudden and resistless as the +bolt of heaven: the first glance of those dear speaking eyes gave me a +new being, and awaked in me ideas never known before. + +The strongest sympathy attached me to him in spite of myself: I +thought it friendship, but felt that friendship more lively than what I +called my _love_ for Sir George; all conversation but his became +insupportable to me; every moment that he passed from me, I counted as +lost in my existence. + +I loved him; that tenderness hourly increased: I hated Sir George, I +fancied him changed; I studied to find errors in a man who had, a few +weeks before, appeared to me amiable, and whom I had consented to +marry; I broke with him, and felt a weight removed from my soul. + +I trembled when Rivers appeared; I died to tell him my whole soul +was his; I watched his looks, to find there the same sentiments with +which he had inspired me: that transporting moment at length arrived; +I had the delight to find our tenderness was mutual, and to devote my +life to making happy the lord of my desires. + +Mrs. Melmoth's letter brought me my father's commands, if unmarried, +to continue so till his return. + +He added, that he intended me for a relation, to whose family he had +obligations; that, his affairs having suffered such a happy +revolution, he had it in his power, and, therefore, thought it his +duty, to pay this debt of gratitude; and, at the same time, hoping to +make me happy by connecting me with an amiable family, allied to him by +blood and friendship; and uniting me to a man whom report spoke worthy +of all my tenderness. + +You may remember, my dearest Bell, how strongly I was affected on +reading those letters: I wrote to Rivers, to beg him to defer our +marriage; but the manner in which he took that request, and the fear of +appearing indifferent to him, conquered all sense of what I owed to my +father, and I married him; making it, however, a condition that he +should ask no explanation of my conduct till I chose to give it. + +I knew not the character of my father; he might be a tyrant, and +divide us from each other: Rivers doubted my tenderness; would not my +waiting, if my father had afterwards refused his consent to our union, +have added to those cruel suspicions? might he not have supposed I had +ceased to love him, and waited for the excuse of paternal authority to +justify a change of sentiment? + +In short, love bore down every other consideration; if I persisted +in this delay, I might hazard losing all my soul held dear, the only +object for which life was worth my care. + +I determined, if I married, to give up all claim to my father's +fortune, which I should justly forfeit by my disobedience to his +commands: I hoped, however, Rivers's merit, and my father's paternal +affection, when he knew us both, would influence him to make some +provision for me as his daughter. + +Half his fortune was all I ever hoped for, or even would have chose +to accept: the rest I determined to give up to the man whom I refused +to marry. + +I gave my hand to Rivers, and was happy; yet the idea of my +father's return, and the consciousness of having disobeyed him, cast +sometimes a damp on my felicity, and threw a gloom over my soul, which +all my endeavors could scarce hide from Rivers, though his delicacy +prevented his asking the cause. + +I now know, what was then a secret to me, that my father had offered +his daughter to Rivers, with a fortune which could, however, have been +no temptation to a mind like his, had he not been attached to me: he +declined the offer, and, lest I should hear of it, and, from a romantic +disinterestedness, want him to accept it, pressed our marriage with +more importunity than ever; yet had the generosity to conceal this +sacrifice from me, and to wish it should be concealed for ever. + +These sentiments, so noble, so peculiar to my Rivers, prevented an +explanation, and hid from us, for some time, the circumstances which +now make our happiness so perfect. + +How infinitely worthy is Rivers of all my tenderness! + +My father has sent to speak with me in his apartment: I should have +told you, I this morning went to Bellfield, and brought from thence my +mother's picture, which I have just sent him. + + Adieu! Your faithful + Emily Rivers. + + + +LETTER 227. + + +To Mrs. Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland. + +London, Sunday. + +No words, my dear Emily, can speak our joy at the receipt of your +two last letters. + +You are then as happy as you deserve to be; we hope, in a few days, +to be witnesses of your felicity. + +We knew from the first of your father's proposal to Rivers; but he +extorted a promise from us, never on any account to communicate it to +you: he also desired us to detain you in Berkshire, by lengthening our +visit, till your marriage, lest any friend of your father's in London +should know his design, and chance acquaint you with it. + +Fitzgerald is _Monsieur le Majeur_, at your ladyship's service: +he received his commission this morning. + +I once again congratulate you, my dear, on this triumph of +tenderness: you see love, like virtue, is not only its own reward, but +sometimes intitles us to other rewards too. + +It should always be considered, that those who marry from love, +_may_ grow rich; but those who marry to be rich, will _never_ +love. + +The very idea that love will come after marriage, is shocking to +minds which have the least spark of delicacy: to such minds, a marriage +which begins with indifference will certainly end in disgust and +aversion. + +I bespeak your papa for my _cecisbeo_; mine is extremely at +your service in return. + +But I am piqued, my dear. "Sentiments so noble, so peculiar to your +Rivers--" + +I am apt to believe there are men in the world--that nobleness of +mind is not so very _peculiar_--and that some people's sentiments +may be as noble as other people's. + +In short, I am inclined to fancy Fitzgerald would have acted just +the same part in the same situation. + +But it is your great fault, my dear Emily, to suppose your love a +phoenix, whereas he is only an agreable, worthy, handsome fellow, +_comme un autre_. + +I suppose you will be very angry; but who cares? I will be angry +too. + +Surely, my Fitzgerald--I allow Rivers all his merit; but +comparisons, my dear-- + +Both our fellows, to be sure, are charming creatures; and I would +not change them for a couple of Adonis's: yet I don't insist upon it, +that there is nothing agreable in the world but them. + +You should remember, my dear, that beauty is in the lover's eye; and +that, however highly you may think of Rivers, every woman breathing has +the same idea of _the dear man_. + +O heaven! I must tell you, because it will flatter your vanity about +your charmer. + +I have had a letter from an old lover of mine at Quebec, who tells +me, Madame Des Roches has just refused one of the best matches in the +country, and vows she will live and die a batchelor. + +'Tis a mighty foolish resolution, and yet I cannot help liking her +the better for making it. + +My dear papa talks of taking a house near you, and of having a +garden to rival yours: we shall spend a good deal of time with him, and +I shall make love to Rivers, which you know will be vastly pretty. + +One must do something to give a little variety to life; and nothing +is so amusing, or keeps the mind so pleasingly awake, especially in the +country, as the flattery of an agreable fellow. + +I am not, however, quite sure I shall not look abroad for a flirt, +for one's friend's husband is almost as insipid as one's own. + +Our romantic adventures being at an end, my dear; and we being all +degenerated into sober people, who marry and _settle_; we seem in +great danger of sinking into vegetation: on which subject I desire +Rivers's opinion, being, I know, a most exquisite enquirer into the +laws of nature. + +Love is a pretty invention, but, I am told, is apt to mellow into +friendship; a degree of perfection at which I by no means desire +Fitzgerald's attachment for me to arrive on this side seventy. + +What must we do, my dear, to vary our days? + +Cards, you will own, are an agreable relief, and the least subject +to pall of any pleasures under the sun: and really, philosophically +speaking, what is life but an intermitted pool at quadrille? + +I am interrupted by a divine colonel in the guards. + + Adieu! Your faithful + A. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 228. + + +To Mrs. Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Tuesday. + +I accept your challenge, Bell; and am greatly mistaken if you find +me so very insipid as you are pleased to suppose. + +Have no fear of falling into vegetation; not one amongst us has the +least vegetative quality. + +I have a thousand ideas of little amusements, to keep the mind +awake. + +None of our party are of that sleepy order of beings, who want +perpetual events to make them feel their existence: this is the defect +of the cold and inanimate, who have not spirit and vivacity enough to +taste the natural pleasures of life. + +Our adventures of one kind are at an end; but we shall see others, +as entertaining, springing up every moment. + +I dare say, our whole lives will be Pindaric: my only plan of life +is to have none at all, which, I think, my little Bell will approve. + +Please to observe, my sweet Bell, to make life pleasant, we must not +only have great pleasures but little ones, like the smaller auxiliary +parts of a building; we must have our trifling amusements, as well as +our sublime transports. + +My first _second_ pleasure (if you will allow the expression) +is gardening; and for this reason, that it is my divine Emily's: I must +teach you to love rural pleasures. + +Colonel Willmott has made me just as rich as I wish to be. + +You must know, my fair friend, that whilst I thought a fortune and +Emily incompatible, I had infinite contempt for the former, and fancied +that it would rather take from, than add to, my happiness; but, now I +can possess it with her, I allow it all its value. + +My father (with what delight do I call the father of Emily by that +name!) hinted at my taking a larger house; but I would not leave my +native Dryads for an imperial palace: I have, however, agreed to let +him build a wing to Bellfield, which it wants, to compleat the original +plan, and to furnish it in whatever manner he thinks fit. + +He is to have a house in London; and we are to ramble from one to +the other as fancy leads us. + +He insists on our having no rule but inclination: do you think we +are in any danger of vegetating, my dear Bell? + +The great science of life is, to keep in constant employment that +restless active principle within us, which, if not directed right, will +be eternally drawing us from real to imaginary happiness. + +Love, all charming as it is, requires to be kept alive by such a +variety of amusements, or avocations, as may prevent the languor to +which all human pleasures are subject. + +Emily's tenderness and delicacy make me ever an expecting lover: she +contrives little parties of pleasure, and by surprize, of which she is +always the ornament and the soul: her whole attention is given to make +her Rivers happy. + +I envy the man who attends her on these little excursions. + +Love with us is ever led by the Sports and the Smiles. + +Upon the whole, people who have the spirit to act as we have done, +to dare to chuse their own companions for life, will generally be +happy. + +The affections are the true sources of enjoyment: love, friendship, +and, if you will allow me to anticipate, paternal tenderness, all the +domestic attachments, are sweet beyond words. + +The beneficent Author of nature, who gave us these affections for +the wisest purposes-- + +"Cela est bien dit, mon cher Rivers; mais il faut cultiver notre +jardin." + +You are right, my dear Bell, and I am a prating coxcomb. + +Lucy's post-coach is just setting off, to wait your commands. + +I send this by Temple's servant. On Thursday I hope to see our dear +groupe of friends re-united, and to have nothing to wish, but a +continuance of our present happiness. + + Adieu! Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + +THE END. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The History of Emily Montague, by Frances Brooke + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE *** + +***** This file should be named 16300-8.txt or 16300-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/3/0/16300/ + +Produced by Andrew Sly + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/16300-8.zip b/16300-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3067894 --- /dev/null +++ b/16300-8.zip diff --git a/16300-h.zip b/16300-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a10575c --- /dev/null +++ b/16300-h.zip diff --git a/16300-h/16300-h.htm b/16300-h/16300-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5c45a69 --- /dev/null +++ b/16300-h/16300-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,15003 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> +<title>The History of Emily Montague</title> +<style type="text/css"> +body {text-align:justify} +div#titlepage, div.toline, h2, h3 {text-align:center;} +h3.let-header {margin: 3em auto 1.5em; letter-spacing: 0.5em;} +h1 {font-size: 200%; line-height: 1.75; margin-top: 3em;} +h2.vol-header {margin: 2em auto; font-size: 150%;} +em.sc {font-variant: small-caps; font-style: normal} +p.addendum {margin: 1em 2em; text-indent: -1em;} +div.verse {margin: 0.5em auto 0.5em 10%; text-align:left;} +.lineind {text-indent: 4em;} +p.preverse {margin-bottom: 0.5em} +p.postverse, div.dateline+p {margin-top: 0.5em} +div.dateline {text-align: right; font-size: 85%; margin-bottom: 0.5em} +div.salutation {text-indent: 2em;} +div.ender {text-align:center; font-size: 120%; margin: 4em auto;} +div.closer {margin: 1em auto 1em 15%; line-height: 1.5;} +span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em;} +span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} +span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} +span.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 6em;} +span.i8 {display: block; margin-left: 8em;} +.let-num {letter-spacing: 0;} +.origtext {display: none} +.let-num, .errata, .correction {display: inline} +</style> + +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The History of Emily Montague, by Frances Brooke + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The History of Emily Montague + +Author: Frances Brooke + +Release Date: July 15, 2005 [EBook #16300] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE *** + + + + +Produced by Andrew Sly + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div> +<p>Transcriber’s Notes: This text retains many old and inconsistent +spellings as found in the Dodsley 1769 edition. Differences from that +edition are as follows: As is usually done in modern editions of Emily +Montague, the letters have been renumbered to run consecutively from 1 +to 228. This avoids irregularities in numbering in the original. Normal +case has been used for the initial words of each letter. Long s has been +replaced with a regular short s. The Errata which appeared at the end of +volume four of the original has been applied to the text. Various other +corrections have been made, and in each case, the original form has been +recorded in the html markup. Usage of quote marks has been modernized. +</p></div> + +<div id="titlepage"> +<h1> + THE<br> + HISTORY<br> + OF<br> + EMILY MONTAGUE.<br> + In FOUR VOLUMES.</h1> + +<h2> + By the AUTHOR of<br> + Lady JULIA MANDEVILLE.</h2> + +<div class="verse lineind"> + —“A kind indulgent sleep<br> + O’er works of length allowably may creep.”</div> +<div class="closer">Horace.</div> + +<h2 class="vol-header" id="vol.1">Vol. 1</h2> + +<div class="imprint"> + LONDON,<br> + Printed for J. DODSLEY, in Pall Mall.<br> + MDCCLXIX. +</div> +</div> + +<div id="dedication"> +<p>TO HIS EXCELLENCY GUY CARLETON, Esq. GOVERNOR AND COMMANDER IN +CHIEF OF His Majesty’s Province of QUEBEC, &c. &c. &c.</p> +<div class="salutation">SIR,</div> + +<p>As the scene of so great a part of the following work is laid in +Canada, I flatter myself there is a peculiar propriety in addressing it +to your excellency, to whose probity and enlightened attention the +colony owes its happiness, and individuals that tranquillity of mind, +without which there can be no exertion of the powers of either the +understanding or imagination.</p> + +<p>Were I to say all your excellency has done to diffuse, through this +province, so happy under your command, a spirit of loyalty and +attachment to our excellent Sovereign, of chearful obedience to the +laws, and of that union which makes the strength of government, I +should hazard your esteem by doing you justice.</p> + +<p>I will, therefore, only beg leave to add mine to the general voice +of Canada; and to assure your excellency, that</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">I am,<br></span> +<span class="i4">With the utmost esteem<br></span> +<span class="i6">and respect,<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your most obedient servant,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Frances Brooke.<br></span> +<span class="i2">London,<br></span> +<span class="i0">March 22, 1769.</span> +</div> +</div> + +<h2>THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE.</h2> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.001">LETTER <span class="origtext">I.</span><span class="let-num">1.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To John Temple, Esq; at Paris.</div> +<div class="dateline">Cowes, April 10, 1766.</div> + +<p>After spending two or three very agreeable days here, with a party +of friends, in exploring the beauties of the Island, and dropping a +tender tear at Carisbrook Castle on the memory of the unfortunate +Charles the First, I am just setting out for America, on a scheme I +once hinted to you, of settling the lands to which I have a right as a +lieutenant-colonel on half pay. On enquiry and mature deliberation, I +prefer Canada to New-York for two reasons, that it is wilder, and that +the women are handsomer: the first, perhaps, every body will not +approve; the latter, I am sure, <i>you</i> will.</p> + +<p>You may perhaps call my project romantic, but my active temper is +ill suited to the lazy character of a reduc’d officer: besides that I +am too proud to narrow my circle of life, and not quite unfeeling +enough to break in on the little estate which is scarce sufficient to +support my mother and sister in the manner to which they have been +accustom’d.</p> + +<p>What you call a sacrifice, is none at all; I love England, but am +not obstinately chain’d down to any spot of earth; nature has charms +every where for a man willing to be pleased: at my time of life, the +very change of place is amusing; love of variety, and the natural +restlessness of man, would give me a relish for this voyage, even if I +did not expect, what I really do, to become lord of a principality +which will put our large-acred men in England out of countenance. My +subjects indeed at present will be only bears and elks, but in time I +hope to see the <i>human face divine</i> multiplying around me; and, in +thus cultivating what is in the rudest state of nature, I shall taste +one of the greatest of all pleasures, that of creation, and see order +and beauty gradually rise from chaos.</p> + +<p>The vessel is unmoor’d; the winds are fair; a gentle breeze agitates +the bosom of the deep; all nature smiles: I go with all the eager hopes +of a warm imagination; yet friendship casts a lingering look behind.</p> + +<p>Our mutual loss, my dear Temple, will be great. I shall never cease +to regret you, nor will you find it easy to replace the friend of your +youth. You may find friends of equal merit; you may esteem them +equally; but few connexions form’d after five and twenty strike root +like that early sympathy, which united us almost from infancy, and has +increas’d to the very hour of our separation.</p> + +<p>What pleasure is there in the friendships of the spring of life, +before the world, the mean unfeeling selfish world, breaks in on the +gay mistakes of the just-expanding heart, which sees nothing but truth, +and has nothing but happiness in prospect!</p> + +<p>I am not surpriz’d the heathens rais’d altars to friendship: ’twas +natural for untaught superstition to deify the source of every good; +they worship’d friendship, which animates the moral world, on the same +principle as they paid adoration to the sun, which gives life to the +world of nature.</p> + +<p>I am summon’d on board. Adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.002">LETTER <span class="origtext">II.</span><span class="let-num">2.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, June 27.</div> + +<p>I have this moment your letter, my dear; I am happy to hear my +mother has been amus’d at Bath, and not at all surpriz’d to find she +rivals you in your conquests. By the way, I am not sure she is not +handsomer, notwithstanding you tell me you are handsomer than ever: I +am astonish’d she will lead a tall daughter about with her thus, to let +people into a secret they would never suspect, that she is past five +and twenty.</p> + +<p>You are a foolish girl, Lucy: do you think I have not more pleasure +in continuing to my mother, by coming hither, the little indulgencies +of life, than I could have had by enjoying them myself? pray reconcile +her to my absence, and assure her she will make me happier by jovially +enjoying the trifle I have assign’d to her use, than by procuring me +the wealth of a Nabob, in which she was to have no share.</p> + +<p>But to return; you really, Lucy, ask me such a million of questions, +’tis impossible to know which to answer first; the country, the +convents, the balls, the ladies, the beaux—’tis a history, not a +letter, you demand, and it will take me a twelvemonth to satisfy your +curiosity.</p> + +<p>Where shall I begin? certainly with what must first strike a +soldier: I have seen then the spot where the amiable hero expir’d in +the arms of victory; have traced him step by step with equal +astonishment and admiration: ’tis here alone it is possible to form an +adequate idea of an enterprize, the difficulties of which must have +destroy’d hope itself had they been foreseen.</p> + +<p>The country is a very fine one: you see here not only the +<i>beautiful</i> which it has in common with Europe, but the <i>great +sublime</i> to an amazing degree; every object here is magnificent: the +very people seem almost another species, if we compare them with the +French from whom they are descended.</p> + +<p>On approaching the coast of America, I felt a kind of religious +veneration, on seeing rocks which almost touch’d the clouds, cover’d +with tall groves of pines that seemed coeval with the world itself: to +which veneration the solemn silence not a little contributed; from Cape +Rosieres, up the river St. Lawrence, during a course of more than two +hundred miles, there is not the least appearance of a human footstep; +no objects meet the eye but mountains, woods, and numerous rivers, +which seem to roll their waters in vain.</p> + +<p>It is impossible to behold a scene like this without lamenting the +madness of mankind, who, more merciless than the fierce inhabitants of +the howling wilderness, destroy millions of their own species in the +wild contention for a little portion of that earth, the far greater +part of which remains yet unpossest, and courts the hand of labour for +cultivation.</p> + +<p>The river itself is one of the noblest in the world; <span class="origtext">it’s</span><span class="correction">its</span> breadth is +ninety miles at <span class="origtext">it’s</span><span class="correction">its</span> entrance, gradually, and almost imperceptibly, +decreasing; interspers’d with islands which give it a variety +infinitely pleasing, and navigable near five hundred miles from the +sea.</p> + +<p>Nothing can be more striking than the view of Quebec as you +approach; it stands on the summit of a boldly-rising hill, at the +confluence of two very beautiful rivers, the St. Lawrence and St. +Charles, and, as the convents and other public buildings first meet the +eye, appears to great advantage from the port. The island of Orleans, +the distant view of the cascade of Montmorenci, and the opposite +village of Beauport, scattered with a pleasing irregularity along the +banks of the river St. Charles, add greatly to the charms of the +prospect.</p> + +<p>I have just had time to observe, that the Canadian ladies have the +vivacity of the French, with a superior share of beauty: as to balls +and assemblies, we have none at present, it being a kind of interregnum +of government: if I chose to give you the political state of the +country, I could fill volumes with the <i>pours</i> and the <i>contres</i>; +but I am not one of those sagacious observers, who, by staying a week +in a place, think themselves qualified to give, not only its natural, +but <span class="origtext">it’s</span><span class="correction">its</span> moral and political history: besides which, you and I are +rather too young to be very profound politicians. We are in +expectation of a successor from whom we hope a new golden age; I shall +then have better subjects for a letter to a lady.</p> + +<p>Adieu! my dear girl! say every thing for me to my mother. Yours,</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.003">LETTER <span class="origtext">III.</span><span class="let-num">3.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Col. Rivers, at Quebec.</div> +<div class="dateline">London, April 30.</div> + +<p>Indeed! gone to people the wilds of America, Ned, and multiply the +<i>human face divine?</i> ’tis a project worthy a tall handsome colonel of +twenty seven: let me see; five feet, eleven inches, well made, with +fine teeth, speaking eyes, a military air, and the look of a man of +fashion: spirit, generosity, a good understanding, some knowledge, an +easy address, a compassionate heart, a strong inclination for the +ladies, and in short every quality a gentleman should have: excellent +all these for colonization: <i>prenez garde, mes cheres dames</i>. You +have nothing against you, Ned, but your modesty; a very useless virtue +on French ground, or indeed on any ground: I wish you had a little more +consciousness of your own merits: remember that <i>to know one’s self</i> +the oracle of Apollo has pronounced to be the perfection of human +wisdom. Our fair friend Mrs. H—— says, “Colonel Rivers wants nothing +to make him the most agreeable man breathing but a little dash of the +coxcomb.”</p> + +<p>For my part, I hate humility in a man of the world; ’tis worse than +even the hypocrisy of the saints: I am not ignorant, and therefore +never deny, that I am a very handsome fellow; and I have the pleasure +to find all the women of the same opinion.</p> + +<p class="preverse">I am just arriv’d from Paris: the divine Madame De —— is as lovely +and as constant as ever; ’twas cruel to leave her, but who can account +for the caprices of the heart? mine was the prey of a young +unexperienc’d English charmer, just come out of a convent,</p> +<div class="verse"> + “The bloom of opening flowers—”</div> +<p class="postverse">Ha, Ned? But I forget; you are for the full-blown rose: ’tis a +happiness, as we are friends, that ’tis impossible we can ever be +rivals; a woman is grown out of my taste some years before she comes up +to yours: absolutely, Ned, you are too nice; for my part, I am not so +delicate; youth and beauty are sufficient for me; give me blooming +seventeen, and I cede to you the whole empire of sentiment.</p> + +<p>This, I suppose, will find you trying the force of your destructive +charms on the savage dames of America; chasing females wild as the +winds thro’ woods as wild as themselves: I see you pursuing the stately +relict of some renown’d Indian chief, some plump squaw arriv’d at the +age of sentiment, some warlike queen dowager of the Ottawas or +Tuscaroras.</p> + +<p>And pray, <i>comment trouvez vous les dames sauvages?</i> all pure +and genuine nature, I suppose; none of the affected coyness of Europe: +your attention there will be the more obliging, as the Indian heroes, I +am told, are not very attentive to the charms of the <i>beau sexe</i>.</p> + +<p class="preverse">You are very sentimental on the subject of friendship; no one has +more exalted notions of this species of affection than myself, yet I +deny that it gives life to the moral world; a gallant man, like you, +might have found a more animating principle:</p> +<div class="verse"> + <i>O Venus! O Mere de l’Amour!</i></div> + +<p>I am most gloriously indolent this morning, and would not write +another line if the empire of the world (observe I do not mean the +female world) depended on it.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i8">J. Temple.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.004">LETTER <span class="origtext">IV.</span><span class="let-num">4.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, July 1.</div> + +<p>’Tis very true, Jack; I have no relish for <i>the Misses</i>; for +puling girls in hanging sleeves, who feel no passion but vanity, and, +without any distinguishing taste, are dying for the first man who tells +them they are handsome. Take your boarding-school girls; but give me +<i>a woman</i>; one, in short, who has a soul; not a cold <span class="origtext">inamimate</span><span class="correction">inanimate</span> form, +insensible to the lively impressions of real love, and unfeeling as the +wax baby she has just thrown away.</p> + +<p>You will allow Prior to be no bad judge of female merit; and you may +remember his Egyptian maid, the favorite of the luxurious King +Solomon, is painted in full bloom.</p> + +<p>By the way, Jack, there is generally a certain hoity-toity +inelegance of form and manner at seventeen, which in my opinion is not +balanc’d by freshness of complexion, the only advantage girls have to +boast of.</p> + +<p>I have another objection to girls, which is, that they will +eternally fancy every man they converse with has designs; a coquet and +a prude <i>in the bud</i> are equally disagreeable; the former expects +universal adoration, the latter is alarm’d even at that general +civility which is the right of all their sex; of the two however the +last is, I think, much the most troublesome; I wish these very +apprehensive young ladies knew, their <i>virtue</i> is not half so +often in danger as they imagine, and that there are many male creatures +to whom they may safely shew politeness without being drawn into any +concessions inconsistent with the strictest honor. We are not half such +terrible animals as mammas, nurses, and novels represent us; and, if my +opinion is of any weight, I am inclin’d to believe those tremendous +men, who have designs on the whole sex, are, and ever were, characters +as fabulous as the giants of romance.</p> + +<p>Women after twenty begin to know this, and therefore converse with +us on the footing of rational creatures, without either fearing or +expecting to find every man a lover.</p> + +<p>To do the ladies justice however, I have seen the same absurdity in +my own sex, and have observed many a very good sort of man turn pale at +the politeness of an agreeable woman.</p> + +<p>I lament this mistake, in both sexes, because it takes greatly from +the pleasure of mix’d society, the only society for which I have any +relish.</p> + +<p>Don’t, however, fancy that, because I dislike <i>the Misses</i>, I +have a taste for their grandmothers; there is a golden mean, Jack, of +which you seem to have no idea.</p> + +<p>You are very ill inform’d as to the manners of the Indian ladies; +’tis in the bud alone these wild roses are accessible; liberal to +profusion of their charms before marriage, they are chastity itself +after: the moment they commence wives, they give up the very idea of +pleasing, and turn all their thoughts to the cares, and those not the +most delicate cares, of domestic life: laborious, hardy, active, they +plough the ground, they sow, they reap; whilst the haughty husband +amuses himself with hunting, shooting, fishing, and such exercises only +as are the image of war; all other employments being, according to his +idea, unworthy the dignity of man.</p> + +<p>I have told you the labors of savage life, but I should observe that +they are only temporary, and when urg’d by the sharp tooth of +necessity: their lives are, upon the whole, idle beyond any thing we +can conceive. If the Epicurean definition of happiness is just, that it +consists in indolence of body, and tranquillity of mind, the Indians of +both sexes are the happiest people on earth; free from all care, they +enjoy the present moment, forget the past, and are without solicitude +for the future: in summer, stretch’d on the verdant turf, they sing, +they laugh, they play, they relate stories of their ancient heroes to +warm the youth to war; in winter, wrap’d in the furs which bounteous +nature provides them, they dance, they feast, and despise the rigors of +the season, at which the more effeminate Europeans tremble.</p> + +<p class="preverse">War being however the business of their lives, and the first passion +of their souls, their very pleasures take their colors from it: every +one must have heard of the war dance, and their songs are almost all on +the same subject: on the most diligent enquiry, I find but one love +song in their language, which is short and simple, tho’ perhaps not +inexpressive:</p> +<div class="verse"> + “I love you,<br> + I love you dearly,<br> + I love you all day long.”</div> +<p class="postverse">An old Indian told me, they had also songs of friendship, but I +could never procure a translation of one of them: on my pressing this +Indian to translate one into French for me, he told me with a haughty +air, the Indians were not us’d to make translations, and that if I +chose to understand their songs I must learn their language. By the +way, their language is extremely harmonious, especially as pronounced +by their women, and as well adapted to music as Italian itself. I must +not here omit an instance of their independent spirit, which is, that +they never would submit to have the service of the church, tho’ they +profess the Romish religion, in any language but their own; the women, +who have in general fine voices, sing in the choir with a taste and +manner that would surprize you, and with a devotion that might edify +more polish’d nations.</p> + +<p>The Indian women are tall and well shaped; have good eyes, and +before marriage are, except their color, and their coarse greasy black +hair, very far from being disagreeable; but the laborious life they +afterwards lead is extremely unfavorable to beauty; they become coarse +and masculine, and lose in a year or two the power as well as the +desire of pleasing. To compensate however for the loss of their charms, +they acquire a new empire in marrying; are consulted in all affairs of +state, chuse a chief on every vacancy of the throne, are sovereign +arbiters of peace and war, as well as of the fate of those unhappy +captives that have the misfortune to fall into their hands, who are +adopted as children, or put to the most cruel death, as the wives of +the conquerors smile or frown.</p> + +<p>A Jesuit missionary told me a story on this subject, which one +cannot hear without horror: an Indian woman with whom he liv’d on his +mission was feeding her children, when her husband brought in an +English prisoner; she immediately cut off his arm, and gave her +children the streaming blood to drink: the Jesuit remonstrated on the +cruelty of the action, on which, looking sternly at him, “I would have +them warriors,” said she, “and therefore feed them with the food of +men.”</p> + +<p>This anecdote may perhaps disgust you with the Indian ladies, who +certainly do not excel in female softness. I will therefore turn to the +Canadian, who have every charm except that without which all other +charms are to me insipid, I mean sensibility: they are gay, coquet, and +sprightly; more gallant than sensible; more flatter’d by the vanity of +inspiring passion, than capable of feeling it themselves; and, like +their European countrywomen, prefer the outward attentions of unmeaning +admiration to the real devotion of the heart. There is not perhaps on +earth a race of females, who talk so much, or feel so little, of love +as the French; the very reverse is in general true of the English: my +fair countrywomen seem ashamed of the charming sentiment to which they +are indebted for all their power.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I am going to attend a very handsome French lady, who allows +me the honor to drive her <i>en calache</i> to our Canadian Hyde Park, +the road to St. Foix, where you will see forty or fifty calashes, with +pretty women in them, parading every evening: you will allow the +apology to be admissible.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.005">LETTER <span class="origtext">V.</span><span class="let-num">5.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, July 4.</div> + +<p>What an inconstant animal is man! do you know, Lucy, I begin to be +tir’d of the lovely landscape round me? I have enjoy’d from it all the +pleasure meer inanimate objects can give, and find ’tis a pleasure that +soon satiates, if not relieved by others which are more lively. The +scenery is to be sure divine, but one grows weary of meer scenery: the +most enchanting prospect soon loses its power of pleasing, when the eye +is accustom’d to it: we gaze at first transported on the charms of +nature, and fancy they will please for ever; but, alas! it will not +do; we sigh for society, the conversation of those dear to us; the +more animated pleasures of the heart. There are fine women, and men of +merit here; but, as the affections are not in our power, I have not +yet felt my heart gravitate towards any of them. I must absolutely set +in earnest about my settlement, in order to emerge from the state of +vegetation into which I seem falling.</p> + +<p>But to your last: you ask me a particular account of the convents +here. Have you an inclination, my dear, to turn nun? if you have, you +could not have applied to a properer person; my extreme modesty and +reserve, and my speaking French, having made me already a great +favourite with the older part of all the three communities, who +unanimously declare colonel Rivers to be <i>un tres aimable homme</i>, +and have given me an unlimited liberty of visiting them whenever I +please: they now and then treat <i>me</i> with a sight of some of the +young ones, but this is a favor not allow’d to all the world.</p> + +<p>There are three religious houses at Quebec, so you have choice; the +Ursulines, the Hotel Dieu, and the General Hospital. The first is the +severest order in the Romish church, except that very cruel one which +denies its fair votaries the inestimable liberty of speech. The house +is large and handsome, but has an air of gloominess, with which the +black habit, and the livid paleness of the nuns, extremely corresponds. +The church is, contrary to the style of the rest of the convent, +ornamented and lively to the last degree. The superior is an +English-woman of good family, who was taken prisoner by the savages +when a child, and plac’d here by the generosity of a French officer. +She is one of the most amiable women I ever knew, with a benevolence in +her countenance which inspires all who see her with affection: I am +very fond of her conversation, tho’ sixty and a nun.</p> + +<p>The Hotel Dieu is very pleasantly situated, with a view of the two +rivers, and the entrance of the port: the house is chearful, airy, and +agreeable; the habit extremely becoming, a circumstance a handsome +woman ought by no means to overlook; ’tis white with a black gauze +veil, which would shew your complexion to great advantage. The order is +much less severe than the Ursulines, and I might add, much more useful, +their province being the care of the sick: the nuns of this house are +sprightly, and have a look of health which is wanting at the Ursulines.</p> + +<p>The General Hospital, situated about a mile out of town, on the +borders of the river St. Charles, is much the most agreeable of the +three. The order and the habit are the same with the Hotel Dieu, except +that to the habit is added the cross, generally worn in Europe by +canonesses only: a distinction procur’d for them by their founder, St. +Vallier, the second bishop of Quebec. The house is, without, a very +noble building; and neatness, elegance and propriety reign within. The +nuns, who are all of the noblesse, are many of them handsome, and all +genteel, lively, and well bred; they have an air of the world, their +conversation is easy, spirited, and polite: with them you almost forget +the recluse in the woman of condition. In short, you have the best +nuns at the Ursulines, the most agreeable women at the General +Hospital: all however have an air of chagrin, which they in vain +endeavour to conceal; and the general eagerness with which they tell +you unask’d they are happy, is a strong proof of the contrary.</p> + +<p>Tho’ the most indulgent of all men to the follies of others, +especially such as have their source in mistaken devotion; tho’ willing +to allow all the world to play the fool their own way, yet I cannot +help being fir’d with a degree of zeal against an institution equally +incompatible with public good, and private happiness; an institution +which cruelly devotes beauty and innocence to slavery, regret, and +wretchedness; to a more irksome imprisonment than the severest laws +inflict on the worst of criminals.</p> + +<p>Could any thing but experience, my dear Lucy, make it be believ’d +possible that there should be rational beings, who think they are +serving the God of mercy by inflicting on themselves voluntary +tortures, and cutting themselves off from that state of society in +which he has plac’d them, and for which they were form’d? by renouncing +the best affections of the human heart, the tender names of friend, of +wife, of mother? and, as far as in them lies, counter-working creation? +by spurning from them every amusement however innocent, by refusing the +gifts of that beneficent power who made us to be happy, and destroying +his most precious gifts, health, beauty, sensibility, chearfulness, and +peace!</p> + +<p>My indignation is yet awake, from having seen a few days since at +the Ursulines, an extreme lovely young girl, whose countenance spoke a +soul form’d for the most lively, yet delicate, ties of love and +friendship, led by a momentary enthusiasm, or perhaps by a childish +vanity artfully excited, to the foot of those altars, which she will +probably too soon bathe with the bitter tears of repentance and +remorse.</p> + +<p>The ceremony, form’d to strike the imagination, and seduce the heart +of unguarded youth, is extremely solemn and affecting; the procession +of the nuns, the sweetness of their voices in the choir, the dignified +devotion with which the charming enthusiast received the veil, and took +the cruel vow which shut her from the world for ever, struck my heart +in spite of my reason, and I felt myself touch’d even to tears by a +superstition I equally pity and despise.</p> + +<p>I am not however certain it was the ceremony which affected me thus +strongly; it was impossible not to feel for this amiable victim; never +was there an object more interesting; her form was elegance itself; +her air and motion animated and graceful; the glow of pleasure was on +her cheek, the fire of enthusiasm in her eyes, which are the finest I +ever saw: never did I see joy so livelily painted on the countenance of +the happiest bride; she seem’d to walk in air; her whole person look’d +more than human.</p> + +<p>An enemy to every species of superstition, I must however allow it +to be least destructive to true virtue in your gentle sex, and +therefore to be indulg’d with least danger: the superstition of men is +gloomy and ferocious; it lights the fire, and points the dagger of the +assassin; whilst that of women takes its color from the sex; is soft, +mild, and benevolent; exerts itself in acts of kindness and charity, +and seems only substituting the love of God to that of man.</p> + +<p>Who can help admiring, whilst they pity, the foundress of the +Ursuline convent, Madame de la Peltrie, to whom the very colony in some +measure owes its existence? young, rich and lovely; a widow in the +bloom of life, mistress of her own actions, the world was gay before +her, yet she left all the pleasures that world could give, to devote +her days to the severities of a religion she thought the only true one: +she dar’d the dangers of the sea, and the greater dangers of a savage +people; she landed on an unknown shore, submitted to the extremities of +cold and heat, of thirst and hunger, to perform a service she thought +acceptable to the Deity. To an action like this, however mistaken the +motive, bigotry alone will deny praise: the man of candor will only +lament that minds capable of such heroic virtue are not directed to +views more conducive to their own and the general happiness.</p> + +<p>I am unexpectedly call’d this moment, my dear Lucy, on some business +to Montreal, from whence you shall hear from me.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.006">LETTER <span class="origtext">VI.</span><span class="let-num">6.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Montreal, July 9.</div> + +<p>I am arriv’d, my dear, and have brought my heart safe thro’ such a +continued fire as never poor knight errant was exposed to; waited on at +every stage by blooming country girls, full of spirit and coquetry, +without any of the village bashfulness of England, and dressed like +the shepherdesses of romance. A man of adventure might make a pleasant +journey to Montreal.</p> + +<p>The peasants are ignorant, lazy, dirty, and stupid beyond all +belief; but hospitable, courteous, civil; and, what is particularly +agreeable, they leave their wives and daughters to do the honors of the +house: in which obliging office they acquit themselves with an +attention, which, amidst every inconvenience apparent (tho’ I am told +not real) poverty can cause, must please every guest who has a soul +inclin’d to be pleas’d: for my part, I was charm’d with them, and eat +my homely fare with as much pleasure as if I had been feasting on +ortolans in a palace. Their conversation is lively and amusing; all +the little knowledge of Canada is confined to the sex; very few, even +of the seigneurs, being able to write their own names.</p> + +<p>The road from Quebec to Montreal is almost a continued street, the +villages being numerous, and so extended along the banks of the river +St. Lawrence as to leave scarce a space without houses in view; except +where here or there a river, a wood, or mountain intervenes, as if to +give a more pleasing variety to the scene. I don’t remember ever having +had a more agreeable journey; the fine prospects of the day so +enliven’d by the gay chat of the evening, that I was really sorry when +I approach’d Montreal.</p> + +<p>The island of Montreal, on which the town stands, is a very lovely +spot; highly cultivated, and tho’ less wild and magnificent, more +smiling than the country round Quebec: the ladies, who seem to make +pleasure their only business, and most of whom I have seen this morning +driving about the town in calashes, and making what they call, the +<i>tour de la ville</i>, attended by English officers, seem generally +handsome, and have an air of sprightliness with which I am charm’d; I +must be acquainted with them all, for tho’ my stay is to be short, I +see no reason why it should be dull. I am told they are fond of little +rural balls in the country, and intend to give one as soon as I have +paid my respects in form.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Six in the evening.</div> + +<p>I am just come from dining with the —— regiment, and find I have a +visit to pay I was not aware of, to two English ladies who are a few +miles out of town: one of them is wife to the major of the regiment, +and the other just going to be married to a captain in it, Sir George +Clayton, a young handsome baronet, just come to his title and a very +fine estate, by the death of a distant relation: he is at present at +New York, and I am told they are to be married as soon as he comes +back.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Eight o’clock.</div> + +<p>I have been making some flying visits to the French ladies; tho’ I +have not seen many beauties, yet in general the women are handsome; +their manner is easy and obliging, they make the most of their charms +by their vivacity, and I certainly cannot be displeas’d with their +extreme partiality for the English officers; their own men, who indeed +are not very attractive, have not the least chance for any share in +their good graces.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Thursday morning.</div> + +<p>I am just setting out with a friend for Major Melmoth’s, to pay my +compliments to the two ladies: I have no relish for this visit; I hate +misses that are going to be married; they are always so full of the +dear man, that they have not common civility to other people. I am told +however both the ladies are agreeable.</p> + +<div class="dateline">14th. Eight in the evening.</div> + +<p>Agreeable, Lucy! she is an angel: ’tis happy for me she is engag’d; +nothing else could secure my heart, of which you know I am very +tenacious: only think of finding beauty, delicacy, sensibility, all +that can charm in woman, hid in a wood in Canada!</p> + +<p>You say I am given to be enthusiastic in my approbations, but she is +really charming. I am resolv’d not only to have a friendship for her +myself, but that <i>you</i> shall, and have told her so; she comes to +England as soon as she is married; you are form’d to love each other.</p> + +<p>But I must tell you; Major Melmoth kept us a week at his house in +the country, in one continued round of rural amusements; by which I do +not mean hunting and shooting, but such pleasures as the ladies could +share; little rustic balls and parties round the neighbouring country, +in which parties we were joined by all the fine women at Montreal. Mrs. +Melmoth is a very pleasing, genteel brunette, but Emily Montague—you +will say I am in love with her if I describe her, and yet I declare to +you I am not: knowing she loves another, to whom she is soon to be +united, I see her charms with the same kind of pleasure I do yours; a +pleasure, which, tho’ extremely lively, is by our situation without the +least mixture of desire.</p> + +<p>I have said, she is charming; there are men here who do not think +so, but to me she is loveliness itself. My ideas of beauty are perhaps +a little out of the common road: I hate a woman of whom every man +coldly says, <i>she is handsome</i>; I adore beauty, but it is not meer +features or complexion to which I give that name; ’tis life, +’tis spirit, ’tis animation, ’tis—in one word, ’tis Emily +Montague—without being regularly beautiful, she charms every +sensible heart; all other women, however lovely, appear marble statues +near her: fair; pale (a paleness which gives the idea of delicacy +without destroying that of health), with dark hair and eyes, the +latter large and languishing, she seems made to feel to a trembling +excess the passion she cannot fail of inspiring: her elegant form has +an air of softness and languor, which seizes the whole soul in a +moment: her eyes, the most intelligent I ever saw, hold you enchain’d +by their bewitching sensibility.</p> + +<p>There are a thousand unspeakable charms in her conversation; but +what I am most pleas’d with, is the attentive politeness of her manner, +which you seldom see in a person in love; the extreme desire of +pleasing one man generally taking off greatly from the attention due to +all the rest. This is partly owing to her admirable understanding, and +partly to the natural softness of her soul, which gives her the +strongest desire of pleasing. As I am a philosopher in these matters, +and have made the heart my study, I want extremely to see her with her +lover, and to observe the gradual encrease of her charms in his +presence; love, which embellishes the most unmeaning countenance, must +give to her’s a fire irresistible: what eyes! when animated by +tenderness!</p> + +<p>The very soul acquires a new force and beauty by loving; a woman of +honor never appears half so amiable, or displays half so many virtues, +as when sensible to the merit of a man who deserves her affection. +Observe, Lucy, I shall never allow you to be handsome till I hear you +are in love.</p> + +<p>Did I tell you Emily Montague had the finest hand and arm in the +world? I should however have excepted yours: her tone of voice too has +the same melodious sweetness, a perfection without which the loveliest +woman could never make the least impression on my heart: I don’t think +you are very unlike upon the whole, except that she is paler. You know, +Lucy, you have often told me I should certainly have been in love with +you if I had not been your brother: this resemblance is a proof you +were right. You are really as handsome as any woman can be whose +sensibility has never been put in motion.</p> + +<p>I am to give a ball to-morrow; Mrs. Melmoth is to have the honors of +it, but as she is with child, she does not dance. This circumstance has +produc’d a dispute not a little flattering to my vanity: the ladies are +making interest to dance with me; what a happy exchange have I made! +what man of common sense would stay to be overlook’d in England, who +can have rival beauties contend for him in Canada? This important +point is not yet settled; the <i>etiquette</i> here is rather difficult +to adjust; as to me, I have nothing to do in the consultation; my +hand is destin’d to the longest pedigree; we stand prodigiously on our +noblesse at Montreal.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Four o’clock.</div> + +<p>After a dispute in which two French ladies were near drawing their +husbands into a duel, the point of honor is yielded by both to Miss +Montague; each insisting only that I should not dance with the other: +for my part, I submit with a good grace, as you will suppose.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Saturday morning.</div> + +<p>I never passed a more agreeable evening: we have our amusements +here, I assure you: a set of fine young fellows, and handsome women, +all well dress’d, and in humor with themselves, and with each other: my +lovely Emily like Venus amongst the Graces, only multiplied to about +sixteen. Nothing is, in my opinion, so favorable to the display of +beauty as a ball. A state of rest is ungraceful; all nature is most +beautiful in motion; trees agitated by the wind, a ship under sail, a +horse in the course, a fine woman dancing: never any human being had +such an aversion to still life as I have.</p> + +<p>I am going back to Melmoth’s for a month; don’t be alarm’d, Lucy! I +see all her perfections, but I see them with the cold eye of admiration +only: a woman engaged loses all her attractions as a woman; there is +no love without a ray of hope: my only ambition is to be her friend; I +want to be the confidant of her passion. With what spirit such a mind +as hers must love!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! my dear!<br></span> +<span class="i6">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.007">LETTER <span class="origtext">VII.</span><span class="let-num">7.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Montreal, August 15.</div> + +<p>By Heavens, Lucy, this is more than man can bear; I was mad to stay +so long at Melmoth’s; there is no resisting this little seducer: ’tis +shameful in such a lovely woman to have understanding too; yet even +this I could forgive, had she not that enchanting softness in her +manner, which steals upon the soul, and would almost make ugliness +itself charm; were she but vain, one had some chance, but she will take +upon her to have no consciousness, at least no apparent consciousness, +of her perfections, which is really intolerable. I told her so last +night, when she put on such a malicious smile—I believe the little +tyrant wants to add me to the list of her slaves; but I was not form’d +to fill up a train. The woman I love must be so far from giving +another the preference, that she must have no soul but for me; I am one +of the most unreasonable men in the world on this head; she may fancy +what she pleases, but I set her and all her attractions at defiance: I +have made my escape, and shall set off for Quebec in an hour. Flying +is, I must acknowledge, a little out of character, and unbecoming a +soldier; but in these cases, it is the very best thing man or woman +either can do, when they doubt their powers of resistance.</p> + +<p>I intend to be ten days going to Quebec. I propose visiting the +priests at every village, and endeavouring to get some knowledge of the +nature of the country, in order to my intended settlement. Idleness +being the root of all evil, and the nurse of love, I am determin’d to +keep myself employed; nothing can be better suited to my temper than +my present design; the pleasure of cultivating lands here is as much +superior to what can be found in the same employment in England, as +watching the expanding rose, and beholding the falling leaves: America +is in infancy, Europe in old age. Nor am I very ill qualified for this +agreable task: I have studied the Georgicks, and am a pretty enough +kind of a husbandman as far as theory goes; nay, I am not sure I shall +not be, even in practice, the best <i>gentleman</i> farmer in the +province.</p> + +<p>You may expect soon to hear of me in the <i>Museum Rusticum</i>; I +intend to make amazing discoveries in the rural way: I have already +found out, by the force of my own genius, two very uncommon +circumstances; that in Canada, contrary to what we see every where +else, the country is rich, the capital poor; the hills fruitful, the +vallies barren. You see what excellent dispositions I have to be an +useful member of society: I had always a strong biass to the study of +natural philosophy.</p> + +<p>Tell my mother how well I am employ’d, and she cannot but approve my +voyage: assure her, my dear, of my tenderest regard.</p> + +<p>The chaise is at the door.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> +<p class="addendum">The lover is every hour expected; I am not quite sure I should have +lik’d to see him arrive: a third person, you know, on such an occasion, +sinks into nothing; and I love, wherever I am, to be one of the figures +which strike the eye; I hate to appear on the back ground of the +picture.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.008">LETTER <span class="origtext">VIII.</span><span class="let-num">8.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, Aug. 24.</div> + +<p>You can’t think, my dear, what a fund of useful knowledge I have +treasur’d up during my journey from Montreal. This colony is a rich +mine yet unopen’d; I do not mean of gold and silver, but of what are +of much more real value, corn and cattle. Nothing is wanting but +encouragement and cultivation; the Canadians are at their ease even +without labor; nature is here a bounteous mother, who pours forth her +gifts almost unsolicited: bigotry, stupidity, and laziness, united, +have not been able to keep the peasantry poor. I rejoice to find such +admirable capabilities where I propose to fix my dominion.</p> + +<p>I was hospitably entertained by the curés all the way down, tho’ +they are in general but ill provided for: the parochial clergy are +useful every where, but I have a great aversion to monks, those drones +in the political hive, whose whole study seems to be to make themselves +as useless to the world as possible. Think too of the shocking +indelicacy of many of them, who make it a point of religion to abjure +linen, and wear their habits till they drop off. How astonishing that +any mind should suppose the Deity an enemy to cleanliness! the Jewish +religion was hardly any thing else.</p> + +<p>I paid my respects wherever I stopped, to the <i>seigneuress</i> of +the village; for as to the seigneurs, except two or three, if they had +not wives, they would not be worth visiting.</p> + +<p>I am every day more pleased with the women here; and, if I was +gallant, should be in danger of being a convert to the French stile of +gallantry; which certainly debases the mind much less than ours.</p> + +<p>But what is all this to my Emily? How I envy Sir George! what +happiness has Heaven prepared for him, if he has a soul to taste it!</p> + +<p>I really must not think of her; I found so much delight in her +conversation, it was quite time to come away; I am almost ashamed to +own how much difficulty I found in leaving her: do you know I have +scarce slept since? This is absurd, but I cannot help it; which by the +way is an admirable excuse for any thing.</p> + +<p>I have been come but two hours, and am going to Silleri, to pay my +compliments to your friend Miss Fermor, who arrived with her father, +who comes to join his regiment, since I left Quebec. I hear there has +been a very fine importation of English ladies during my absence. I am +sorry I have not time to visit the rest, but I go to-morrow morning to +the Indian village for a fortnight, and have several letters to write +to-night.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i0">Adieu! I am interrupted,<br></span> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.009">LETTER <span class="origtext">IX.</span><span class="let-num">9.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Melmoth, at Montreal.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, August 24.</div> + +<p>I cannot, Madam, express my obligation to you for having added a +postscript to Major Melmoth’s letter: I am sure he will excuse my +answering the whole to you; if not, I beg he may know that I shall be +very pert about it, being much more solicitous to please you than him, +for a thousand reasons too tedious to mention.</p> + +<p>I thought you had more penetration than to suppose me indifferent: +on the contrary, sensibility is my fault; though it is not your little +every-day beauties who can excite it: I have admirable dispositions to +love, though I am hard to please: in short, <i>I am not cruel, I am +only nice</i>: do but you, or your divine friend, give me leave to wear +your chains, and you shall soon be convinced I can love <i>like an +angel</i>, when I set in earnest about it. But, alas! you are married, +and in love with your husband; and your friend is in a situation still +more unfavorable to a lover’s hopes. This is particularly unfortunate, +as you are the only two of your bewitching sex in Canada, for whom my +heart feels the least sympathy. To be plain, but don’t tell the little +Major, I am more than half in love with you both, and, if I was the +grand Turk, should certainly fit out a fleet, to seize, and bring you +to my seraglio.</p> + +<p>There is one virtue I admire extremely in you both; I mean, that +humane and tender compassion for the poor men, which prompts you to be +always seen together; if you appeared separate, where is the hero who +could resist either of you?</p> + +<p>You ask me how I like the French ladies at Montreal: I think them +extremely pleasing; and many of them handsome; I thought Madame +L—— so, even near you and Miss Montague; which is, I think, saying as +much as can be said on the subject.</p> + +<p>I have just heard by accident that Sir George is arrived at +Montreal. Assure Miss Montague, no one can be more warmly interested in +her happiness than I am: she is the most perfect work of Heaven; may +she be the happiest! I feel much more on this occasion than I can +express: a mind like hers must, in marriage, be exquisitely happy or +miserable: my friendship makes me tremble for her, notwithstanding the +worthy character I have heard of Sir George.</p> + +<p>I will defer till another time what I had to say to Major Melmoth.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i0">I have the honour to be,<br></span> +<span class="i4">Madam,<br></span> +<span class="i6">Yours &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.010">LETTER <span class="origtext">X.</span><span class="let-num">10.</span></h3> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, August 24.</div> + +<p>I have been a month arrived, my dear, without having seen your +brother, who is at Montreal, but I am told is expected to-day. I have +spent my time however very agreably. I know not what the winter may be, +but I am enchanted with the beauty of this country in summer; bold, +picturesque, romantic, nature reigns here in all her wanton +luxuriance, adorned by a thousand wild graces which mock the cultivated +beauties of Europe. The scenery about the town is infinitely lovely; +the prospect extensive, and diversified by a variety of hills, woods, +rivers, cascades, intermingled with smiling farms and cottages, and +bounded by distant mountains which seem to scale the very Heavens.</p> + +<p>The days are much hotter here than in England, but the heat is more +supportable from the breezes which always spring up about noon; and the +evenings are charming beyond expression. We have much thunder and +lightening, but very few instances of their being fatal: the thunder is +more magnificent and aweful than in Europe, and the lightening brighter +and more beautiful; I have even seen it of a clear pale purple, +resembling the gay tints of the morning.</p> + +<p>The verdure is equal to that of England, and in the evening acquires +an unspeakable beauty from the lucid splendor of the fire-flies +sparkling like a thousand little stars on the trees and on the grass.</p> + +<p>There are two very noble falls of water near Quebec, la Chaudiere +and Montmorenci: the former is a prodigious sheet of water, rushing +over the wildest rocks, and forming a scene grotesque, irregular, +astonishing: the latter, less wild, less irregular, but more pleasing +and more majestic, falls from an immense height, down the side of a +romantic mountain, into the river St. Lawrence, opposite the most +smiling part of the island of Orleans, to the cultivated charms of +which it forms the most striking and agreeable contrast.</p> + +<p>The river of the same name, which supplies the cascade of +Montmorenci, is the most lovely of all <span class="origtext">inaminate</span><span class="errata">inanimate</span> objects: but why do +I call it inanimate? It almost breathes; I no longer wonder at the +enthusiasm of Greece and Rome; ’twas from objects resembling this their +mythology took its rise; it seems the residence of a thousand deities.</p> + +<p>Paint to yourself a stupendous rock burst as it were in sunder by +the hands of nature, to give passage to a small, but very deep and +beautiful river; and forming on each side a regular and magnificent +wall, crowned with the noblest woods that can be imagined; the sides of +these romantic walls adorned with a variety of the gayest flowers, and +in many places little streams of the purest water gushing through, and +losing themselves in the river below: a thousand natural grottoes in +the rock make you suppose yourself in the abode of the Nereids; as a +little island, covered with flowering shrubs, about a mile above the +falls, where the river enlarges itself as if to give it room, seems +intended for the throne of the river goddess. Beyond this, the rapids, +formed by the irregular projections of the rock, which in some places +seem almost to meet, rival in beauty, as they excel in variety, the +cascade itself, and close this little world of enchantment.</p> + +<p>In short, the loveliness of this fairy scene alone more than pays +the fatigues of my voyage; and, if I ever murmur at having crossed the +Atlantic, remind me that I have seen the river Montmorenci.</p> + +<p>I can give you a very imperfect account of the people here; I have +only examined the landscape about Quebec, and have given very little +attention to the figures; the French ladies are handsome, but as to the +beaux, they appear to me not at all dangerous, and one might safely +walk in a wood by moonlight with the most agreeable Frenchman here. I +am not surprized the Canadian ladies take such pains to seduce our men +from us; but I think it a little hard we have no temptation to make +reprisals.</p> + +<p>I am at present at an extreme pretty farm on the banks of the river +St. Lawrence; the house stands at the foot of a steep mountain covered +with a variety of trees, forming a verdant sloping wall, which rises in +a kind of regular confusion, “Shade above shade, a woody theatre,” and +has in front this noble river, on which the ships continually passing +present to the delighted eye the most charming moving picture +imaginable; I never saw a place so formed to inspire that pleasing +lassitude, that divine inclination to saunter, which may not improperly +be called, the luxurious indolence of the country. I intend to build a +temple here to the charming goddess of laziness.</p> + +<p>A gentleman is just coming down the winding path on the side of the +hill, whom by his air I take to be your brother. Adieu! I must receive +him: my father is at Quebec.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Arabella Fermor.</span> +</div> +<p class="addendum">Your brother has given me a very pleasing piece of intelligence: my +friend Emily Montague is at Montreal, and is going to be married to +great advantage; I must write to her immediately, and insist on her +making me a visit before she marries. She came to America two years +ago, with her uncle Colonel Montague, who died here, and I imagined was +gone back to England; she is however at Montreal with Mrs. Melmoth, a +distant relation of her mother’s. Adieu! <i>ma tres chere!</i></p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.011">LETTER <span class="origtext">XI.</span><span class="let-num">11.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, Sept. 10.</div> + +<p>I find, my dear, that absence and amusement are the best remedies +for a beginning passion; I have passed a fortnight at the Indian +village of Lorette, where the novelty of the scene, and the enquiries I +have been led to make into their antient religion and manners, have +been of a thousand times more service to me than all the reflection in +the world would have been.</p> + +<p>I will own to you that I staid too long at Montreal, or rather at +Major Melmoth’s; to be six weeks in the same house with one of the +most amiable, most pleasing of women, was a trying situation to a heart +full of sensibility, and of a sensibility which has been hitherto, +from a variety of causes, a good deal restrained. I should have avoided +the danger from the first, had it appeared to me what it really was; +but I thought myself secure in the consideration of her engagements, a +defence however which I found grow weaker every day.</p> + +<p>But to my savages: other nations talk of liberty, they possess it; +nothing can be more astonishing than to see a little village of about +thirty or forty families, the small remains of the Hurons, almost +exterminated by long and continual war with the Iroquoise, preserve +their independence in the midst of an European colony consisting of +seventy thousand inhabitants; yet the fact is true of the savages of +Lorette; they assert and they maintain that independence with a spirit +truly noble. One of our company having said something which an Indian +understood as a supposition that they had been <i>subjects</i> of +France, his eyes struck fire, he stop’d him abruptly, contrary to +their respectful and sensible custom of never interrupting the person +who speaks, “You mistake, brother,” said he; “we are subjects to no +prince; a savage is free all over the world.” And he spoke only truth; +they are not only free as a people, but every individual is perfectly +so. Lord of himself, at once subject and master, a savage knows no +superior, a circumstance which has a striking effect on his behaviour; +unawed by rank or riches, distinctions unknown amongst his own nation, +he would enter as unconcerned, would possess all his powers as freely +in the palace of an oriental monarch, as in the cottage of the meanest +peasant: ’tis the species, ’tis man, ’tis his equal he respects, +without regarding the gaudy trappings, the accidental advantages, to +which polished nations pay homage.</p> + +<p>I have taken some pains to develop their present, as well as past, +religious sentiments, because the Jesuit missionaries have boasted so +much of their conversion; and find they have rather engrafted a few of +the most plain and simple truths of Christianity on their ancient +superstitions, than exchanged one faith for another; they are baptized, +and even submit to what they themselves call the <i>yoke</i> of +confession, and worship according to the outward forms of the Romish +church, the drapery of which cannot but strike minds unused to +splendor; but their belief is very little changed, except that the +women seem to pay great reverence to the Virgin, perhaps because +flattering to the sex. They anciently believed in one God, the ruler +and creator of the universe, whom they called <i>the Great Spirit</i> +and the <i>Master of Life</i>; in the sun as his image and representative; +in a multitude of inferior spirits and demons; and in a future +state of rewards and punishments, or, to use their own phrase, +in <i>a country of souls</i>. They reverenced the spirits of their +departed heroes, but it does not appear that they paid them any +religious adoration. Their morals were more pure, their manners more +simple, than those of polished nations, except in what regarded the +intercourse of the sexes: the young women before marriage were indulged +in great libertinism, hid however under the most reserved and decent +exterior. They held adultery in abhorrence, and with the more reason +as their marriages were <span class="origtext">dissolvible</span><span class="errata">dissolvable</span> at pleasure. The missionaries are +said to have found no difficulty so great in gaining them to +Christianity, as that of persuading them to marry for life: they +regarded the Christian system of marriage as contrary to the laws of +nature and reason; and asserted that, as the <i>Great Spirit</i> formed +us to be happy, it was opposing his will, to continue together when +otherwise.</p> + +<p>The sex we have so unjustly excluded from power in Europe have a +great share in the Huron government; the chief is chose by the matrons +from amongst the nearest male relations, by the female line, of him he +is to succeed; and is generally an aunt’s or sister’s son; a custom +which, if we examine strictly into the principle on which it is +founded, seems a little to contradict what we are told of the extreme +chastity of the married ladies.</p> + +<p>The power of the chief is extremely limited; he seems rather to +advise his people as a father than command them as a master: yet, as +his commands are always reasonable, and for the general good, no prince +in the world is so well obeyed. They have a supreme council of +ancients, into which every man enters of course at an age fixed, and +another of assistants to the chief on common occasions, the members of +which are like him elected by the matrons: I am pleased with this last +regulation, as women are, beyond all doubt, the best judges of the +merit of men; and I should be extremely pleased to see it adopted in +England: canvassing for elections would then be the most agreeable +thing in the world, and I am sure the ladies would give their votes on +much more generous principles than we do. In the true sense of the +word, <i>we</i> are the savages, who so impolitely deprive you of the +common rights of citizenship, and leave you no power but that of which +we cannot deprive you, the resistless power of your charms. By the way, +I don’t think you are obliged in conscience to obey laws you have had +no share in making; your plea would certainly be at least as good as +that of the Americans, about which we every day hear so much.</p> + +<p>The Hurons have no positive laws; yet being a people not numerous, +with a strong sense of honor, and in that state of equality which gives +no food to the most tormenting passions of the human heart, and the +council of ancients having a power to punish atrocious crimes, which +power however they very seldom find occasion to use, they live together +in a tranquillity and order which appears to us surprizing.</p> + +<p>In more numerous Indian nations, I am told, every village has its +chief and its councils, and is perfectly independent on the rest; but +on great occasions summon a general council, to which every village +sends deputies.</p> + +<p>Their language is at once sublime and melodious; but, having much +fewer ideas, it is impossible it can be so copious as those of Europe: +the pronunciation of the men is guttural, but that of the women +extremely soft and pleasing; without understanding one word of the +language, the sound of it is very agreeable to me. Their style even in +speaking French is bold and metaphorical: and I am told is on important +occasions extremely sublime. Even in common conversation they speak in +figures, of which I have this moment an instance. A savage woman was +wounded lately in defending an English family from the drunken rage of +one of her nation. I asked her after her wound; “It is well,” said she; +“my sisters at Quebec (meaning the English ladies) have been kind to +me; and piastres, you know, are very healing.”</p> + +<p>They have no idea of letters, no alphabet, nor is their language +reducible to rules: ’tis by painting they preserve the memory of the +only events which interest them, or that they think worth recording, +the conquests gained over their enemies in war.</p> + +<p>When I speak of their paintings, I should not omit that, though +extremely rude, they have a strong resemblance to the Chinese, a +circumstance which struck me the more, as it is not the stile of +nature. Their dances also, the most lively pantomimes I ever saw, +and especially the dance of peace, exhibit variety of attitudes +resembling the figures on Chinese fans; nor have their features and +complexion less likeness to the pictures we see of the Tartars, as +their wandering manner of life, before they became christians, was +the same.</p> + +<p>If I thought it necessary to suppose they were not natives of the +country, and that America was peopled later than the other quarters of +the world, I should imagine them the descendants of Tartars; as nothing +can be more easy than their passage from Asia, from which America is +probably not divided; or, if it is, by a very narrow channel. But I +leave this to those who are better informed, being a subject on which I +honestly confess my ignorance.</p> + +<p>I have already observed, that they retain most of their antient +superstitions. I should particularize their belief in dreams, of which +folly even repeated disappointments cannot cure them: they have also an +unlimited faith in their <i>powawers</i>, or conjurers, of whom there +is one in every Indian village, who is at once physician, orator, and +divine, and who is consulted as an oracle on every occasion. As I +happened to smile at the recital a savage was making of a prophetic +dream, from which he assured us of the death of an English officer whom +I knew to be alive, “You Europeans,” said he, “are the most +unreasonable people in the world; you laugh at our belief in dreams, +and yet expect us to believe things a thousand times more incredible.”</p> + +<p>Their general character is difficult to describe; made up of +contrary and even contradictory qualities, they are indolent, tranquil, +quiet, humane in peace; active, restless, cruel, ferocious in war: +courteous, attentive, hospitable, and even polite, when kindly treated; +haughty, stern, vindictive, when they are not; and their resentment is +the more to be dreaded, as they hold it a point of honor to dissemble +their sense of an injury till they find an opportunity to revenge it.</p> + +<p>They are patient of cold and heat, of hunger and thirst, even beyond +all belief when necessity requires, passing whole days, and often +three or four days together, without food, in the woods, when on the +watch for an enemy, or even on their hunting parties; yet indulging +themselves in their feasts even to the most brutal degree of +intemperance. They despise death, and suffer the most excruciating +tortures not only without a groan, but with an air of triumph; singing +their death song, deriding their tormentors, and threatening them with +the vengeance of their surviving friends: yet hold it honorable to fly +before an enemy that appears the least superior in number or force.</p> + +<p>Deprived by their extreme ignorance, and that indolence which +nothing but their ardor for war can surmount, of all the +conveniencies, as well as elegant refinements of polished life; +strangers to the softer passions, love being with them on the same +footing as amongst their fellow-tenants of the woods, their lives +appear to me rather tranquil than happy: they have fewer cares, but +they have also much fewer enjoyments, than fall to our share. I am +told, however, that, though insensible to love, they are not without +affections; are extremely awake to friendship, and passionately fond of +their children.</p> + +<p>They are of a copper color, which is rendered more unpleasing by a +quantity of coarse red on their cheeks; but the children, when born, +are of a pale silver white; perhaps their indelicate custom of +greasing their bodies, and their being so much exposed to the air and +sun even from infancy, may cause that total change of complexion, which +I know not how otherwise to account for: their hair is black and +shining, the women’s very long, parted at the top, and combed back, +tied behind, and often twisted with a thong of leather, which they +think very ornamental: the dress of both sexes is a close jacket, +reaching to their knees, with spatterdashes, all of coarse blue cloth, +shoes of deer-skin, embroidered with porcupine quills, and sometimes +with silver spangles; and a blanket thrown across their shoulders, and +fastened before with a kind of bodkin, with necklaces, and other +ornaments of beads or shells.</p> + +<p>They are in general tall, well made, and agile to the last degree; +have a lively imagination, a strong memory; and, as far as their +interests are concerned, are very dextrous politicians.</p> + +<p>Their address is cold and reserved; but their treatment of +strangers, and the unhappy, infinitely kind and hospitable. A very +worthy priest, with whom I am acquainted at Quebec, was some years +since shipwrecked in December on the island of Anticosti: after a +variety of distresses, not difficult to be imagined on an island +without inhabitants, during the severity of a winter even colder than +that of Canada; he, with the small remains of his companions who +survived such complicated distress, early in the spring, reached the +main land in their boat, and wandered to a cabbin of savages; the +ancient of which, having heard his story, bid him enter, and liberally +supplied their wants: “Approach, brother,” said he; “the unhappy have +a right to our assistance; we are men, and cannot but feel for the +distresses which happen to men;” a sentiment which has a strong +resemblance to a celebrated one in a Greek tragedy.</p> + +<p>You will not expect more from me on this subject, as my residence +here has been short, and I can only be said to catch a few marking +features flying. I am unable to give you a picture at full length.</p> + +<p>Nothing astonishes me so much as to find their manners so little +changed by their intercourse with the Europeans; they seem to have +learnt nothing of us but excess in drinking.</p> + +<p>The situation of the village is very fine, on an eminence, gently +rising to a thick wood at some distance, a beautiful little serpentine +river in front, on which are a bridge, a mill, and a small cascade, at +such a distance as to be very pleasing objects from their houses; and a +cultivated country, intermixed with little woods lying between them and +Quebec, from which they are distant only nine very short miles.</p> + +<p>What a letter have I written! I shall quit my post of historian to +your friend Miss Fermor; the ladies love writing much better than we +do; and I should perhaps be only just, if I said they write better.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.012">LETTER <span class="origtext">XII.</span><span class="let-num">12.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, Sept. 12.</div> + +<p>I yesterday morning received a letter from Major Melmoth, to +introduce to my acquaintance Sir George Clayton, who brought it; he +wanted no other introduction to me than his being dear to the most +amiable woman breathing; in virtue of that claim, he may command every +civility, every attention in my power. He breakfasted with me +yesterday: we were two hours alone, and had a great deal of +conversation; we afterwards spent the day together very agreably, on a +party of pleasure in the country.</p> + +<p>I am going with him this afternoon to visit Miss Fermor, to whom he +has a letter from the divine Emily, which he is to deliver himself.</p> + +<p>He is very handsome, but not of my favorite stile of beauty: +extremely fair and blooming, with fine features, light hair and eyes; +his countenance not absolutely heavy, but inanimate, and to my taste +insipid: finely made, not ungenteel, but without that easy air of the +world which I prefer to the most exact symmetry without it. In short, +he is what the country ladies in England call <i>a sweet pretty man</i>. +He dresses well, has the finest horses and the handsomest liveries I +have seen in Canada. His manner is civil but cold, his conversation +sensible but not spirited; he seems to be a man rather to approve than +to love. Will you excuse me if I say, he resembles the form my +imagination paints of Prometheus’s man of clay, before he stole the +celestial fire to animate him?</p> + +<p>Perhaps I scrutinize him too strictly; perhaps I am prejudiced in +my judgment by the very high idea I had form’d of the man whom Emily +Montague could love. I will own to you, that I thought it impossible +for her to be pleased with meer beauty; and I cannot even now change +my opinion; I shall find some latent fire, some hidden spark, when we +are better acquainted.</p> + +<p>I intend to be very intimate with him, to endeavour to see into his +very soul; I am hard to please in a husband for my Emily; he must have +spirit, he must have sensibility, or he cannot make her happy.</p> + +<p>He thank’d me for my civility to Miss Montague: do you know I +thought him impertinent? and I am not yet sure he was not so, though I +saw he meant to be polite.</p> + +<p>He comes: our horses are at the door. Adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> +<div class="dateline">Eight in the evening.</div> + +<p>We are return’d: I every hour like him less. There were several +ladies, French and English, with Miss Fermor, all on the rack to engage +the Baronet’s attention; you have no notion of the effect of a title +in America. To do the ladies justice however, he really look’d very +handsome; the ride, and the civilities he receiv’d from a circle of +pretty women, for they were well chose, gave a glow to his complexion +extremely favorable to his desire of pleasing, which, through all his +calmness, it was impossible not to observe; he even attempted once or +twice to be lively, but fail’d: vanity itself could not inspire him +with vivacity; yet vanity is certainly his ruling passion, if such a +piece of still life can be said to have any passions at all.</p> + +<p>What a charm, my dear Lucy, is there in sensibility! ’Tis the magnet +which attracts all to itself: virtue may command esteem, understanding +and talents admiration, beauty a transient desire; but ’tis sensibility +alone which can inspire love.</p> + +<p>Yet the tender, the sensible Emily Montague—no, my dear, ’tis +impossible: she may fancy she loves him, but it is not in nature; +unless she extremely mistakes his character. His <i>approbation</i> of +her, for he cannot feel a livelier sentiment, may at present, when with +her, raise him a little above his natural vegetative state, but after +marriage he will certainly sink into it again.</p> + +<p>If I have the least judgment in men, he will be a cold, civil, +inattentive husband; a tasteless, insipid, silent companion; a +tranquil, frozen, unimpassion’d lover; his insensibility will secure +her from rivals, his vanity will give her all the drapery of happiness; +her friends will congratulate her choice; she will be the envy of her +own sex: without giving positive offence, he will every moment wound, +because he is a stranger to, all the fine feelings of a heart like +hers; she will seek in vain the friend, the lover, she expected; yet, +scarce knowing of what to complain, she will accuse herself of caprice, +and be astonish’d to find herself wretched with <i>the best husband in +the world</i>.</p> + +<p>I tremble for her happiness; I know how few of my own sex are to be +found who have the lively sensibility of yours, and of those few how +many wear out their hearts by a life of gallantry and dissipation, and +bring only apathy and disgust into marriage. I know few men capable of +making her happy; but this Sir George—my Lucy, I have not patience.</p> + +<p>Did I tell you all the men here are in love with your friend Bell +Fermor? The women all hate her, which is an unequivocal proof that she +pleases the other sex.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.013">LETTER <span class="origtext">XIII.</span><span class="let-num">13.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline">Montreal, Sept. 2.</div> + +<p>My dearest Bell will better imagine than I can describe, the +pleasure it gave me to hear of her being in Canada; I am impatient to +see her, but as Mrs. Melmoth comes in a fortnight to Quebec, I know she +will excuse my waiting to come with her. My visit however is to +Silleri; I long to see my dear girl, to tell her a thousand little +trifles interesting only to friendship.</p> + +<p>You congratulate me, my dear, on the pleasing prospect I have before +me; on my approaching marriage with a man young, rich, lovely, +enamor’d, and of an amiable character.</p> + +<p>Yes, my dear, I am oblig’d to my uncle for his choice; Sir George is +all you have heard; and, without doubt, loves me, as he marries me with +such an inferiority of fortune. I am very happy certainly; how is it +possible I should be otherwise?</p> + +<p>I could indeed wish my tenderness for him more lively, but perhaps +my wishes are romantic. I prefer him to all his sex, but wish my +preference was of a less languid nature; there is something in it more +like friendship than love; I see him with pleasure, but I part from him +without regret; yet he deserves my affection, and I can have no +objection to him which is not founded in caprice.</p> + +<p>You say true; Colonel Rivers is very amiable; he pass’d six weeks +with us, yet we found his conversation always new; he is the man on +earth of whom one would wish to make a friend; I think I could already +trust him with every sentiment of my soul; I have even more confidence +in him than in Sir George whom I love; his manner is soft, attentive, +insinuating, and particularly adapted to please women. Without +designs, without pretensions; he steals upon you in the character of a +friend, because there is not the least appearance of his ever being a +lover: he seems to take such an interest in your happiness, as gives +him a right to know your every thought. Don’t you think, my dear, +these kind of men are dangerous? Take care of yourself, my dear Bell; +as to me, I am secure in my situation.</p> + +<p>Sir George is to have the pleasure of delivering this to you, and +comes again in a few days; love him for my sake, though he deserves it +for his own. I assure you, he is extremely worthy.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i0">Adieu! my dear.<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.014">LETTER <span class="origtext">XIV.</span><span class="let-num">14.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To John Temple, Esq; <span class="origtext">Pall-Mall.</span><span class="correction">Pall Mall.</span></div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, Sept. 15.</div> + +<p>Believe me, Jack, you are wrong; this vagrant taste is unnatural, +and does not lead to happiness; your eager pursuit of pleasure defeats +itself; love gives no true delight but where the heart is attach’d, and +you do not give yours time to fix. Such is our unhappy frailty, that +the tenderest passion may wear out, and another succeed, but the love +of change merely as change is not in nature; where it is a real taste, +’tis a depraved one. Boys are inconstant from vanity and affectation, +old men from decay of passion; but men, and particularly men of sense, +find their happiness only in that lively attachment of which it is +impossible for more than one to be the object. Love is an intellectual +pleasure, and even the senses will be weakly affected where the heart +is silent.</p> + +<p>You will find this truth confirmed even within the walls of the +seraglio; amidst this crowd of rival beauties, eager to please, one +happy fair generally reigns in the heart of the sultan; the rest serve +only to gratify his pride and ostentation, and are regarded by him with +the same indifference as the furniture of his superb palace, of which +they may be said to make a part.</p> + +<p>With your estate, you should marry; I have as many objections to the +state as you can have; I mean, on the footing marriage is at present. +But of this I am certain, that two persons at once delicate and +sensible, united by friendship, by taste, by a conformity of sentiment, +by that lively ardent tender inclination which alone deserves the name +of love, will find happiness in marriage, which is in vain sought in +any other kind of attachment.</p> + +<p>You are so happy as to have the power of chusing; you are rich, and +have not the temptation to a mercenary engagement. Look round you for +a companion, a confidente; a tender amiable friend, with all the +charms of a mistress: above all, be certain of her affection, that you +engage, that you fill her whole soul. Find such a woman, my dear +Temple, and you cannot make too much haste to be happy.</p> + +<p>I have a thousand things to say to you, but am setting off +immediately with Sir George Clayton, to meet the lieutenant governor at +Montreal; a piece of respect which I should pay with the most lively +pleasure, if it did not give me the opportunity of seeing the woman in +the world I most admire. I am not however going to set you the example +of marrying: I am not so happy; she is engaged to the gentleman who +goes up with me. Adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.015">LETTER <span class="origtext">XV.</span><span class="let-num">15.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Montague, at Montreal.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Sept. 16.</div> + +<p>Take care, my dear Emily, you do not fall into the common error of +sensible and delicate minds, that of refining away your happiness.</p> + +<p>Sir George is handsome as an Adonis; you allow him to be of an +amiable character; he is rich, young, well born, and loves you; you +will have fine cloaths, fine jewels, a fine house, a coach and six; all +the <i>douceurs</i> of marriage, with an extreme pretty fellow, who is +fond of you, whom <i>you see with pleasure, and prefer to all his sex</i>; +and yet you are discontented, because you have not for him at +twenty-four the romantic passion of fifteen, or rather that ideal +passion which perhaps never existed but in imagination.</p> + +<p>To be happy in this world, it is necessary not to raise one’s ideas +too high: if I loved a man of Sir George’s fortune half as well as by +your own account you love him, I should not hesitate one moment about +marrying; but sit down contented with ease, affluence, and an +agreeable man, without expecting to find life what it certainly is not, +a state of continual rapture. ’Tis, I am afraid, my dear, your +misfortune to have too much sensibility to be happy.</p> + +<p>I could moralize exceedingly well this morning on the vanity of +human wishes and expectations, and the folly of hoping for felicity in +this vile sublunary world: but the subject is a little exhausted, and I +have a passion for being original. I think all the moral writers, who +have set off with promising to shew us the road to happiness, have +obligingly ended with telling us there is no such thing; a conclusion +extremely consoling, and which if they had drawn before they set pen to +paper, would have saved both themselves and their readers an infinity +of trouble. This fancy of hunting for what one knows is not to be +found, is really an ingenious way of amusing both one’s self and the +world: I wish people would either write to some purpose, or be so good +as not to write at all.</p> + +<p>I believe I shall set about writing a system of ethics myself, which +shall be short, clear, and comprehensive; nearer the Epicurean perhaps +than the Stoic; but rural, refined, and sentimental; rural by all +means; for who does not know that virtue is a country gentlewoman? all +the good mammas will tell you, there is no such being to be heard of in +town.</p> + +<p>I shall certainly be glad to see you, my dear; though I foresee +strange revolutions <i>in the state of Denmark</i> from this event; at +present I have all the men to myself, and you must know I have a +prodigious aversion to divided empire: however, ’tis some comfort they +all know you are going to be married. You may come, Emily; only be so +obliging to bring Sir George along with you: in your present situation, +you are not so very formidable.</p> + +<p>The men here, as I said before, are all dying for me; there are many +handsomer women, but I flatter them, and the dear creatures cannot +resist it. I am a very good girl to women, but naturally artful (if you +will allow the expression) to the other sex; I can blush, look down, +stifle a sigh, flutter my fan, and seem so agreeably confused—you +have no notion, my dear, what fools men are. If you had not got the +start of me, I would have had your little white-haired baronet in a +week, and yet I don’t take him to be made of very combustible +materials; rather mild, composed, and pretty, I believe; but he has +vanity, which is quite enough for my purpose.</p> + +<p>Either your love or Colonel Rivers will have the honor to deliver +this letter; ’tis rather cruel to take them both from us at once; +however, we shall soon be made amends; for we shall have a torrent of +beaux with the general.</p> + +<p>Don’t you think the sun in this country vastly more chearing than in +England? I am charmed with the sun, to say nothing of the moon, though +to be sure I never saw a moon-light night that deserved the name till I +came to America.</p> + +<p><i>Mon cher pere</i> desires a thousand compliments; you know he +has been in love with you ever since you were seven years old: he is +vastly better for his voyage, and the clear air of Canada, and looks +ten years younger than before he set out.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I am going to ramble in the woods, and pick berries, with a +little smiling civil captain, who is enamoured of me: a pretty rural +amusement for lovers!</p> + +<p>Good morrow, my dear Emily,</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.016">LETTER <span class="origtext">XVI.</span><span class="let-num">16.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Sept. 18.</div> + +<p>Your brother, my dear, is gone to Montreal with Sir George Clayton, +of whom I suppose you have heard, and who is going to marry a friend of +mine, to pay a visit to <i>Monsieur le General</i>, who is arrived +there. The men in Canada, the English I mean, are eternally changing +place, even when they have not so pleasing a call; travelling is cheap +and amusing, the prospects lovely, the weather inviting; and there are +no very lively pleasures at present to attach them either to Quebec or +Montreal, so that they divide themselves between both.</p> + +<p>This fancy of the men, which is extremely the mode, makes an +agreable circulation of inamoratoes, which serves to vary the amusement +of the ladies; so that upon the whole ’tis a pretty fashion, and +deserves encouragement.</p> + +<p>You expect too much of your brother, my dear; the summer is charming +here, but with no such very striking difference from that of England, +as to give room to say a vast deal on the subject; though I believe, if +you will please to compare our letters, you will find, putting us +together, we cut a pretty figure in the descriptive way; at least if +your brother tells me truth.</p> + +<p class="preverse">You may expect a very well painted frost-piece from me in the +winter; as to the present season, it is just like any fine autumn in +England: I may add, that the beauty of the nights is much beyond my +power of description: a constant <i>Aurora borealis</i>, without a +cloud in the heavens; and a moon so resplendent that you may see to +read the smallest print by its light; one has nothing to wish but that +it was full moon every night. Our evening walks are delicious, +especially at Silleri, where ’tis the pleasantest thing in the world to +listen to soft nonsense,</p> +<div class="verse"> + “Whilst the moon dances through the trembling leaves”</div> +<p class="postverse">(A line I stole from Philander and Sylvia): But to return:</p> + +<p>The French ladies never walk but at night, which shews their good +taste; and then only within the walls of Quebec, which does not: they +saunter slowly, after supper, on a particular battery, which is a kind +of little Mall: they have no idea of walking in the country, nor the +least feeling of the lovely scene around them; there are many of them +who never saw the falls of Montmorenci, though little more than an +hour’s drive from the town. They seem born without the smallest portion +of curiosity, or any idea of the pleasures of the imagination, or +indeed any pleasure but that of being admired; love, or rather +coquetry, dress, and devotion, seem to share all their hours: yet, as +they are lively, and in general handsome, the men are very ready to +excuse their want of knowledge.</p> + +<p>There are two ladies in the province, I am told, who read; but both +of them are above fifty, and they are regarded as prodigies of +erudition.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Eight in the evening.</div> + +<p>Absolutely, Lucy, I will marry a savage, and turn squaw (a pretty soft +name for an Indian princess!): never was any thing <span class="origtext">delightful</span><span class="errata">so delightful</span> as +their lives; they talk of French husbands, but commend me to an Indian +one, who lets his wife ramble five hundred miles, without asking where +she is going.</p> + +<p>I was sitting after dinner with a book, in a thicket of hawthorn +near the beach, when a loud laugh called my attention to the river, +where I saw a canoe of savages making to the shore; there were six +women, and two or three children, without one man amongst them: they +landed, tied the canoe to the root of a tree, and finding out the most +agreable shady spot amongst the bushes with which the beach was +covered, which happened to be very near me, made a fire, on which they +laid some fish to broil, and, fetching water from the river, sat down +on the grass to their frugal repast.</p> + +<p>I stole softly to the house, and, ordering a servant to bring some +wine and cold provisions, returned to my squaws: I asked them in French +if they were of Lorette; they shook their heads: I repeated the +question in English, when the oldest of the women told me, they were +not; that their country was on the borders of New England; that, their +husbands being on a hunting party in the woods, curiosity, and the +desire of seeing their brethren the English who had conquered Quebec, +had brought them up the great river, down which they should return as +soon as they had seen Montreal. She courteously asked me to sit down, +and eat with them, which I complied with, and produced my part of the +feast. We soon became good company, and <i>brighten’d the chain +of friendship</i> with two bottles of wine, which put them into such +spirits, that they danced, sung, shook me by the hand, and grew so very +fond of me, that I began to be afraid I should not easily get rid of +them. They were very unwilling to part with me; but, after two or three +very ridiculous hours, I with some difficulty prevailed on the ladies +to pursue their voyage, having first replenished their canoe with +provisions and a few bottles of wine, and given them a letter of +recommendation to your brother, that they might be in no distress at +Montreal.</p> + +<p>Adieu! my father is just come in, and has brought some company with +him from Quebec to supper.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours ever,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> +<p class="addendum">Don’t you think, my dear, my good sisters the squaws seem to live +something the kind of life of our gypsies? The idea struck me as they +were dancing. I assure you, there is a good deal of resemblance in +their persons: I have seen a fine old seasoned female gypsey, of as +dark a complexion as a savage: they are all equally marked as children +of the sun.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.017">LETTER <span class="origtext">XVII.</span><span class="let-num">17.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Repentigny, Sept. 18, ten at night.</div> + +<p>I study my fellow traveller closely; his character, indeed, is not +difficult to ascertain; his feelings are dull, nothing makes the +least impression on him; he is as insensible to the various beauties of +the charming country through which we have travelled, as the very +Canadian peasants themselves who inhabit it. I watched his eyes at some +of the most beautiful prospects, and saw not the least gleam of +pleasure there: I introduced him here to an extreme handsome French +lady, and as lively as she is handsome, the wife of an officer who is +of my acquaintance; the same tasteless composure prevailed; he +complained of fatigue, and retired to his apartment at eight: the +family are now in bed, and I have an hour to give to my dear Lucy.</p> + +<p>He admires Emily because he has seen her admired by all the world, +but he cannot taste her charms of himself; they are not of a stile to +please him: I cannot support the thought of such a woman’s being so +lost; there are a thousand insensible good young women to be found, who +would doze away life with him and be happy.</p> + +<p>A rich, sober, sedate, presbyterian citizen’s daughter, educated by +her grandmother in the country, who would roll about with him in +unweildy splendor, and dream away a lazy existence, would be the proper +wife for him. Is it for him, a lifeless composition of earth and water, +to unite himself to the active elements which compose my divine Emily?</p> + +<p>Adieu! my dear! we set out early in the morning for Montreal.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.018">LETTER <span class="origtext">XVIII.</span><span class="let-num">18.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Montreal, Sept. 19, eleven o’clock.</div> + +<p>No, my dear, it is impossible she can love him; his dull soul is ill +suited to hers; heavy, unmeaning, formal; a slave to rules, to +ceremony, to <i>etiquette</i>, he has not an idea above those of a +gentleman usher. He has been three hours in town without seeing her; +dressing, and waiting to pay his compliments first to the general, who +is riding, and every minute expected back. I am all impatience, though +only her friend, but think it would be indecent in me to go without +him, and look like a design of reproaching his coldness. How +differently are we formed! I should have stole a moment to see the +woman I loved from the first prince in the universe.</p> + +<p>The general is returned. Adieu! till our visit is over; we go from +thence to Major Melmoth’s, whose family I should have told you are in +town, and not half a street from us. What a soul of fire has this +<i>lover!</i> ’Tis to profane the word to use it in speaking of him.</p> + +<div class="dateline">One o’clock.</div> + +<p>I am mistaken, Lucy; astonishing as it is, she loves him; this dull +clod of uninformed earth has touched the lively soul of my Emily. Love +is indeed the child of caprice; I will not say of sympathy, for what +sympathy can there be between two hearts so different? I am hurt, she +is lowered in my esteem; I expected to find in the man she loved, a +mind sensible and tender as her own.</p> + +<p>I repeat it, my dear Lucy, she loves him; I observed her when we +entered the room; she blushed, she turned pale, she trembled, her +voice faltered; every look spoke the strong emotion of her soul.</p> + +<p>She is paler than when I saw her last; she is, I think, less +beautiful, but more touching than ever; there is a languor in her air, +a softness in her countenance, which are the genuine marks of a heart +in love; all the tenderness of her soul is in her eyes.</p> + +<p>Shall I own to you all my injustice? I hate this man for having the +happiness to please her: I cannot even behave to him with the +politeness due to every gentleman.</p> + +<p>I begin to fear my weakness is greater than I supposed.</p> + +<div class="dateline">22d in the evening.</div> + +<p>I am certainly mad, Lucy; what right have I to expect!—you will +scarce believe the excess of my folly. I went after dinner to Major +Melmoth’s; I found Emily at piquet with Sir George: can you conceive +that I fancied myself ill used, that I scarce spoke to her, and +returned immediately home, though strongly pressed to spend the evening +there. I walked two or three times about my room, took my hat, and went +to visit the handsomest Frenchwoman at Montreal, whose windows are +directly opposite to Major Melmoth’s; in the excess of my anger, I +asked this lady to dance with me to-morrow at a little ball we are to +have out of town. Can you imagine any behaviour more childish? It would +have been scarce pardonable at sixteen.</p> + +<p>Adieu! my letter is called for. I will write to you again in a few +days.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> +<p class="addendum">Major Melmoth tells me, they are to be married in a month at +Quebec, and to embark immediately for England. I will not be there; I +cannot bear to see her devote herself to wretchedness: she will be the +most unhappy of her sex with this man; I see clearly into his +character; his virtue is the meer absence of vice; his good qualities +are all of the negative kind.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.019">LETTER <span class="origtext">XIX.</span><span class="let-num">19.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline">Montreal, Sept. 24.</div> + +<p>I have but a moment, my dear, to acknowledge your last; this week +has been a continual hurry.</p> + +<p>You mistake me; it is not the romantic passion of fifteen I wish to +feel, but that tender lively friendship which alone can give charms to +so intimate an union as that of marriage. I wish a greater conformity +in our characters, in our sentiments, in our tastes.</p> + +<p>But I will say no more on this subject till I have the pleasure of +seeing you at Silleri. Mrs. Melmoth and I come in a ship which sails +in a day or two; they tell us, it is the most agreeable way of coming: +Colonel Rivers is so polite, as to stay to accompany us down: Major +Melmoth asked Sir George, but he preferred the pleasure of parading +into Quebec, and shewing his fine horses and fine person to advantage, +to that of attending his mistress: shall I own to you that I am hurt at +this instance of his neglect, as I know his attendance on the general +was not expected? His situation was more than a sufficient excuse; it +was highly improper for two women to go to Quebec alone; it is in some +degree so that any other man should accompany me at this time: my pride +is extremely wounded. I expect a thousand times more attention from +him since his acquisition of fortune; it is with pain I tell you, my +dear friend, he seems to shew me much less. I will not descend to +suppose he presumes on this increase of fortune, but he presumes on the +inclination he supposes I have for him; an inclination, however, not +violent enough to make me submit to the least ill treatment from him.</p> + +<p>In my present state of mind, I am extremely hard to please; either +his behaviour or my temper have suffered a change. I know not how it +is, but I see his faults in a much stronger light than I have ever seen +them before. I am alarmed at the coldness of his disposition, so ill +suited to the sensibility of mine; I begin to doubt his being of the +amiable character I once supposed: in short, I begin to doubt of the +possibility of his making me happy.</p> + +<p>You will, perhaps, call it an excess of pride, when I say, I am much +less inclined to marry him than when our situations were equal. I +certainly love him; I have a habit of considering him as the man I am +to marry, but my affection is not of that kind which will make me easy +under the sense of an obligation.</p> + +<p>I will open all my heart to you when we meet: I am not so happy as +you imagine: do not accuse me of caprice; can I be too cautious, where +the happiness of my whole life is at stake?</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i6">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.020">LETTER <span class="origtext">XX.</span><span class="let-num">20.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Sept. 24.</div> + +<p>I declare off at once; I will not be a squaw; I admire their talking +of the liberty of savages; in the most essential point, they are +slaves: the mothers marry their children without ever consulting their +inclinations, and they are obliged to submit to this foolish tyranny. +Dear England! where liberty appears, not as here among these odious +savages, wild and ferocious like themselves, but lovely, smiling, led +by the hand of the Graces. There is no true freedom any where else. +They may talk of the privilege of chusing a chief; but what is that to +the dear English privilege of chusing a husband?</p> + +<p>I have been at an Indian wedding, and have no patience. Never did I +see so vile an assortment.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I shall not be in good humor this month.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.021">LETTER <span class="origtext">XXI.</span><span class="let-num">21.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Montreal, Sept. 24.</div> + +<p>What you say, my dear friend, is more true than I wish it was; our +English women of character are generally too reserved; their manner is +cold and forbidding; they seem to think it a crime to be too +attractive; they appear almost afraid to please.</p> + +<p>’Tis to this ill-judged reserve I attribute the low profligacy of +too many of our young men; the grave faces and distant behaviour of +the generality of virtuous women fright them from their acquaintance, +and drive them into the society of those wretched votaries of vice, +whose conversation debases every sentiment of their souls.</p> + +<p>With as much beauty, good sense, sensibility, and softness, at +least, as any women on earth, no women please so little as the English: +depending on their native charms, and on those really amiable qualities +which envy cannot deny them, they are too careless in acquiring those +enchanting nameless graces, which no language can define, which give +resistless force to beauty, and even supply its place where it is +wanting.</p> + +<p>They are satisfied with being good, without considering that +unadorned virtue may command esteem, but will never excite love; and +both are necessary in marriage, which I suppose to be the state every +woman of honor has in prospect; for I own myself rather incredulous as +to the assertions of maiden aunts and cousins to the contrary. I wish +my amiable countrywomen would consider one moment, that virtue is +never so lovely as when dressed in smiles: the virtue of women should +have all the softness of the sex; it should be gentle, it should be +even playful, to please.</p> + +<p>There is a lady here, whom I wish you to see, as the shortest way of +explaining to you all I mean; she is the most pleasing woman I ever +beheld, independently of her being one of the handsomest; her manner is +irresistible: she has all the smiling graces of France, all the +blushing delicacy and native softness of England.</p> + +<p>Nothing can be more delicate, my dear Temple, than the manner in +which you offer me your estate in Rutland, by way of anticipating your +intended legacy: it is however impossible for me to accept it; my +father, who saw me naturally more profuse than became my expectations, +took such pains to counterwork it by inspiring me with the love of +independence, that I cannot have such an obligation even to you.</p> + +<p>Besides, your legacy is left on the supposition that you are not to +marry, and I am absolutely determined you shall; so that, by accepting +this mark of your esteem, I should be robbing your younger children.</p> + +<p>I have not a wish to be richer whilst I am a batchelor, and the only +woman I ever wished to marry, the only one my heart desires, will be in +three weeks the wife of another; I shall spend less than my income +here: shall I not then be rich? To make you easy, know I have four +thousand pounds in the funds; and that, from the equality of living +here, an ensign is obliged to spend near as much as I am; he is +inevitably ruined, but I save money.</p> + +<p>I pity you, my friend; I am hurt to hear you talk of happiness in +the life you at present lead; of finding pleasure in possessing venal +beauty; you are in danger of acquiring a habit which will vitiate your +taste, and exclude you from that state of refined and tender friendship +for which nature formed a heart like yours, and which is only to be +found in marriage: I need not add, in a marriage of choice.</p> + +<p>It has been said that love marriages are generally unhappy; nothing +is more false; marriages of meer inclination will always be so: +passion alone being concerned, when that is gratified, all tenderness +ceases of course: but love, the gay child of sympathy and esteem, is, +when attended by delicacy, the only happiness worth a reasonable man’s +pursuit, and the choicest gift of heaven: it is a softer, tenderer +friendship, enlivened by taste, and by the most ardent desire of +pleasing, which time, instead of destroying, will render every hour +more dear and interesting.</p> + +<p>If, as you possibly will, you should call me romantic, hear a man of +pleasure on the subject, the Petronius of the last age, the elegant, +but voluptuous St. Evremond, who speaks in the following manner of the +friendship between married persons:</p> + +<p>“I believe it is this pleasing intercourse of tenderness, this +reciprocation of esteem, or, if you will, this mutual ardor of +preventing each other in every endearing mark of affection, in which +consists the sweetness of this second species of friendship.</p> + +<p>“I do not speak of other pleasures, which are not so much in +themselves as in the assurance they give of the intire possession of +those we love: this appears to me so true, that I am not afraid to +assert, the man who is by any other means certainly assured of the +tenderness of her he loves, may easily support the privation of those +pleasures; and that they ought not to enter into the account of +friendship, but as proofs that it is without reserve.</p> + +<p>“’Tis true, few men are capable of the purity of these sentiments, +and ’tis for that reason we so very seldom see perfect friendship in +marriage, at least for any long time: the object which a sensual +passion has in view cannot long sustain a commerce so noble as that of +friendship.”</p> + +<p>You see, the pleasures you so much boast are the least of those +which true tenderness has to give, and this in the opinion of a +voluptuary.</p> + +<p>My dear Temple, all you have ever known of love is nothing to that +sweet consent of souls in unison, that harmony of minds congenial to +each other, of which you have not yet an idea.</p> + +<p>You have seen beauty, and it has inspired a momentary emotion, but +you have never yet had a real attachment; you yet know nothing of that +irresistible tenderness, that delirium of the soul, which, whilst it +refines, adds strength to passion.</p> + +<p>I perhaps say too much, but I wish with ardor to see you happy; in +which there is the more merit, as I have not the least prospect of +being so myself.</p> + +<p>I wish you to pursue the plan of life which I myself think most +likely to bring <span class="origtext">nappiness</span><span class="errata">happiness</span>, because I know our souls to be of the same +frame: we have taken different roads, but you will come back to mine. +Awake to delicate pleasures, I have no taste for any other; there are +no other for sensible minds. My gallantries have been few, rather (if +it is allowed to speak thus of one’s self even to a friend) from +elegance of taste than severity of manners; I have loved seldom, +because I cannot love without esteem.</p> + +<p class="preverse">Believe me, Jack, the meer pleasure of loving, even without a +return, is superior to all the joys of sense where the heart is +untouched: the French poet does not exaggerate when he says,</p> +<div class="verse lineind"> + —<i>Amour;<br> + Tous les autres plaisirs ne valent pas tes peines.</i></div> + +<p>You will perhaps call me mad; I am just come from a woman who is +capable of making all mankind so. Adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.022">LETTER <span class="origtext">XXII.</span><span class="let-num">22.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Sept. 25.</div> + +<p>I have been rambling about amongst the peasants, and asking them a +thousand questions, in order to satisfy your inquisitive friend. As to +my father, though, properly speaking, your questions are addressed to +him, yet, being upon duty, he begs that, for this time, you will accept +of an answer from me.</p> + +<p>The Canadians live a good deal like the ancient patriarchs; the +lands were originally settled by the troops, every officer became a +seigneur, or lord of the manor, every soldier took lands under his +commander; but, as avarice is natural to mankind, the soldiers took a +great deal more than they could cultivate, by way of providing for a +family: which is the reason so much land is now waste in the finest +part of the province: those who had children, and in general they have +a great number, portioned out their lands amongst them as they married, +and lived in the midst of a little world of their <span class="origtext">descendents.</span><span class="correction">descendants.</span></p> + +<p>There are whole villages, and there is even a large island, that of +Coudre, where the inhabitants are all the <span class="origtext">descendents</span><span class="correction">descendants</span> of one pair, if +we only suppose that their sons went to the next village for wives, for +I find no tradition of their having had a dispensation to marry their +sisters.</p> + +<p>The corn here is very good, though not equal to ours; the harvest +not half so gay as in England, and for this reason, that the lazy +creatures leave the greatest part of their land uncultivated, only +sowing as much corn of different sorts as will serve themselves; and +being too proud and too idle to work for hire, every family gets in +its own harvest, which prevents all that jovial spirit which we find +when the reapers work together in large parties.</p> + +<p>Idleness is the reigning passion here, from the peasant to his lord; +the gentlemen never either ride on horseback or walk, but are driven +about like women, for they never drive themselves, lolling at their +ease in a calache: the peasants, I mean the masters of families, are +pretty near as useless as their lords.</p> + +<p>You will scarce believe me, when I tell you, that I have seen, at +the farm next us, two children, a very beautiful boy and girl, of about +eleven years old, assisted by their grandmother, reaping a field of +oats, whilst the lazy father, a strong fellow of thirty two, lay on the +grass, smoaking his pipe, about twenty yards from them: the old people +and children work here; those in the age of strength and health only +take their pleasure.</p> + +<p><i>A propos</i> to smoaking, ’tis common to see here boys of three +years old, sitting at their doors, smoaking their pipes, as grave and +composed as little old Chinese men on a chimney.</p> + +<p>You ask me after our fruits: we have, as I am told, an immensity of +cranberries all the year; when the snow melts away in spring, they are +said to be found under it as fresh and as good as in autumn: +strawberries and rasberries grow wild in profusion; you cannot walk a +step in the fields without treading on the former: great plenty of +currants, plumbs, apples, and pears; a few cherries and grapes, but not +in much perfection: excellent musk melons, and water melons in +abundance, but not so good in proportion as the musk. Not a peach, nor +any thing of the kind; this I am however convinced is less the fault +of the climate than of the people, who are too indolent to take pains +for any thing more than is absolutely necessary to their existence. +They might have any fruit here but gooseberries, for which the summer +is too hot; there are bushes in the woods, and some have been brought +from England, but the fruit falls off before it is ripe. The wild +fruits here, especially those of the bramble kind, are in much greater +variety and perfection than in England.</p> + +<p>When I speak of the natural productions of the country, I should not +forget that hemp and hops grow every where in the woods; I should +imagine the former might be cultivated here with great success, if the +people could be persuaded to cultivate any thing.</p> + +<p>A little corn of every kind, a little hay, a little tobacco, half a +dozen apple trees, a few onions and cabbages, make the whole of a +Canadian plantation. There is scarce a flower, except those in the +woods, where there is a variety of the most beautiful shrubs I ever +saw; the wild cherry, of which the woods are full, is equally charming +in flower and in fruit; and, in my opinion, at least equals the +arbutus.</p> + +<p>They sow their wheat in spring, never manure the ground, and plough +it in the slightest manner; can it then be wondered at that it is +inferior to ours? They fancy the frost would destroy it if sown in +autumn; but this is all prejudice, as experience has shewn. I myself +saw a field of wheat this year at the governor’s farm, which was +manured and sown in autumn, as fine as I ever saw in England.</p> + +<p>I should tell you, they are so indolent as never to manure their +lands, or even their gardens; and that, till the English came, all the +manure of Quebec was thrown into the river.</p> + +<p>You will judge how naturally rich the soil must be, to produce good +crops without manure, and without ever lying fallow, and almost without +ploughing; yet our political writers in England never speak of Canada +without the epithet of <i>barren</i>. They tell me this extreme +fertility is owing to the snow, which lies five or six months on the +ground. Provisions are dear, which is owing to the prodigious number of +horses kept here; every family having a carriage, even the poorest +peasant; and every son of that peasant keeping a horse for his little +excursions of pleasure, besides those necessary for the business of the +farm. The war also destroyed the breed of cattle, which I am told +however begins to encrease; they have even so far improved in corn, as +to export some this year to Italy and Spain.</p> + +<p>Don’t you think I am become an excellent farmeress? ’Tis intuition; +some people are born learned: are you not all astonishment at my +knowledge? I never was so vain of a letter in my life.</p> + +<p>Shall I own the truth? I had most of my intelligence from old John, +who lived long with my grandfather in the country; and who, having +little else to do here, has taken some pains to pick up a competent +knowledge of the state of agriculture five miles round Quebec.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I am tired of the subject.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your faithful,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> +<p class="addendum">Now I think of it, why did you not write to your brother? Did you +chuse me to expose my ignorance? If so, I flatter myself you are a +little taken in, for I think John and I figure in the rural way.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.023">LETTER <span class="origtext">XXIII.</span><span class="let-num">23.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Sept. 29, 10 o’clock.</div> + +<p>O to be sure! we are vastly to be pitied: no beaux at all with the +general; only about six to one; a very pretty proportion, and what I +hope always to see. We, the ladies I mean, drink chocolate with the +general to-morrow, and he gives us a ball on Thursday; you would not +know Quebec again; nothing but smiling faces now; all so gay as never +was, the sweetest country in the world; never expect to see me in +England again; one is really somebody here: I have been asked to dance +by only twenty-seven.</p> + +<p>On the subject of dancing, I am, as it were, a little <span class="origtext">embarrased:</span><span class="correction">embarrassed:</span> +you will please to observe that, in the time of scarcity, when all the +men were at Montreal, I suffered a foolish little captain to sigh and +say civil things to me, <i>pour passer le tems</i>, and the creature +takes the airs of a lover, to which he has not the least pretensions, +and chuses to be angry that I won’t dance with him on Thursday, and I +positively won’t.</p> + +<p>It is really pretty enough that every absurd animal, who takes upon +him to make love to one, is to fancy himself entitled to a return: I +have no patience with the men’s ridiculousness: have you, Lucy?</p> + +<p>But I see a ship coming down under full sail; it may be Emily and +her friends: the colours are all out, they slacken sail; they drop +anchor opposite the house; ’tis certainly them; I must fly to the +beach: music as I am a person, and an awning on the deck: the boat puts +off with your brother in it. Adieu for a moment: I must go and invite +them on shore.</p> + +<div class="dateline">2 o’clock.</div> + +<p>’Twas Emily and Mrs. Melmoth, with two or three very pretty French +women; your brother is a happy man: I found tea and coffee under the +awning, and a table loaded with Montreal fruit, which is vastly better +than ours; by the way, the colonel has <span class="origtext">bought</span><span class="errata">brought</span> me an immensity; he is +so gallant and all that: we regaled ourselves, and landed; they dine +here, and we dance in the evening; we are to have a syllabub in the +wood: my father has sent for Sir George and Major Melmoth, and half a +dozen of the most agreable men, from Quebec: he is enchanted with his +little Emily, he loved her when she was a child. I cannot tell you how +happy I am; my Emily is handsomer than ever; you know how partial I am +to beauty: I never had a friendship for an ugly woman in my life.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu! <i>ma tres chere</i>.<br></span> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + +<p>Your brother looks like an angel this morning; he is not drest, he +is not undrest, but somehow, easy, elegant and enchanting: he has no +powder, and his hair a little <i>degagée</i>, blown about by the wind, +and agreably disordered; such fire in his countenance; his eyes say a +thousand agreable things; he is in such spirits as I never saw him: +not a man of them has the least chance to-day. I shall be in love with +him if he goes on at this rate: not that it will be to any purpose in +the world; he never would even flirt with me, though I have made him a +thousand advances.</p> + +<p>My heart is so light, Lucy, I cannot describe it: I love Emily at my +soul: ’tis three years since I saw her, and there is something so +romantic in finding her in Canada: there is no saying how happy I am: I +want only you, to be perfectly so.</p> + +<div class="dateline">3 o’clock.</div> + +<p>The messenger is returned; Sir George is gone with a party of French +ladies to Lake Charles: Emily blushed when the message was delivered; +he might reasonably suppose they would be here to-day, as the wind was +fair: your brother dances with my sweet friend; she loses nothing by +the exchange; she is however a little piqued at this appearance of +disrespect.</p> + +<div class="dateline">12 o’clock.</div> + +<p>Sir George came just as we sat down to supper; he did right, he +complained first, and affected to be angry she had not sent an express +from <i>Point au Tremble</i>. He was however gayer than usual, and very +attentive to his mistress; your brother seemed chagrined at his +arrival; Emily perceived it, and redoubled her politeness to him, which +in a little time restored part of his good humor: upon the whole, it +was an agreable evening, but it would have been more so, if Sir George +had come at first, or not at all.</p> + +<p>The ladies lie here, and we go all together in the morning to +Quebec; the gentlemen are going.</p> + +<p>I steal a moment to seal, and give this to the colonel, who will put +it in his packet to-morrow.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.024">LETTER <span class="origtext">XXIV.</span><span class="let-num">24.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, Sept. 30.</div> + +<p>Would you believe it possible, my dear, that Sir George should +decline attending Emily Montague from Montreal, and leave the pleasing +commission to me? I am obliged to him for the three happiest days of my +life, yet am piqued at his chusing me for a <i>cecisbeo</i> to his +mistress: he seems to think me a man <i>sans consequence</i>, with whom +a lady may safely be trusted; there is nothing very flattering in such +a kind of confidence: let him take care of himself, if he is +impertinent, and sets me at defiance; I am not vain, but set our +fortunes aside, and I dare enter the lists with Sir George Clayton. I +cannot give her a coach and six; but I can give her, what is more +conducive to happiness, a heart which knows how to value her +perfections.</p> + +<p>I never had so pleasing a journey; we were three days coming down, +because we made it a continual party of pleasure, took music with us, +landed once or twice a day, visited the French families we knew, lay +both nights on shore, and danced at the seigneur’s of the village.</p> + +<p>This river, from Montreal to Quebec, exhibits a scene perhaps not to +be matched in the world: it is settled on both sides, though the +settlements are not so numerous on the south shore as on the other: the +lovely confusion of woods, mountains, meadows, corn fields, rivers (for +there are several on both sides, which lose themselves in the St. +Lawrence), intermixed with churches and houses breaking upon you at a +distance through the trees, form a variety of landscapes, to which it +is difficult to do justice.</p> + +<p>This charming scene, with a clear serene sky, a gentle breeze in our +favor, and the conversation of half a dozen fine women, would have made +the voyage pleasing to the most insensible man on earth: my Emily too +of the party, and most politely attentive to the pleasure she saw I had +in making the voyage agreable to her.</p> + +<p>I every day love her more; and, without considering the impropriety +of it, I cannot help giving way to an inclination, in which I find such +exquisite pleasure; I find a thousand charms in the least trifle I can +do to oblige her.</p> + +<p>Don’t reason with me on this subject: I know it is madness to +continue to see her; but I find a delight in her conversation, which I +cannot prevail on myself to give up till she is actually married.</p> + +<p>I respect her engagements, and pretend to no more from her than her +friendship; but, as to myself, will love her in whatever manner I +please: to shew you my prudence, however, I intend to dance with the +handsomest unmarried Frenchwoman here on Thursday, and to shew her an +attention which shall destroy all suspicion of my tenderness for Emily. +I am jealous of Sir George, and hate him; but I dissemble it better +than I thought it possible for me to do.</p> + +<p>My Lucy, I am not happy; my mind is in a state not to be described; +I am weak enough to encourage a hope for which there is not the least +foundation; I misconstrue her friendship for me every moment; and that +attention which is meerly gratitude for my apparent anxiety to oblige. +I even fancy her eyes understand mine, which I am afraid speak too +plainly the sentiments of my heart.</p> + +<p>I love her, my dear girl, to madness; these three days—</p> + +<p>I am interrupted. Adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> +<p class="addendum">’Tis Capt. Fermor, who insists on my dining at Silleri. They will +eternally throw me in the way of this lovely woman: of what materials +do they suppose me formed?</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.025">LETTER <span class="origtext">XXV.</span><span class="let-num">25.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Oct. 3, Twelve o’clock.</div> + +<p>An enchanting ball, my dear; your little friend’s head is turned. I +was more admired than Emily, which to be sure did not flatter my vanity +at all: I see she must content herself with being beloved, for without +coquetry ’tis in vain to expect admiration.</p> + +<p>We had more than three hundred persons at the ball; above three +fourths men; all gay and well dressed, an elegant supper; in short, +it was charming.</p> + +<p>I am half inclined to marry; I am not at all acquainted with the man +I have fixed upon, I never spoke to him till last night, nor did he +take the least notice of me, more than of other ladies, but that is +nothing; he pleases me better than any man I have seen here; he is not +handsome, but well made, and looks like a gentleman; he has a good +character, is heir to a very pretty estate. I will think further of it: +there is nothing more easy than to have him if I chuse it: ’tis only +saying to some of his friends, that I think Captain Fitzgerald the most +agreable fellow here, and he will immediately be astonished he did not +sooner find out I was the handsomest woman. I will consider this affair +seriously; one must marry, ’tis the mode; every body marries; why +don’t you marry, Lucy?</p> + +<p>This brother of yours is always here; I am surprized Sir George is +not jealous, for he pays no sort of attention to me, ’tis easy to see +why he comes; I dare say I shan’t see him next week: Emily is going to +Mrs. Melmoth’s, where she stays till to-morrow sevennight; she goes +from hence as soon as dinner is over.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I am fatigued; we danced till morning; I am but this moment +up.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + +<p>Your brother danced with Mademoiselle Clairaut; do you know I was +piqued he did not give me the preference, as Emily danced with her +lover? not but that I had perhaps a partner full as agreable, at least +I have a mind to think so.</p> + +<p>I hear it whispered that the whole affair of the wedding is to be +settled next week; my father is in the secret, I am not. Emily looks +ill this morning; she was not gay at the ball. I know not why, but she +is not happy. I have my fancies, but they are yet only fancies.</p> + +<p>Adieu! my dear girl; I can no more.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.026">LETTER <span class="origtext">XXVI.</span><span class="let-num">26.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, Oct. 6.</div> + +<p>I am going, my Lucy.—I know not well whither I am going, but I +will not stay to see this marriage. Could you have believed it +possible—But what folly! Did I not know her situation from the first? +Could I suppose she would break off an engagement of years, with a man +who gives so clear a proof that he prefers her to all other women, to +humor the frenzy of one who has never even told her he loved her?</p> + +<p>Captain Fermor assures me all is settled but the day, and that she +has promised to name that to-morrow.</p> + +<p>I will leave Quebec to-night; no one shall know the road I take: I +do not yet know it myself; I will cross over to Point Levi with my +valet de chambre, and go wherever chance directs me. I cannot bear even +to hear the day named. I am strongly inclined to write to her; but what +can I say? I should betray my tenderness in spite of myself, and her +compassion would perhaps disturb her approaching happiness: were it +even possible she should prefer me to Sir George, she is too far gone +to recede.</p> + +<p>My Lucy, I never till this moment felt to what an excess I loved +her.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I shall be about a fortnight absent: by that time she will be +embarked for England. I cannot bring myself to see her the wife of +another. Do not be alarmed for me; reason and the impossibility of +success will conquer my passion for this angelic woman; I have been to +blame in allowing myself to see her so often.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.027">LETTER <span class="origtext">XXVII.</span><span class="let-num">27.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Beaumont, Oct. 7.</div> + +<p>I think I breathe a freer air now I am out of Quebec. I cannot bear +wherever I go to meet this Sir George; his triumphant air is +insupportable; he has, or I fancy he has, all the insolence of a happy +rival; ’tis unjust, but I cannot avoid hating him; I look on him as a +man who has deprived me of a good to which I foolishly fancy I had +pretensions.</p> + +<p>My whole behaviour has been weak to the last degree: I shall grow +more reasonable when I no longer see this charming woman; I ought +sooner to have taken this step.</p> + +<p>I have found here an excuse for my excursion; I have heard of an +estate to be sold down the river; and am told the purchase will be +less expence than clearing any lands I might take up. I will go and see +it; it is an object, a pursuit, and will amuse me.</p> + +<p>I am going to send my servant back to Quebec; my manner of leaving +it must appear extraordinary to my friends; I have therefore made this +estate my excuse. I have written to Miss Fermor that I am going to make +a purchase; have begged my warmest wishes to her lovely friend, for +whose happiness no one on earth is more anxious; but have told her Sir +George is too much the object of my envy, to expect from me very +sincere congratulations.</p> + +<p>Adieu! my servant waits for this. You shall hear an account of my +adventures when I return to Quebec.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.028">LETTER <span class="origtext">XXVIII.</span><span class="let-num">28.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, Oct. 7, twelve o’clock.</div> + +<p>I must see you, my dear, this evening; my mind is in an agitation +not to be expressed; a few hours will determine my happiness or misery +for ever; I am displeased with your father for precipitating a +determination which cannot be made with too much caution.</p> + +<p>I have a thousand things to say to you, which I can say to no one +else.</p> + +<p>Be at home, and alone; I will come to you as soon as dinner is over.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i6">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.029">LETTER <span class="origtext">XXIX.</span><span class="let-num">29.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Montague, at Quebec.</div> + +<p>I will be at home, my dear, and denied to every body but you.</p> + +<p>I pity you, my dear Emily; but I am unable to give you advice.</p> + +<p>The world would wonder at your hesitating a moment.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.030">LETTER <span class="origtext">XXX.</span><span class="let-num">30.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, Oct. 7, three o’clock.</div> + +<p>My visit to you is prevented by an event beyond my hopes. Sir George +has this moment a letter from his mother, desiring him earnestly to +postpone his marriage till spring, for some reasons of consequence to +his fortune, with the particulars of which she will acquaint him by the +next packet.</p> + +<p>He communicated this intelligence to me with a grave air, but with a +tranquillity not to be described, and I received it with a joy I found +it impossible wholly to conceal.</p> + +<p>I have now time to consult both my heart and my reason at leisure, +and to break with him, if necessary, by degrees.</p> + +<p>What an escape have I had! I was within four and twenty hours of +either determining to marry a man with whom I fear I have little chance +to be happy, or of breaking with him in a manner that would have +subjected one or both of us to the censures of a prying impertinent +world, whose censures the most steady temper cannot always contemn.</p> + +<p>I will own to you, my dear, I every hour have more dread of this +marriage: his present situation has brought his faults into full light. +Captain Clayton, with little more than his commission, was modest, +humble, affable to his inferiors, polite to all the world; and I +fancied him possessed of those more active virtues, which I supposed +the smallness of his fortune prevented from appearing. ’Tis with pain I +see that Sir George, with a splendid income, is avaricious, selfish, +proud, vain, and profuse; lavish to every caprice of vanity and +ostentation which regards himself, coldly inattentive to the real +wants of others.</p> + +<p>Is this a character to make your Emily happy? We were not formed for +each other: no two minds were ever so different; my happiness is in +friendship, in the tender affections, in the sweets of dear domestic +life; his in the idle parade of affluence, in dress, in equipage, in +all that splendor, which, whilst it excites envy, is too often the mark +of wretchedness.</p> + +<p>Shall I say more? Marriage is seldom happy where there is a great +disproportion of fortune. The lover, after he loses that endearing +character in the husband, which in common minds I am afraid is not +long, begins to reflect how many more thousands he might have expected; +and perhaps suspects his mistress of those interested motives in +marrying, of which he now feels his own heart capable. Coldness, +suspicion, and mutual want of esteem and confidence, follow of course.</p> + +<p>I will come back with you to Silleri this evening; I have no +happiness but when I am with you. Mrs. Melmoth is so fond of Sir +George, she is eternally persecuting me with his praises; she is +extremely mortified at this delay, and very angry at the manner in +which I behave upon it.</p> + +<p>Come to us directly, my dear Bell, and rejoice with your faithful</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.031">LETTER <span class="origtext">XXXI.</span><span class="let-num">31.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Montague, at Quebec.</div> + +<p>I congratulate you, my dear; you will at least have the pleasure of +being five or six months longer your own mistress; which, in my +opinion, when one is not violently in love, is a consideration worth +attending to. You will also have time to see whether you like any body +else better; and you know you can take him if you please at last.</p> + +<p>Send him up to his regiment at Montreal with the Melmoths; stay the +winter with me, flirt with somebody else to try the strength of your +passion, and, if it holds out against six months absence, and the +attention of an agreable fellow, I think you may safely venture to +marry him.</p> + +<p><i>A propos</i> to flirting, have you seen Colonel Rivers? He has +not been here these two days. I shall begin to be jealous of this +little impertinent Mademoiselle Clairaut. Adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + +<p>Rivers is absurd. I have a mighty foolish letter from him; he is +rambling about the country, buying estates: he had better have been +here, playing the fool with us; if I knew how to write to him I would +tell him so, but he is got out of the range of human beings, down the +river, Heaven knows where; he says a thousand civil things to you, but +I will bring the letter with me to save the trouble of repeating them.</p> + +<p>I have a sort of an idea he won’t be very unhappy at this delay; I +want vastly to send him word of it.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! <i>ma chere</i>.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.032">LETTER <span class="origtext">XXXII.</span><span class="let-num">32.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Kamaraskas, Oct. 10.</div> + +<p>I am at present, my dear Lucy, in the wildest country on earth; I +mean of those which are inhabited at all: ’tis for several leagues +almost a continual forest, with only a few straggling houses on the +river side; ’tis however of not the least consequence to me, all places +are equal to me where Emily is not.</p> + +<p>I seek amusement, but without finding it: she is never one moment +from my thoughts; I am every hour on the point of returning to Quebec; +I cannot support the idea of her leaving the country without my seeing +her.</p> + +<p>’Tis a lady who has this estate to sell: I am at present at her +house; she is very amiable; a widow about thirty, with an agreable +person, great vivacity, an excellent understanding, improved by +reading, to which the absolute solitude of her situation has obliged +her; she has an open pleasing countenance, with a candor and sincerity +in her conversation which would please me, if my mind was in a state to +be pleased with any thing. Through all the attention and civility I +think myself obliged to shew her, she seems to perceive the melancholy +which I cannot shake off: she is always contriving some little party +for me, as if she knew how much I am in want of amusement.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Oct. 12.</div> + +<p>Madame Des Roches is very kind; she sees my chagrin, and takes every +method to divert it: she insists on my going in her shallop to see the +last settlement on the river, opposite the Isle of Barnaby; she does me +the honor to accompany me, with a gentleman and lady who live about a +mile from her.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Isle Barnaby, Oct. 13.</div> + +<p>I have been paying a very singular visit; ’tis to a hermit, who has +lived sixty years alone on this island; I came to him with a strong +prejudice against him; I have no opinion of those who fly society; who +seek a state of all others the most contrary to our nature. Were I a +tyrant, and wished to inflict the most cruel punishment human nature +could support, I would seclude criminals from the joys of society, and +deny them the endearing sight of their species.</p> + +<p>I am certain I could not exist a year alone: I am miserable even in +that degree of solitude to which one is confined in a ship; no words +can speak the joy which I felt when I came to America, on the first +appearance of something like the chearful haunts of men; the first man, +the first house, nay the first Indian fire of which I saw the smoke +rise above the trees, gave me the most lively transport that can be +conceived; I felt all the force of those ties which unite us to each +other, of that social love to which we owe all our happiness here.</p> + +<p>But to my hermit: his appearance disarmed my dislike; he is a tall +old man, with white hair and beard, the look of one who has known +better days, and the strongest marks of benevolence in his countenance. +He received me with the utmost hospitality, spread all his little +stores of fruit before me, fetched me fresh milk, and water from a +spring near his house.</p> + +<p>After a little conversation, I expressed my astonishment, that a man +of whose kindness and humanity I had just had such proof, could find +his happiness in flying mankind: I said a good deal on the subject, to +which he listened with the politest attention.</p> + +<p>“You appear,” said he, “of a temper to pity the miseries of others. +My story is short and simple: I loved the most amiable of women; I was +beloved. The avarice of our parents, who both had more gainful views +for us, prevented an union on which our happiness depended. My Louisa, +who was threatened with an immediate marriage with a man she detested, +proposed to me to fly the tyranny of our friends: she had an uncle at +Quebec, to whom she was dear. The wilds of Canada, said she, may afford +us that refuge our cruel country denies us. After a secret marriage, +we embarked. Our voyage was thus far happy; I landed on the opposite +shore, to seek refreshments for my Louisa; I was returning, pleased +with the thought of obliging the object of all my tenderness, when a +beginning storm drove me to seek shelter in this bay. The storm +encreased, I saw <span class="origtext">it’s</span><span class="correction">its</span> progress with agonies not to be described; the +ship, which was in sight, was unable to resist its fury; the sailors +crowded into the boat; they had the humanity to place my Louisa there; +they made for the spot where I was, my eyes were wildly fixed on them; +I stood eagerly on the utmost verge of the water, my arms stretched out +to receive her, my prayers ardently addressed to Heaven, when an +immense wave broke over the boat; I heard a general shriek; I even +fancied I distinguished my Louisa’s cries; it subsided, the sailors +again exerted all their force; a second wave—I saw them no more.</p> + +<p>“Never will that dreadful scene be absent one moment from my memory: +I fell senseless on the beach; when I returned to life, the first +object I beheld was the breathless body of my Louisa at my feet. Heaven +gave me the wretched consolation of rendering to her the last sad +duties. In that grave all my happiness lies buried. I knelt by her, and +breathed a vow to Heaven, to wait here the moment that should join me +to all I held dear. I every morning visit her loved remains, and +implore the God of mercy to hasten my dissolution. I feel that we shall +not long be separated; I shall soon meet her, to part no more.”</p> + +<p>He stopped, and, without seeming to remember he was not alone, +walked hastily towards a little oratory he has built on the beach, near +which is the grave of his Louisa; I followed him a few steps, I saw +him throw himself on his knees; and, respecting his sorrow, returned +to the house.</p> + +<p>Though I cannot absolutely approve, yet I more than forgive, I +almost admire, his renouncing the world in his situation. Devotion is +perhaps the only balm for the wounds given by unhappy love; the heart +is too much softened by true tenderness to admit any common cure.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Seven in the evening.</div> + +<p>I am returned to Madame Des Roches and her friends, who declined +visiting the hermit. I found in his conversation all which could have +adorned society; he was pleased with the sympathy I shewed for his +sufferings; we parted with regret. I wished to have made him a +present, but he will receive nothing.</p> + +<p>A ship for England is in sight. Madame Des Roches is so polite to +send off this letter; we return to her house in the morning.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i0">Adieu! my Lucy.<br></span> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.033">LETTER <span class="origtext">XXXIII.</span><span class="let-num">33.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, Oct. 12.</div> + +<p>I have no patience with this foolish brother of yours; he is +rambling about in the woods when we want him here: we have a most +agreeable assembly every Thursday at the General’s, and have had +another ball since he has been gone on this ridiculous ramble; I miss +the dear creature wherever I go. We have nothing but balls, cards, and +parties of pleasure; but they are nothing without my little Rivers.</p> + +<p>I have been making the tour of the three religions this morning, +and, as I am the most constant creature breathing; am come back only a +thousand times more pleased with my own. I have been at mass, at +church, and at the presbyterian meeting: an idea struck me at the last, +in regard to the drapery of them all; that the Romish religion is like +an over-dressed, tawdry, rich citizen’s wife; the presbyterian like a +rude aukward country girl; the church of England like an elegant +well-dressed woman of quality, “plain in her neatness” (to quote +Horace, who is my favorite author). There is a noble, graceful +simplicity both in the worship and the ceremonies of the church of +England, which, even if I were a stranger to her doctrines, would +prejudice me strongly in her favor.</p> + +<p>Sir George sets out for Montreal this evening, so do the house of +Melmoth; I have however prevailed on Emily to stay a month or two +longer with me. I am rejoiced Sir George is going away; I am tired of +seeing that eternal smile, that countenance of his, which attempts to +speak, and says nothing. I am in doubt whether I shall let Emily marry +him; she will die in a week, of no distemper but his conversation.</p> + +<p>They dine with us. I am called down. Adieu!</p> + +<div class="dateline">Eight at night.</div> + +<p>Heaven be praised, our lover is gone; they parted with great +philosophy on both sides: they are the prettiest mild pair of +inamoratoes one shall see.</p> + +<p>Your brother’s servant has just called to tell me he is going to his +master. I have a great mind to answer his letter, and order him back.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.034">LETTER <span class="origtext">XXXIV.</span><span class="let-num">34.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Oct. 12.</div> + +<p>I have been looking at the estate Madame Des Roches has to sell; it +is as wild as the lands to which I have a right; I hoped this would +have amused my chagrin, but am mistaken: nothing interests me, nothing +takes up my attention one moment: my mind admits but one idea. This +charming woman follows me wherever I go; I wander about like the first +man when driven out of paradise: I vainly fancy every change of place +will relieve the anxiety of my mind.</p> + +<p>Madame Des Roches smiles, and tells me I am in love; ’tis however a +smile of tenderness and compassion: your sex have great penetration in +whatever regards the heart.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Oct. 13.</div> + +<p>I have this moment a letter from Miss Fermor, to press my return to +Quebec; she tells me, Emily’s marriage is postponed till spring. My +Lucy! how weak is the human heart! In spite of myself, a ray of +hope—I set off this instant: I cannot conceal my joy.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.035">LETTER <span class="origtext">XXXV.</span><span class="let-num">35.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec.</div> +<div class="dateline">London, July 23.</div> + +<p>You have no idea, Ned, how much your absence is lamented by the +dowagers, to whom, it must be owned, your charity has been pretty +extensive.</p> + +<p>It would delight you to see them condoling with each other on the +loss of the dear charming man, the man of sentiment, of true taste, who +admires the maturer beauties, and thinks no woman worth pursuing till +turned of twenty-five: ’tis a loss not to be made up; for your taste, +it must be owned, is pretty singular.</p> + +<p>I have seen your last favorite, Lady H——, who assures me, on the +word of a woman of honour, that, had you staid seven years in London, +she does not think she should have had the least inclination to change: +but an absent lover, she well observed, is, properly speaking, no lover +at all. “Bid Colonel Rivers remember,” said she, “what I have read +somewhere, the parting words of a French lady to a bishop of her +acquaintance, Let your absence be short, my lord; and remember that a +mistress is a benefice which obliges to residence.”</p> + +<p>I am told, you had not been gone a week before Jack Willmott had the +honor of drying up the fair widow’s tears.</p> + +<p>I am going this evening to Vauxhall, and to-morrow propose setting +out for my house in Rutland, from whence you shall hear from me again.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I never write long letters in London. I should tell you, I +have been to see Mrs. Rivers and your sister; the former is well, but +very anxious to have you in England again; the latter grows so very +handsome, I don’t intend to repeat my visits often.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">J. Temple.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.036">LETTER <span class="origtext">XXXVI.</span><span class="let-num">36.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, Oct. 14.</div> + +<p>I am this moment arrived from a ramble down the river; but, a ship +being just going, must acknowledge your last.</p> + +<p>You make me happy in telling me my dear Lady H—— has given my place +in her heart to so honest a fellow as Jack Willmott; and I sincerely +wish the ladies always chose their favorites as well.</p> + +<p>I should be very unreasonable indeed to expect constancy at almost +four thousand miles distance, especially when the prospect of my return +is so very uncertain.</p> + +<p>My voyage ought undoubtedly to be considered as an abdication: I am +to all intents and purposes dead in law as a lover; and the lady has +a right to consider her heart as vacant, and to proceed to a new +election.</p> + +<p>I claim no more than a share in her esteem and remembrance, which I +dare say I shall never want.</p> + +<p>That I have amused myself a little in the dowager way, I am very far +from denying; but you will observe, it was less from taste than the +principle of doing as little mischief as possible in my few excursions +to the world of gallantry. A little deviation from the exact rule of +right we men all allow ourselves in love affairs; but I was willing to +keep as near it as I could. Married women are, on my principles, +forbidden fruit; I abhor the seduction of innocence; I am too +delicate, and (with all my modesty) too vain, to be pleased with venal +beauty: what was I then to do, with a heart too active to be absolutely +at rest, and which had not met with <span class="origtext">it’s</span><span class="correction">its</span> counterpart? Widows were, I +thought, fair prey, as being sufficiently experienced to take care of +themselves.</p> + +<p>I have said married women are, on my principles, forbidden fruit: I +should have explained myself; I mean in England, for my ideas on this +head change as soon as I land at Calais.</p> + +<p>Such is the amazing force of local prejudice, that I do not +recollect having ever made love to an English married woman, or a +French unmarried one. Marriages in France being made by the parents, +and therefore generally without inclination on either side, gallantry +seems to be a tacit condition, though not absolutely expressed in the +contract.</p> + +<p>But to return to my plan: I think it an excellent one; and would +recommend it to all those young men about town, who, like me, find in +their hearts the necessity of loving, before they meet with an object +capable of fixing them for life.</p> + +<p>By the way, I think the widows ought to raise a statue to my honor, +for having done my <i>possible</i> to prove that, for the sake of +decorum, morals, and order, they ought to have all the men to +themselves.</p> + +<p>I have this moment your letter from Rutland. Do you know I am almost +angry? Your ideas of love are narrow and pedantic; custom has done +enough to make the life of one half of our species tasteless; but you +would reduce them to a state of still greater insipidity than even that +to which our tyranny has doomed them.</p> + +<p>You would limit the pleasure of loving and being beloved, and the +charming power of pleasing, to three or four years only in the life of +that sex which is peculiarly formed to feel tenderness; women are born +with more lively affections than men, which are still more softened by +education; to deny them the privilege of being amiable, the only +privilege we allow them, as long as nature continues them so, is such a +mixture of cruelty and false taste as I should never have suspected you +of, notwithstanding your partiality for unripened beauty.</p> + +<p>As to myself, I persist in my opinion, that women are most charming +when they join the attractions of the mind to those of the person, when +they feel the passion they inspire; or rather, that they are never +charming till then.</p> + +<p>A woman in the first bloom of youth resembles a tree in blossom; +when mature, in fruit: but a woman who retains the charms of her person +till her understanding is in its full perfection, is like those trees +in happier climes, which produce blossoms and fruit together.</p> + +<p>You will scarce believe, Jack, that I have lived a week <i>tête à +tête</i>, in the midst of a wood, with just the woman I have been +describing; a widow extremely my taste, <i>mature</i>, five or six +years more so than you say I require, lively, sensible, handsome, +without saying one civil thing to her; yet nothing can be more certain.</p> + +<p>I could give you powerful reasons for my insensibility; but you are +a traitor to love, and therefore have no right to be in any of his +secrets.</p> + +<p>I will excuse your visits to my sister; as well as I love you +myself, I have a thousand reasons for chusing she should not be +acquainted with you.</p> + +<p>What you say in regard to my mother, gives me pain; I will never +take back my little gift to her; and I cannot live in England on my +present income, though it enables me to live <i>en prince</i> in +Canada.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I have not time to say more. I have stole this half hour from +the loveliest woman breathing, whom I am going to visit: surely you are +infinitely obliged to me. To lessen the obligation, however, my calash +is not yet come to the door.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu! once more.<br></span> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.037">LETTER <span class="origtext">XXXVII.</span><span class="let-num">37.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Oct. 15.</div> + +<p>Our wanderer is returned, my dear, and in such spirits as you can’t +conceive: he passed yesterday with us; he likes to have us to himself, +and he had yesterday; we walked <i>à trio</i> in the wood, and were +foolish; I have not passed so agreable a day since I came to Canada: I +love mightily to be foolish, and the people here have no taste that way +at all: your brother is divinely so upon occasion. The weather was, to +use the Canadian phrase, <i>superbe et magnifique</i>. We shall not, I +am told, have much more in the same <i>magnifique</i> style, so we +intend to make the most of it: I have ordered your brother to come and +walk with us from morning till night; every day and all the day.</p> + +<p>The dear man was amazingly overjoyed to see us again; we shared in +his joy, though my little Emily took some pains to appear tranquil on +the occasion: I never saw more pleasure in the countenances of two +people in my life, nor more pains taken to suppress it.</p> + +<p>Do you know Fitzgerald is really an agreable fellow? I have an +admirable natural instinct; I perceived he had understanding, from his +aquiline nose and his eagle eye, which are indexes I never knew fail. I +believe we are going to be great; I am not sure I shall not admit him +to make up a <i>partie quarrée</i> with your brother and Emily: I told +him my original plot upon him, and he was immensely pleased with it. I +almost fancy he can be foolish; in that case, my business is done: if +with his other merits he has that, I am a lost woman.</p> + +<p>He has excellent sense, great good nature, and the true princely +spirit of an Irishman: he will be ruined here, but that is his affair, +not mine. He changed quarters with an officer now at Montreal; and, +because the lodgings were to be furnished, thought himself obliged to +leave three months wine in the cellars.</p> + +<p>His person is pleasing; he has good eyes and teeth (the only +beauties I require), is marked with the small pox, which in men gives a +sensible look; very manly, and looks extremely like a gentleman.</p> + +<p>He comes, the conqueror comes.</p> + +<p>I see him plainly through the trees; he is now in full view, within +twenty yards of the house. He looks particularly well on horseback, +Lucy; which is one certain proof of a good education. The fellow is +well born, and has ideas of things: I think I shall admit him of my +train.</p> + +<p>Emily wonders I have never been in love: the cause is clear; I have +prevented any attachment to one man, by constantly flirting with +twenty: ’tis the most sovereign receipt in the world. I think too, my +dear, you have maintained a sort of running fight with the little +deity: our hour is not yet come. Adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.038">LETTER <span class="origtext">XXXVIII.</span><span class="let-num">38.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, Oct. 15, evening.</div> + +<p>I am returned, my dear, and have had the pleasure of hearing you and +my mother are well, though I have had no letters from either of you.</p> + +<p>Mr. Temple, my dearest Lucy, tells me he has visited you. Will you +pardon me a freedom which nothing but the most tender friendship can +warrant, when I tell you that I would wish you to be as little +acquainted with him as politeness allows? He is a most agreable man, +perhaps too agreable, with a thousand amiable qualities; he is the man +I love above all others; and, where women are not concerned, a man of +the most unblemished honor: but his manner of life is extremely +libertine, and his ideas of women unworthy the rest of his character; +he knows not the perfections which adorn the valuable part of your +sex, he is a stranger to your virtues, and incapable, at least I fear +so, of that tender affection which alone can make an amiable woman +happy. With all this, he is polite and attentive, and has a manner, +which, without intending it, is calculated to deceive women into an +opinion of his being attached when he is not: he has all the splendid +virtues which command esteem; is noble, generous, disinterested, open, +brave; and is the most dangerous man on earth to a woman of honor, who +is unacquainted with the arts of man.</p> + +<p>Do not however mistake me, my Lucy; I know him to be as incapable +of forming improper designs on you, even were you not the sister of his +friend, as you are of listening to him if he did: ’tis for your heart +alone I am alarmed; he is formed to please; you are young and +inexperienced, and have not yet loved; my anxiety for your peace makes +me dread your loving a man whose views are not turned to marriage, and +who is therefore incapable of returning properly the tenderness of a +woman of honor.</p> + +<p>I have seen my divine Emily: her manner of receiving me was very +flattering; I cannot doubt her friendship for me; yet I am not +absolutely content. I am however convinced, by the easy tranquillity of +her air, and her manner of bearing this delay of their marriage, that +she does not love the man for whom she is intended: she has been a +victim to the avarice of her friends. I would fain hope—yet what +have I to hope? If I had even the happiness to be agreable to her, if +she was disengaged from Sir George, my fortune makes it impossible for +me to marry her, without reducing her to indigence at home, or dooming +her to be an exile in Canada for life. I dare not ask myself what I +wish or intend: yet I give way in spite of me to the delight of seeing +and conversing with her.</p> + +<p>I must not look forward; I will only enjoy the present pleasure of +believing myself one of the first in her esteem and friendship, and of +shewing her all those little pleasing attentions so dear to a sensible +heart; attentions in which her <i>lover</i> is astonishingly remiss: he +is at Montreal, and I am told was gay and happy on his journey thither, +though he left his mistress behind.</p> + +<p>I have spent two very happy days at Silleri, with Emily and your +friend Bell Fermor: to-morrow I meet them at the governor’s, where +there is a very agreable assembly on Thursday evenings. Adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> +<p class="addendum">I shall write again by a ship which sails next week.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.039">LETTER <span class="origtext">XXXIX.</span><span class="let-num">39.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, Oct. 18.</div> + +<p>I have this moment a letter from Madame Des Roches, the lady at +whose house I spent a week, and to whom I am greatly obliged. I am so +happy as to have an opportunity of rendering her a service, in which I +must desire your assistance.</p> + +<p>’Tis in regard to some lands belonging to her, which, not being +settled, some other person has applied for a grant of at home. I send +you the particulars, and beg you will lose no time in entering a +<i>caveat</i>, and taking other proper steps to prevent what would be an +act of great injustice: the war and the incursions of the Indians in +alliance with us have hitherto prevented these lands from being +settled, but Madame Des Roches is actually in treaty with some Acadians +to settle them immediately. Employ all your friends as well as mine if +necessary; my lawyer will direct you in what manner to apply, and pay +the expences attending the application. Adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.040">LETTER <span class="origtext">XL.</span><span class="let-num">40.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Oct. 20.</div> + +<p>I danced last night till four o’clock in the morning (if you will +allow the expression), without being the least fatigued: the little +Fitzgerald was my partner, who grows upon me extremely; the monkey has +a way of being attentive and careless by turns, which has an amazing +effect; nothing attaches a woman of my temper so much to a lover as her +being a little in fear of losing him; and he keeps up the spirit of the +thing admirably.</p> + +<p>Your brother and Emily danced together, and I think I never saw +either of them look so handsome; she was a thousand times more admired +at this ball than the first, and reason good, for she was a thousand +times more agreable; your brother is really a charming fellow, he is +an immense favorite with the ladies; he has that very pleasing general +attention, which never fails to charm women; he can even be particular +to one, without wounding the vanity of the rest: if he was in company +with twenty, his mistress of the number, his manner would be such, that +every woman there would think herself the second in his esteem; and +that, if his heart had not been unluckily pre-engaged, she herself +should have been the object of his tenderness.</p> + +<p>His eyes are of immense use to him; he looks the civilest things +imaginable; his whole countenance speaks whatever he wishes to say; he +has the least occasion for words to explain himself of any man I ever +knew.</p> + +<p>Fitzgerald has eyes too, I assure you, and eyes that know how to +speak; he has a look of saucy unconcern and inattention, which is +really irresistible.</p> + +<p>We have had a great deal of snow already, but it melts away; ’tis a +lovely day, but an odd enough mixture of summer and winter; in some +places you see half a foot of snow lying, in others the dust is even +troublesome.</p> + +<p>Adieu! there are a dozen or two of beaux at the door.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.041">LETTER <span class="origtext">XLI.</span><span class="let-num">41.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Nov. 10.</div> + +<p>The savages assure us, my dear, on the information of the beavers, +that we shall have a very mild winter: it seems, these creatures have +laid in a less winter stock than usual. I take it very ill, Lucy, that +the beavers have better intelligence than we have.</p> + +<p>We are got into a pretty composed easy way; Sir George writes very +agreable, sensible, sentimental, gossiping letters, once a fortnight, +which Emily answers in due course, with all the regularity of a +counting-house correspondence; he talks of coming down after Christmas: +we expect him without impatience; and in the mean time amuse ourselves +as well as we can, and soften the pain of absence by the attention of +a man that I fancy we like quite as well.</p> + +<p>With submission to the beavers, the weather is very cold, and we +have had a great deal of snow already; but they tell me ’tis nothing to +what we shall have: they are taking precautions which make me shudder +beforehand, pasting up the windows, and not leaving an avenue where +cold can enter.</p> + +<p>I like the winter carriages immensely; the open carriole is a kind +of one-horse chaise, the covered one a chariot, set on a sledge to run +on the ice; we have not yet had snow enough to use them, but I like +their appearance prodigiously; the covered carrioles seem the prettiest +things in nature to make love in, as there are curtains to draw before +the windows: we shall have three in effect, my father’s, Rivers’s, and +Fitzgerald’s; the two latter are to be elegance itself, and entirely +for the service of the ladies: your brother and Fitzgerald are trying +who shall be ruined first for the honor of their country. I will bet +three to one upon Ireland. They are every day contriving parties of +pleasure, and making the most gallant little presents imaginable to the +ladies.</p> + +<p>Adieu! my dear.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.042">LETTER <span class="origtext">XLII.</span><span class="let-num">42.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, Nov. 14.</div> + +<p>I shall not, my dear, have above one more opportunity of writing to +you by the ships; after which we can only write by the packet once a +month.</p> + +<p>My Emily is every day more lovely; I see her often, and every hour +discover new charms in her; she has an exalted understanding, improved +by all the knowledge which is becoming in your sex; a soul awake to all +the finer sensations of the heart, checked and adorned by the native +<span class="origtext">loveliness</span><span class="errata">gentleness</span> of woman: she is extremely handsome, but she would please +every feeling heart if she was not; she has the soul of beauty: without +feminine softness and delicate sensibility, no features can give +loveliness; with them, very indifferent ones can charm: that +sensibility, that softness, never were so lovely as in my Emily. I can +write on no other subject. Were you to see her, my Lucy, you would +forgive me. My letter is called for. Adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> +<p class="addendum">Your friend Miss Fermor will write you every thing.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.043">LETTER <span class="origtext">XLIII.</span><span class="let-num">43.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Montague, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline"><span class="origtext">Monreal,</span><span class="correction">Montreal,</span> Nov. 14.</div> + +<p>Mr. Melmoth and I, my dear Emily, expected by this time to have seen +you at Montreal. I allow something to your friendship for Miss Fermor; +but there is also something due to relations who tenderly love you, and +under whose protection your uncle left you at his death.</p> + +<p>I should add, that there is something due to Sir George, had I not +already displeased you by what I have said on the subject.</p> + +<p>You are not to be told, that in a week the road from hence to Quebec +will be impassable for at least a month, till the rivers are +sufficiently froze to bear carriages.</p> + +<p>I will own to you, that I am a little jealous of your attachment to +Miss Fermor, though no one can think her more amiable than I do.</p> + +<p>If you do not come this week, I would wish you to stay till Sir +George comes down, and return with him; I will entreat the favor of +Miss Fermor to accompany you to Montreal, which we will endeavour to +make as agreable to her as we can.</p> + +<p>I have been ill of a slight fever, but am now perfectly recovered. +Sir George and Mr. Melmoth are well, and very impatient to see you +here.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu! my dear.<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">E. Melmoth.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.044">LETTER <span class="origtext">XLIV.</span><span class="let-num">44.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Melmoth, at Montreal.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Nov. 20.</div> + +<p>I have a thousand reasons, my dearest Madam, for intreating you to +excuse my staying some time longer at Quebec. I have the sincerest +esteem for Sir George, and am not insensible of the force of our +engagements; but do not think his being there a reason for my coming: +the kind of suspended state, to say no more, in which those engagements +now are, call for a delicacy in my behaviour to him, which is so +difficult to observe without the appearance of affectation, that his +absence relieves me <span class="origtext">for</span><span class="correction">from</span> a very painful kind of restraint: for the same +reason, ’tis impossible for me to come up at the time he does, if I do +come, even though Miss Fermor should accompany me.</p> + +<p>A moment’s reflexion will convince you of the propriety of my +staying here till his mother does me the honor again to approve his +choice; or till our engagement is publicly known to be at an end. Mrs. +Clayton is a prudent mother, and a woman of the world, and may consider +that Sir George’s situation is changed since she consented to his +marriage.</p> + +<p>I am not capricious; but I will own to you, that my esteem for Sir +George is much lessened by his behaviour since his last return from +New-York: he mistakes me extremely, if he supposes he has the least +additional merit in my eyes from his late acquisition of fortune: on +the contrary, I now see faults in him which were concealed by the +mediocrity of his situation before, and which do not promise happiness +to a heart like mine, a heart which has little taste for the false +glitter of life, and the most lively one possible for the calm real +delights of friendship, and domestic felicity.</p> + +<p>Accept my sincerest congratulations on your return of health; and +believe me,</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i0">My dearest Madam,<br></span> +<span class="i2">Your obliged and affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.045">LETTER <span class="origtext">XLV.</span><span class="let-num">45.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Nov. 23.</div> + +<p>I have been seeing the last ship go out of the port, Lucy; you have +no notion what a melancholy sight it is: we are now left to ourselves, +and shut up from all the world for the winter: somehow we seem so +forsaken, so cut off from the rest of human kind, I cannot bear the +idea: I sent a thousand sighs and a thousand tender wishes to dear +England, which I never loved so much as at this moment.</p> + +<p>Do you know, my dear, I could cry if I was not ashamed? I shall not +absolutely be in spirits again this week.</p> + +<p>’Tis the first time I have felt any thing like bad spirits in +Canada: I followed the ship with my eyes till it turned Point Levi, +and, when I lost sight of it, felt as if I had lost every thing dear to +me on earth. I am not particular: I see a gloom on every countenance; I +have been at church, and think I never saw so many dejected faces in my +life.</p> + +<p>Adieu! for the present: it will be a fortnight before I can send +this letter; another agreable circumstance that: would to Heaven I +were in England, though I changed the bright sun of Canada for a fog!</p> + +<div class="dateline">Dec. 1.</div> + +<p>We have had a week’s snow without intermission: happily for us, your +brother and the Fitz have been weather-bound all the time at Silleri, +and cannot possibly get away.</p> + +<p>We have amused ourselves within doors, for there is no stirring +abroad, with playing at cards, playing at shuttlecock, playing the +fool, making love, and making moral reflexions: upon the whole, the +week has not been very disagreable.</p> + +<p>The snow is when we wake constantly up to our chamber windows; we +are literally dug out of it every morning.</p> + +<p>As to Quebec, I give up all hopes of ever seeing it again: but my +comfort is, that the people there cannot possibly get to their +neighbors; and I flatter myself very few of them have been half so well +entertained at home.</p> + +<p>We shall be abused, I know, for (what is really the fault of the +weather) keeping these two creatures here this week; the ladies hate us +for engrossing two such fine fellows as your brother and Fitzgerald, as +well as for having vastly more than our share of all the men: we +generally go out attended by at least a dozen, without any other woman +but a lively old French lady, who is a flirt of my father’s, and will +certainly be my mamma.</p> + +<p>We sweep into the general’s assembly on Thursdays with such a train +of beaux as draws every eye upon us: the rest of the fellows crowd +round us; the misses draw up, blush, and flutter their fans; and your +little Bell sits down with such a saucy impertinent consciousness in +her countenance as is really provoking: Emily on the contrary looks +mild and humble, and seems by her civil decent air to apologize to them +for being so much more agreable than themselves, which is a fault I for +my part am not in the least inclined to be ashamed of.</p> + +<p>Your idea of Quebec, my dear, is perfectly just; it is like a third +or fourth rate country town in England; much hospitality, little +society; cards, scandal, dancing, and good chear; all excellent things +to pass away a winter evening, and peculiarly adapted to what I am +told, and what I begin to feel, of the severity of this climate.</p> + +<p>I am told they abuse me, which I can easily believe, because my +impertinence to them deserves it: but what care I, you know, Lucy, so +long as I please myself, and am at Silleri out of the sound?</p> + +<p>They are squabbling at Quebec, I hear, about I cannot tell what, +therefore shall not attempt to explain: some dregs of old disputes, it +seems, which have had not time to settle: however, we new comers have +certainly nothing to do with these matters: you can’t think how +comfortable we feel at Silleri, out of the way.</p> + +<p>My father says, the politics of Canada are as complex and as +difficult to be understood as those of the Germanic system.</p> + +<p>For my part, I think no politics worth attending to but those of the +little commonwealth of woman: if I can maintain my empire over hearts, +I leave the men to quarrel for every thing else.</p> + +<p>I observe a strict neutrality, that I may have a chance for admirers +amongst both parties. Adieu! the post is just going out.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.046">LETTER <span class="origtext">XLVI.</span><span class="let-num">46.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Montague, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline">Montreal, Dec. 18.</div> + +<p>There is something, my dear Emily, in what you say as to the +delicacy of your situation; but, whilst you are so very exact in acting +up to it on one side, do you not a little overlook it on the other?</p> + +<p>I am extremely unwilling to say a disagreable thing to you, but Miss +Fermor is too young as well as too gay to be a protection—the very +particular circumstance you mention makes Mr. Melmoth’s the only house +in Canada in which, if I have any judgment, you can with propriety live +till your marriage takes place.</p> + +<p>You extremely injure Sir George in supposing it possible he should +fail in his engagements: and I see with pain that you are more +quicksighted to his failings than is quite consistent with that +tenderness, which (allow me to say) he has a right to expect from you. +He is like other men of his age and fortune; he is the very man you so +lately thought amiable, and of whose love you cannot without injustice +have a doubt.</p> + +<p>Though I approve your contempt of the false glitter of the world, +yet I think it a little strained at your time of life: did I not know +you as well as I do, I should say that philosophy in a young and +especially a female mind, is so out of season, as to be extremely +suspicious. The pleasures which attend on affluence are too great, and +too pleasing to youth, to be overlooked, except when under the +influence of a livelier passion.</p> + +<p>Take care, my Emily; I know the goodness of your heart, but I also +know <span class="origtext">it’s</span><span class="correction">its</span> sensibility; remember that, if your situation requires great +circumspection in your behaviour to Sir George, it requires much +greater to every other person: it is even more delicate than marriage +itself.</p> + +<p>I shall expect you and Miss Fermor as soon as the roads are such +that you can travel agreably; and, as you object to Sir George as a +conductor, I will entreat Captain Fermor to accompany you hither.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">I am, my dear,<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your most affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">E. Melmoth.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.047">LETTER <span class="origtext">XLVII.</span><span class="let-num">47.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Melmoth, at Montreal.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Dec. 26.</div> + +<p>I entreat you, my dearest Madam, to do me the justice to believe I +see my engagement to Sir George in as strong a light as you can do; if +there is any change in my behaviour to him, it is owing to the very +apparent one in his conduct to me, of which no one but myself can be a +judge. As to what you say in regard to my contempt of affluence, I can +only say it is in my character, whether it is generally in the female +one or not.</p> + +<p>Were the cruel hint you are pleased to give just, be assured Sir +George should be the first person to whom I would declare it. I hope +however it is possible to esteem merit without offending even the most +sacred of all engagements.</p> + +<p>A gentleman waits for this. I have only time to say, that Miss +Fermor thanks you for your obliging invitation, and promises she will +accompany me to Montreal as soon as the river St. Lawrence will bear +carriages, as the upper road is extremely inconvenient.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i0">I am,<br></span> +<span class="i2">My dearest Madam,<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your obliged<br></span> +<span class="i6">and faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.048">LETTER <span class="origtext">XLVIII.</span><span class="let-num">48.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Dec. 27.</div> + +<p>After a fortnight’s snow, we have had near as much clear blue sky +and sunshine: the snow is six feet deep, so that we may be said to walk +on our own heads; that is, speaking <i>en philosophe</i>, we occupy the +space we should have done in summer if we had done so; or, to explain +it more clearly, our heels are now where our heads should be.</p> + +<p>The scene is a little changed for the worse: the lovely landscape is +now one undistinguished waste of snow, only a little diversified by the +great variety of ever-greens in the woods: the romantic winding path +down the side of the hill to our farm, on which we used to amuse +ourselves with seeing the beaux serpentize, is now a confused, +frightful, rugged precipice, which one trembles at the idea of +ascending.</p> + +<p>There is something exceedingly agreable in the whirl of the +carrioles, which fly along at the rate of twenty miles an hour; and +really hurry one out of one’s senses.</p> + +<p>Our little coterie is the object of great envy; we live just as we +like, without thinking of other people, which I am not sure <i>here</i> +is prudent, but it is pleasant, which is a better thing.</p> + +<p>Emily, who is the civilest creature breathing, is for giving up her +own pleasure to avoid offending others, and wants me, every time we +make a carrioling-party, to invite all the misses of Quebec to go with +us, because they seem angry at our being happy without them: but for +that very reason I persist in my own way, and consider wisely, that, +though civility is due to other people, yet there is also some civility +due to one’s self.</p> + +<p>I agree to visit every body, but think it mighty absurd I must not +take a ride without asking a hundred people I scarce know to go with +me: yet this is the style here; they will neither be happy themselves, +nor let any body else. Adieu!</p> + +<div class="dateline">Dec. 29.</div> + +<p>I will never take a beaver’s word again as long as I live: there is +no supporting this cold; the Canadians say it is seventeen years since +there has been so severe a season. I thought beavers had been people +of more honor.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I can no more: the ink freezes as I take it from the standish +to the paper, though close to a large stove. Don’t expect me to write +again till May; one’s faculties are absolutely congealed this weather.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.049">LETTER <span class="origtext">XLIX.</span><span class="let-num">49.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Jan. 1.</div> + +<p>It is with difficulty I breathe, my dear; the cold is so amazingly +intense as almost totally to stop respiration. I have business, the +business of pleasure, at Quebec; but have not courage to stir from the +stove.</p> + +<p>We have had five days, the severity of which none of the natives +remember to have ever seen equaled: ’tis said, the cold is beyond all +the thermometers here, tho’ intended for the climate.</p> + +<p>The strongest wine freezes in a room which has a stove in it; even +brandy is thickened to the consistence of oil: the largest wood fire, +in a wide chimney, does not throw out <span class="origtext">it’s</span><span class="correction">its</span> heat a quarter of a yard.</p> + +<p>I must venture to Quebec to-morrow, or have company at home: +amusements are here necessary to life; we must be jovial, or the blood +will freeze in our veins.</p> + +<p class="preverse">I no longer wonder the elegant arts are unknown here; the rigour of +the climate suspends the very powers of the understanding; what then +must become of those of the imagination? Those who expect to see</p> +<div class="verse"> + “A new Athens rising near the pole,”</div> +<p class="postverse">will find themselves extremely disappointed. Genius will never +mount high, where the faculties of the mind are benumbed half the year.</p> + +<p>’Tis sufficient employment for the most lively spirit here to +contrive how to preserve an existence, of which there are moments that +one is hardly conscious: the cold really sometimes brings on a sort of +stupefaction.</p> + +<p>We had a million of beaux here yesterday, notwithstanding the severe +cold: ’tis the Canadian custom, calculated I suppose for the climate, +to visit all the ladies on New-year’s-day, who sit dressed in form to +be kissed: I assure you, however, our kisses could not warm them; but +we were obliged, to our eternal disgrace, to call in rasberry brandy as +an auxiliary.</p> + +<p>You would have died to see the men; they look just like so many +bears in their open carrioles, all wrapped in furs from head to foot; +you see nothing of the human form appear, but the tip of a nose.</p> + +<p>They have intire coats of beaver skin, exactly like Friday’s in +Robinson Crusoe, and casques on their heads like the old knights errant +in romance; you never saw such tremendous figures; but without this +kind of cloathing it would be impossible to stir out at present.</p> + +<p>The ladies are equally covered up, tho’ in a less unbecoming style; +they have long cloth cloaks with loose hoods, like those worn by the +market-women in the north of England. I have one in scarlet, the hood +lined with sable, the prettiest ever seen here, in which I assure you I +look amazingly handsome; the men think so, and call me the <i>Little +red riding-hood</i>; a name which becomes me as well as the hood.</p> + +<p>The Canadian ladies wear these cloaks in India silk in summer, +which, fluttering in the wind, look really graceful on a fine woman.</p> + +<p>Besides our riding-hoods, when we go out, we have a large buffaloe’s +skin under our feet, which turns up, and wraps round us almost to our +shoulders; so that, upon the whole, we are pretty well guarded from the +weather as well as the men.</p> + +<p>Our covered carrioles too have not only canvas windows (we dare not +have glass, because we often overturn), but cloth curtains to draw all +round us; the extreme swiftness of these carriages also, which dart +along like lightening, helps to keep one warm, by promoting the +circulation of the blood.</p> + +<p>I pity the Fitz; no tiger was ever so hard-hearted as I am this +weather: the little god has taken his flight, like the swallows. I say +nothing, but cruelty is no virtue in Canada; at least at this season.</p> + +<p>I suppose Pygmalion’s statue was some frozen Canadian gentlewoman, +and a sudden warm day thawed her. I love to expound ancient fables, and +I think no exposition can be more natural than this.</p> + +<p>Would you know what makes me chatter so this morning? Papa has made +me take some excellent <i>liqueur</i>; ’tis the mode here; all the +Canadian ladies take a little, which makes them so coquet and agreable. +Certainly brandy makes a woman talk like an angel. Adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.050">LETTER <span class="origtext">L.</span><span class="let-num">50.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Jan. 4.</div> + +<p>I don’t quite agree with you, my dear; your brother does not appear +to me to have the least scruple of that foolish false modesty which +stands in a man’s way.</p> + +<p>He is extremely what the French call <i>awakened</i>; he is modest, +certainly; that is, he is not a coxcomb, but he has all that proper +self-confidence which is necessary to set his agreable qualities in +full light: nothing can be a stronger proof of this, than that, +wherever he is, he always takes your attention in a moment, and this +without seeming to solicit it.</p> + +<p>I am very fond of him, though he never makes love to me, in which +circumstance he is very singular: our friendship is quite platonic, at +least on his side, for I am not quite so sure on the other. I remember +one day in summer we were walking <i>tête à tête</i> in the road to +Cape Rouge, when he wanted me to strike into a very beautiful thicket: +“Positively, Rivers,” said I, “I will not venture with you into that +wood.” “Are you afraid of <i>me</i>, Bell?” “No, but extremely of +<i>myself</i>.”</p> + +<p>I have loved him ever since a little scene that passed here three or +four months ago: a very affecting story, of a distressed family in our +neighbourhood, was told him and Sir George; the latter preserved all +the philosophic dignity and manly composure of his countenance, very +coldly expressed his concern, and called another subject: your brother +changed color, his eyes glistened; he took the first opportunity to +leave the room, he sought these poor people, he found, he relieved +them; which we discovered by accident a month after.</p> + +<p>The weather, tho’ cold beyond all that you in England can form an +idea of, is yet mild to what it has been the last five or six days; we +are going to Quebec, to church.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Two o’clock.</div> + +<p>Emily and I have been talking religion all the way home: we are both +mighty good girls, as girls go in these degenerate days; our +grandmothers to be sure—but it’s folly to look back.</p> + +<p>We have been saying, Lucy, that ’tis the strangest thing in the +world people should quarrel about religion, since we undoubtedly all +mean the same thing; all good minds in every religion aim at pleasing +the Supreme Being; the means we take differ according to the country +where we are born, and the prejudices we imbibe from education; a +consideration which ought to inspire us with kindness and indulgence to +each other.</p> + +<p class="preverse">If we examine each other’s sentiments with candor, we shall find +much less difference in essentials than we imagine;</p> +<div class="verse"> + “Since all agree to own, at least to mean,<br> + One great, one good, one general Lord of all.”</div> +<p class="postverse">There is, I think, a very pretty Sunday reflexion for you, Lucy.</p> + +<p>You must know, I am extremely religious; and for this amongst other +reasons, that I think infidelity a vice peculiarly contrary to the +native softness of woman: it is bold, daring, masculine; and I should +almost doubt the sex of an unbeliever in petticoats.</p> + +<p>Women are religious as they are virtuous, less from principles +founded on reasoning and argument, than from elegance of mind, delicacy +of moral taste, and a certain quick perception of the beautiful and +becoming in every thing.</p> + +<p>This instinct, however, for such it is, is worth all the tedious +reasonings of the men; which is a point I flatter myself you will not +dispute with me.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Monday, Jan. 5.</div> + +<p>This is the first day I have ventured in an open carriole; we have +been running a race on the snow, your brother and I against Emily and +Fitzgerald: we conquered from Fitzgerald’s complaisance to Emily. I +shall like it mightily, well wrapt up: I set off with a crape over my +face to keep off the cold, but in three minutes it was a cake of solid +ice, from my breath which froze upon it; yet this is called a mild day, +and the sun shines in all his glory.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Thursday, Jan. 8, midnight.</div> + +<p>We are just come from the general’s assembly; much company, and we +danced till this minute; for I believe we have not been more coming +these four miles.</p> + +<p>Fitzgerald is the very pink of courtesy; he never uses his covered +carriole himself, but devotes it intirely to the ladies; it stands at +the general’s door in waiting on Thursdays: if any lady comes out +before her carriole arrives, the servants call out mechanically, +“Captain Fitzgerald’s carriole here, for a lady.” The Colonel is +equally gallant, but I generally lay an embargo on his: they have each +of them an extreme pretty one for themselves, or to drive a fair lady a +morning’s airing, when she will allow them the honor, and the weather +is mild enough to permit it.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2"><i>Bon soir!</i> I am sleepy.<br></span> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.051">LETTER <span class="origtext">LI.</span><span class="let-num">51.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, Jan. 9.</div> + +<p>You mistake me extremely, Jack, as you generally do: I have by no +means forsworn marriage: on the contrary, though happiness is not so +often found there as I wish it was, yet I am convinced it is to be +found no where else; and, poor as I am, I should not hesitate about +trying the experiment myself to-morrow, if I could meet with a woman +to my taste, unappropriated, whose ideas of the state agreed with mine, +which I allow are something out of the common road: but I must be +certain those ideas are her own, therefore they must arise +spontaneously, and not in complaisance to mine; for which reason, if I +could, I would endeavour to lead my mistress into the subject, and know +her sentiments on the manner of living in that state before I +discovered my own.</p> + +<p>I must also be well convinced of her tenderness before I make a +declaration of mine: she must not distinguish me because I flatter her, +but because she thinks I have merit; those fancied passions, where +gratified vanity assumes the form of love, will not satisfy my heart: +the eyes, the air, the voice of the woman I love, a thousand little +indiscretions dear to the heart, must convince me I am beloved, before +I confess I love.</p> + +<p>Though sensible of the advantages of fortune, I can be happy without +it: if I should ever be rich enough to live in the world, no one will +enjoy it with greater gust; if not, I can with great spirit, provided I +find such a companion as I wish, retire from it to love, content, and a +cottage: by which I mean to the life of a little country gentleman.</p> + +<p>You ask me my opinion of the winter here. If you can bear a degree +of cold, of which Europeans can form no idea, it is far from being +unpleasant; we have settled frost, and an eternal blue sky. Travelling +in this country in winter is particularly agreable: the carriages are +easy, and go on the ice with an amazing velocity, though drawn only by +one horse.</p> + +<p>The continual plain of snow would be extremely fatiguing both to the +eye and imagination, were not both relieved, not only by the woods in +prospect, but by the tall branches of pines with which the road is +marked out on each side, and which form a verdant avenue agreably +contrasted with the dazzling whiteness of the snow, on which, when the +sun shines, it is almost impossible to look steadily even for a moment.</p> + +<p>Were it not for this method of marking out the roads, it would be +impossible to find the way from one village to another.</p> + +<p>The eternal sameness however of this avenue is tiresome when you go +far in one road.</p> + +<p>I have passed the last two months in the most agreable manner +possible, in a little society of persons I extremely love: I feel +myself so attached to this little circle of friends, that I have no +pleasure in any other company, and think all the time absolutely lost +that politeness forces me to spend any where else. I extremely dread +our party’s being dissolved, and wish the winter to last for ever, for +I am afraid the spring will divide us.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu! and believe me,<br></span> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.052">LETTER <span class="origtext">LII.</span><span class="let-num">52.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Jan. 9.</div> + +<p>I begin not to disrelish the winter here; now I am used to the cold, +I don’t feel it so much: as there is no business done here in the +winter, ’tis the season of general dissipation; amusement is the study +of every body, and the pains people take to please themselves +contribute to the general pleasure: upon the whole, I am not sure it is +not a pleasanter winter than that of England.</p> + +<p>Both our houses and our carriages are uncommonly warm; the clear +serene sky, the dry pure air, the little parties of dancing and cards, +the good tables we all keep, the driving about on the ice, the +abundance of people we see there, for every body has a carriole, the +variety of objects new to an European, keep the spirits in a continual +agreable hurry, that is difficult to describe, but very pleasant to +feel.</p> + +<p>Sir George (would you believe it?) has written Emily a very warm +letter; tender, sentimental, and almost impatient; Mrs. Melmoth’s +dictating, I will answer for it; not at all in his own composed +agreable style. He talks of coming down in a few days: I have a strong +notion he is coming, after his long tedious two years siege, to +endeavor to take us by storm at last; he certainly prepares for a +<i>coup de main</i>. He is right, all women hate a regular attack.</p> + +<p>Adieu for the present.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Monday, Jan. 12.</div> + +<p>We sup at your brother’s to-night, with all the <i>beau monde</i> of +Quebec: we shall be superbly entertained, I know. I am malicious enough +to wish Sir George may arrive during the entertainment, because I have +an idea it will mortify him; though I scarce know why I think so. +Adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.053">LETTER <span class="origtext">LIII.</span><span class="let-num">53.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Jan. 13, Eleven o’clock.</div> + +<p>We passed a most agreable evening with your brother, though a large +company, which is seldom the case: a most admirable supper, excellent +wine, an elegant <span class="origtext">desert</span><span class="correction">dessert</span> of preserved fruits, and every body in spirits +and good humor.</p> + +<p>The Colonel was the soul of our entertainment: amongst his other +virtues, he has the companionable and convivial ones to an immense +degree, which I never had an opportunity of discovering so clearly +before. He seemed charmed beyond words to see us all so happy: we staid +till four o’clock in the morning, yet all complained to-day we came +away too soon.</p> + +<p>I need not tell you we had fiddles, for there is no entertainment in +Canada without them: never was such a race of dancers.</p> + +<div class="dateline">One o’clock.</div> +<p class="preverse">The dear man is come, and with an equipage which puts the Empress of +Russia’s tranieau to shame. America never beheld any thing so +brilliant:</p> +<div class="verse"> + “All other carrioles, at sight of this,<br> + Hide their diminish’d heads.”</div> +<p class="postverse">Your brother’s and Fitzgerald’s will never dare to appear now; they +sink into nothing.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Seven in the evening.</div> + +<p>Emily has been in tears in her chamber; ’tis a letter of Mrs. +Melmoth’s which has had this agreable effect; some wise advice, I +suppose. Lord! how I hate people that give advice! don’t you, Lucy?</p> + +<p>I don’t like this lover’s coming; he is almost as bad as a husband: +I am afraid he will derange our little coterie; and we have been so +happy, I can’t bear it.</p> + +<p>Good night, my dear.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.054">LETTER <span class="origtext">LIV.</span><span class="let-num">54.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Jan. 14.</div> + +<p>We have passed a mighty stupid day; Sir George is civil, attentive, +and dull; Emily pensive, thoughtful, and silent; and my little self as +peevish as an old maid: nobody comes near us, not even your brother, +because we are supposed to be settling preliminaries; for you must +know Sir George has graciously condescended to change his mind, and +will marry her, if she pleases, without waiting for his mother’s +letter, which resolution he has communicated to twenty people at Quebec +in his way hither; he is really extremely obliging. I suppose the +Melmoths have spirited him up to this.</p> + +<div class="dateline">One o’clock.</div> + +<p>Emily is strangely reserved to me; she avoids seeing me alone, and +when it happens talks of the weather; papa is however in her +confidence: he is as strong an advocate for this milky baronet as Mrs. +Melmoth.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Ten at night.</div> + +<p>All is over, Lucy; that is to say, all is fixed: they are to be +married on Monday next at the Recollects church, and to set off +immediately for Montreal: my father has been telling me the whole plan +of operations: we go up with them, stay a fortnight, then all come +down, and show away till summer, when the happy pair embark in the +first ship for England.</p> + +<p>Emily is really what one would call a prudent pretty sort of woman, +I did not think it had been in her: she is certainly right, there is +danger in delay; she has a thousand proverbs on her side; I thought +what all her fine sentiments would come to; she should at least have +waited for mamma’s consent; this hurry is not quite consistent with +that extreme delicacy on which she piques herself; it looks exceedingly +as if she was afraid of losing him.</p> + +<p>I don’t love her half so well as I did three days ago; I hate +discreet young ladies that marry and settle; give me an agreable fellow +and a knapsack.</p> + +<p>My poor Rivers! what will become of him when we are gone? he has +neglected every body for us.</p> + +<p class="preverse">As she loves the pleasures of conversation, she will be amazingly +happy in her choice;</p> +<div class="verse"> + “With such a companion to spend the long day!”</div> +<p class="postverse">He is to be sure a most entertaining creature.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I have no patience.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + +<p>After all, I am a little droll; I am angry with Emily for concluding +an advantageous match with a man she does not absolutely dislike, which +all good mammas say is sufficient; and this only because it breaks in +on a little circle of friends, in whose society I have been happy. O! +self! self! I would have her hazard losing a fine fortune and a coach +and six, that I may continue my coterie two or three months longer.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I will write again as soon as we are married. My next will, I +suppose, be from Montreal. I die to see your brother and my little +Fitzgerald; this man gives me the vapours. Heavens! Lucy, what a +difference there is in men!</p> +<div class="ender">END OF VOL. I.</div> + +<h2>THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE.</h2> +<h2 class="vol-header" id="vol.2">Vol. II</h2> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.055">LETTER <span class="origtext">LV.</span><span class="let-num">55.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Jan. 16.</div> + +<p>So, my dear, we went on too fast, it seems: Sir George was so +obliging as to settle all without waiting for Emily’s consent; not +having supposed her refusal to be in the chapter of possibilities: +after having communicated their plan of operations to me as an affair +settled, papa was dispatched, as Sir George’s ambassador, to inform +Emily of his gracious intentions in her favor.</p> + +<p>She received him with proper dignity, and like a girl of true spirit +told him, that as the delay was originally from Sir George, she should +insist on observing the conditions very exactly, and was determined to +wait till spring, whatever might be the contents of Mrs. Clayton’s +expected letter; reserving to herself also the privilege of refusing +him even then, if upon mature deliberation she should think proper so +to do.</p> + +<p>She has further insisted, that till that time he shall leave +Silleri; take up his abode at Quebec, unless, which she thinks most +adviseable, he should return to Montreal for the winter; and never +attempt seeing her without witnesses, as their present situation is +particularly delicate, and that whilst it continues they can have +nothing to say to each other which their common friends may not with +propriety hear: all she can be prevailed on to consent to in his favor, +is to allow him <i>en attendant</i> to visit here like any other +gentleman.</p> + +<p>I wish she would send him back to Montreal, for I see plainly he +will spoil all our little parties.</p> + +<p>Emily is a fine girl, Lucy, and I am friends with her again; so, my +dear, I shall revive my coterie, and be happy two or three months +longer. I have sent to ask my two sweet fellows at Quebec to dine here: +I really long to see them; I shall let them into the present state of +affairs here, for they both despise Sir George as much as I do; the +creature looks amazingly foolish, and I enjoy his humiliation not a +little: such an animal to set up for being beloved indeed! O to be +sure!</p> + +<p>Emily has sent for me to her apartment. Adieu for a moment.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Eleven o’clock.</div> + +<p>She has shewn me Mrs. Melmoth’s letter on the subject of concluding +the marriage immediately: it is in the true spirit of family +impertinence. She writes with the kind discreet insolence of a +relation; and Emily has answered her with the genuine spirit of an +independent Englishwoman, who is so happy as to be her own mistress, +and who is therefore determined to think for herself.</p> + +<p>She has refused going to Montreal at all this winter; and has +hinted, though not impolitely, that she wants no guardian of her +conduct but herself; adding a compliment to my ladyship’s discretion so +very civil, it is impossible for me to repeat it with decency.</p> + +<p>O Heavens! your brother and Fitzgerald! I fly. The dear creatures! +my life has been absolute vegetation since they absented themselves.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu! my dear,<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.056">LETTER <span class="origtext">LVI.</span><span class="let-num">56.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Jan. 24.</div> + +<p>We have the same parties and amusements we used to have, my dear, +but there is by no means the same spirit in them; constraint and +dullness seem to have taken the place of that sweet vivacity and +confidence which made our little society so pleasing: this odious man +has infected us all; he seems rather a spy on our pleasures than a +partaker of them; he is more an antidote to joy than a tall maiden +aunt.</p> + +<p>I wish he would go; I say spontaneously every time I see him, +without considering I am impolite, “La! Sir George, when do you go to +Montreal?” He reddens, and gives me a peevish answer; and I then, and +not before, recollect how very impertinent the question is.</p> + +<p>But pray, my dear, because he has no taste for social companionable +life, has he therefore a right to damp the spirit of it in those that +have? I intend to consult some learned casuist on this head.</p> + +<p>He takes amazing pains to please in his way, is curled, powdered, +perfumed, and exhibits every day in a new suit of embroidery; but with +all this, has the mortification to see your brother please more in a +plain coat. I am lazy. Adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours, ever and ever,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.057">LETTER <span class="origtext">LVII.</span><span class="let-num">57.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Jan. 25.</div> + +<p>So you intend, my dear Jack, to marry when you are quite tired of a +life of gallantry: the lady will be much obliged to you for a heart, +the refuse of half the prostitutes in town; a heart, the best feelings +of which will be entirely obliterated; a heart hardened by a long +commerce with the most unworthy of the sex; and which will bring +disgust, suspicion, coldness, and depravity of taste, to the bosom of +sensibility and innocence.</p> + +<p>For my own part, though fond of women to the greatest degree, I have +had, considering my profession and complexion, very few intrigues. I +have always had an idea I should some time or other marry, and have +been unwilling to bring to a state in which I hoped for happiness from +mutual affection, a heart worn out by a course of gallantries: to a +contrary conduct is owing most of our unhappy marriages; the woman +brings with her all her stock of tenderness, truth, and affection; the +man’s is exhausted before they meet: she finds the generous delicate +tenderness of her soul, not only unreturned, but unobserved; she +fancies some other woman the object of his affection, she is unhappy, +she pines in secret; he observes her discontent, accuses her of +caprice; and her portion is wretchedness for life.</p> + +<p>If I did not ardently wish your happiness, I should not thus +repeatedly combat a prejudice, which, as you have sensibility, will +infallibly make the greater part of your life a scene of insipidity +and regret.</p> + +<p>You are right, Jack, as to the savages; the only way to civilize +them is to <i>feminize</i> their women; but the task is rather +difficult: at present their manners differ in nothing from those of the +men; they even add to the ferocity of the latter.</p> + +<p>You desire to know the state of my heart: excuse me, Jack; you know +nothing of love; and we who do, never disclose <span class="origtext">it’s</span><span class="correction">its</span> mysteries to the +prophane: besides, I always chuse a female for the confidante of my +sentiments; I hate even to speak of love to one of my own sex.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I am going a party with half a dozen ladies, and have not +another minute to spare.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.058">LETTER <span class="origtext">LVIII.</span><span class="let-num">58.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Jan. 28.</div> + +<p>I every hour, my dear, grow more in love with French manners; there +is something charming in being young and sprightly all one’s life: it +would appear absurd in England to hear, what I have just heard, a fat +virtuous lady of seventy toast <i>Love and Opportunity</i> to a young +fellow; but ’tis nothing here: they dance too to the last gasp; I have +seen the daughter, mother, and grand-daughter, in the same French +country dance.</p> + +<p>They are perfectly right; and I honor them for their good sense and +spirit, in determining to make life agreable as long as they can.</p> + +<p><i>A propos</i> to age, I am resolved to go home, Lucy; I have found +three grey hairs this morning; they tell me ’tis common; this vile +climate is at war with beauty, makes one’s hair grey, and one’s hands +red. I won’t stay, absolutely.</p> + +<p>Do you know there is a very pretty fellow here, Lucy, Captain +Howard, who has taken a fancy to make people believe he and I are on +good terms? He affects to sit by me, to dance with me, to whisper +nothing to me, to bow with an air of mystery, and to shew me all the +little attentions of a lover in public, though he never yet said a +civil thing to me when we were alone.</p> + +<p>I was standing with him this morning near the brow of the hill, +leaning against a tree in the sunshine, and looking down the precipice +below, when I said something of the lover’s leap, and in play, as you +will suppose, made a step forwards: we had been talking of indifferent +things, his air was till then indolence itself; but on this little +motion of mine, though there was not the least danger, he with the +utmost seeming eagerness catched hold of me as if alarmed at the very +idea, and with the most passionate air protested his life depended on +mine, and that he would not live an hour after me. I looked at him with +astonishment, not being able to comprehend the meaning of this sudden +flight, when turning my head, I saw a gentleman and lady close behind +us, whom he had observed though I had not. They were retiring: “Pray +approach, my dear Madam,” said I; “we have no secrets, this declaration +was intended for you to hear; we were talking of the weather before you +came.”</p> + +<p>He affected to smile, though I saw he was mortified; but as his +smile shewed the finest teeth imaginable I forgave him: he is really +very handsome, and ’tis pity he has this foolish quality of preferring +the shadow to the substance.</p> + +<p>I shall, however, desire him to flirt elsewhere, as this <i>badinage</i>, +however innocent, may hurt my character, and give pain to my little +Fitzgerald: I believe I begin to love this fellow, because I begin to +be delicate on the subject of flirtations, and feel my spirit of +coquetry decline every day.</p> + +<div class="dateline">29th.</div> + +<p>Mrs. Clayton has wrote, my dear; and has at last condescended to +allow Emily the honor of being her daughter-in-law, in consideration of +her son’s happiness, and of engagements entered into with her own +consent; though she very prudently observes, that what was a proper +match for Captain Clayton is by no means so for Sir George; and talks +something of an offer of a citizen’s daughter with fifty thousand +pounds, and the promise of an Irish title. She has, however, observed +that indiscreet engagements are better broke than kept.</p> + +<p>Sir George has shewn the letter, a very indelicate one in my +opinion, to my father and me; and has talked a great deal of nonsense +on the subject. He wants to shew it to Emily, and I advise him to it, +because I know the effect it will have. I see plainly he wishes to make +a great merit of keeping his engagement, if he does keep it: he hinted +a little fear of breaking her heart; and I am convinced, if he thought +she could survive his infidelity, all his tenderness and constancy +would cede to filial duty and a coronet.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Eleven o’clock.</div> + +<p>After much deliberation, Sir George has determined to write to +Emily, inclose his mother’s letter, and call in the afternoon to enjoy +the triumph of his generosity in keeping his engagement, when it is in +his power to do so much better: ’tis a pretty plan, and I encourage him +in it; my father, who wishes the match, shrugs his shoulders, and +frowns at me; but the little man is fixed as fate in his resolve, and +is writing at this moment in my father’s apartment. I long to see his +letter; I dare say it will be a curiosity: ’tis short, however, for he +is coming out of the room already.</p> + +<p>Adieu! my father calls for this letter; it is to go in one of his to +New York, and the person who takes it waits for it at the door.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Ever yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.059">LETTER <span class="origtext">LIX.</span><span class="let-num">59.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Montague, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="salutation">Dear Madam,</div> + +<p>I send you the inclosed from my mother: I thought it necessary you +should see it, though not even a mother’s wishes shall ever influence +me to break those engagements which I have had the happiness of +entering into with the most charming of women, and which a man of honor +ought to hold sacred.</p> + +<p>I do not think happiness intirely dependent on rank or fortune, and +have only to wish my mother’s sentiments on this subject more agreable +to my own, as there is nothing I so much wish as to oblige her: at all +events, however, depend on my fulfilling those promises, which ought to +be the more binding, as they were made at a time when our situations +were more equal.</p> + +<p>I am happy in an opportunity of convincing you and the world, that +interest and ambition have no power over my heart, when put in +competition with what I owe to my engagements; being with the greatest +truth,</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">My dearest Madam,<br></span> +<span class="i6">Yours, &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">G. Clayton.</span> +</div> +<p class="addendum">You will do me the honor to name the day to make me happy.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.060">LETTER <span class="origtext">LX.</span><span class="let-num">60.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Sir George Clayton, at Quebec.</div> +<div class="salutation">Dear Sir,</div> + +<p>I have read <span class="origtext">Mrs</span><span class="correction">Mrs.</span> Clayton’s letter with attention; and am of her +opinion, that indiscreet engagements are better broke than kept.</p> + +<p>I have the less reason to take ill your breaking the kind of +engagement between us at the desire of your family, as I entered into +it at first entirely in compliance with mine. I have ever had the +sincerest esteem and friendship for you, but never that romantic love +which hurries us to forget all but itself: I have therefore no reason +to expect in you the imprudent disinterestedness that passion +occasions.</p> + +<p>A fuller explanation is necessary on this subject than it is +possible to enter into in a letter: if you will favor us with your +company this afternoon at Silleri, we may explain our sentiments more +clearly to each other: be assured, I never will prevent your complying +in every instance with the wishes of so kind and prudent a mother.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">I am, dear Sir,<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate friend<br></span> +<span class="i6">and obedient servant,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.061">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXI.</span><span class="let-num">61.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> + +<p>I have been with Emily, who has been reading <span class="origtext">Mrs</span><span class="correction">Mrs.</span> Clayton’s letter; I +saw joy sparkle in her eyes as she went on, her little heart seemed to +flutter with transport; I see two things very clearly, one of which +is, that she never loved this little insipid Baronet; the other I leave +your sagacity to find out. All the spirit of her countenance is +returned: she walks in air; her cheeks have the blush of pleasure; I +never saw so astonishing a change. I never felt more joy from the +acquisition of a new lover, than she seems to find in the prospect of +losing an old one.</p> + +<p>She has written to Sir George, and in a style that I know will hurt +him; for though I believe he wishes her to give him up, yet his vanity +would desire it should cost her very dear; and appear the effort of +disinterested love, and romantic generosity, not what it really is, the +effect of the most tranquil and perfect indifference.</p> + +<p>By the way, a disinterested mistress is, according to my ideas, a +mistress who <i>fancies</i> she loves: we may talk what we please, at a +distance, of sacrificing the dear man to his interest, and promoting +his happiness by destroying our own; but when it comes to the point, I +am rather inclined to believe all women are of my way of thinking; and +let me die if I would give up a man I loved to the first dutchess in +Christendom: ’tis all mighty well in theory; but for the practical +part, let who will believe it for Bell.</p> + +<p>Indeed when a woman finds her lover inclined to change, ’tis good to +make a virtue of necessity, and give the thing a sentimental turn, +which gratifies his vanity, and does not wound one’s own.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I see Sir George and his fine carriole; I must run, and tell +Emily.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Ever yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.062">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXII.</span><span class="let-num">62.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Jan. 28.</div> + +<p>Yes, my Lucy, your brother tenderly regrets the absence of a sister +endeared to him much more by her amiable qualities than by blood; who +would be the object of his esteem and admiration, if she was not that +of his fraternal tenderness; who has all the blooming graces, +simplicity, and innocence of nineteen, with the accomplishments and +understanding of five and twenty; who joins the strength of mind so +often confined to our sex, to the softness, delicacy, and vivacity of +her own; who, in short, is all that is estimable and lovely; and who, +except one, is the most charming of her sex: you will forgive the +exception, Lucy; perhaps no man but a brother would make it.</p> + +<p>My sweet Emily appears every day more amiable; she is now in the +full tyranny of her charms, at the age when the mind is improved, and +the person in its perfection. I every day see in her more indifference +to her lover, a circumstance which gives me a pleasure which perhaps it +ought not: there is a selfishness in it, for which I am afraid I ought +to blush.</p> + +<p>You judge perfectly well, my dear, in checking the natural vivacity +of your temper, however pleasing it is to all who converse with you: +coquetry is dangerous to English women, because they have sensibility; +it is more suited to the French, who are naturally something of the +salamander kind.</p> + +<p>I have this moment a note from Bell Fermor, that she must see me +this instant. I hope my Emily is well: Heaven preserve the most +perfect of all its works.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu! my dear girl.<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.063">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXIII.</span><span class="let-num">63.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Feb. 1.</div> + +<p>We have passed three or four droll days, my dear. Emily persists in +resolving to break with Sir George; he thinks it decent to combat her +resolution, lest he should lose the praise of generosity: he is also +piqued to see her give him up with such perfect composure, though I am +convinced he will not be sorry upon the whole to be given up; he has, +from the first receipt of the letter, plainly wished her to resign +him, but hoped for a few faintings and tears, as a sacrifice to his +vanity on the occasion.</p> + +<p>My father is setting every engine at work to make things up again, +supposing Emily to have determined from pique, not from the real +feelings of her heart: he is frighted to death lest I should +counterwork him, and so jealous of my advising her to continue a +conduct he so much disapproves, that he won’t leave us a moment +together; he even observes carefully that each goes into her +respective apartment when we retire to bed.</p> + +<p>This jealousy has started an idea which I think will amuse us, and +which I shall take the first opportunity of communicating to Emily; +’tis to write each other at night our sentiments on whatever passes in +the day; if she approves the plan, I will send you the letters, which +will save me a great deal of trouble in telling you all our <i>petites +histoires</i>.</p> + +<p class="preverse">This scheme will have another advantage; we shall be a thousand +times more sincere and open to each other by letter than face to face; +I have long seen by her eyes that the little fool has twenty things to +say to me, but has not courage; now letters you know, my dear,</p> +<div class="verse"> + “Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart.”</div> +<p class="postverse">Besides, it will be so romantic and pretty, almost as agreable as a +love affair: I long to begin the correspondence.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.064">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXIV.</span><span class="let-num">64.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, Feb. 5.</div> + +<p>I have but a moment, my Lucy, to tell you, my divine Emily has broke +with her lover, who this morning took an eternal leave of her, and set +out for Montreal in his way to New York, whence he proposes to embark +for England.</p> + +<p>My sensations on this occasion are not to be described: I admire +that amiable delicacy which has influenced her to give up every +advantage of rank and fortune which could tempt the heart of woman, +rather than unite herself to a man for whom she felt the least degree +of indifference; and this, without regarding the censures of her +family, or of the world, by whom, what they will call her imprudence, +will never be forgiven: a woman who is capable of acting so nobly, is +worthy of being beloved, of being adored, by every man who has a soul +to distinguish her perfections.</p> + +<p>If I was a vain man, I might perhaps fancy her regard for me had +some share in determining her conduct, but I am convinced of the +contrary; ’tis the native delicacy of her soul alone, incapable of +forming an union in which the heart has no share, which, independent of +any other consideration, has been the cause of a resolution so worthy +of herself.</p> + +<p>That she has the tenderest affection for me, I cannot doubt one +moment; her attention is too flattering to be unobserved; but ’tis that +kind of affection in which the mind alone is concerned. I never gave +her the most distant hint that I loved her: in her situation, it would +have been even an outrage to have done so. She knows the narrowness of +my circumstances, and how near impossible it is for me to marry; she +therefore could not have an idea—no, my dear girl, <span class="origtext">tis</span><span class="correction">’tis</span> not to love, +but to true delicacy, that she has sacrificed avarice and ambition; and +she is a thousand times the more estimable from this circumstance.</p> + +<p>I am interrupted. You shall hear from me in a few days.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i6">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.065">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXV.</span><span class="let-num">65.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Feb. 10.</div> + +<p>I have mentioned my plan to Emily, who is charmed with it; ’tis a +pretty evening amusement for two solitary girls in the country.</p> + +<p>Behold the first fruits of our correspondence:</p> +<div class="toline">“To Miss Fermor.</div> + +<p>“It is not to you, my dear girl, I need vindicate my conduct in +regard to Sir George; you have from the first approved it; you have +even advised it. If I have been to blame, ’tis in having too long +delayed an explanation on a point of such importance to us both. I +have been long on the borders of a precipice, without courage to retire +from so dangerous a situation: overborn by my family, I have been near +marrying a man for whom I have not the least tenderness, and whose +conversation is even now tedious to me.</p> + +<p>“My dear friend, we were not formed for each other: our minds have +not the least resemblance. Have you not observed that, when I have +timidly hazarded my ideas on the delicacy necessary to keep love alive +in marriage, and the difficulty of preserving the heart of the object +beloved in so intimate an union, he has indolently assented, with a +coldness not to be described, to sentiments which it is plain from his +manner he did not understand; whilst another, not interested in the +conversation, has, by his countenance, by the fire of his eyes, by +looks more eloquent than all language, shewed his soul was of +intelligence with mine!</p> + +<p>“A strong sense of the force of engagements entered into with my +consent, though not the effect of my free, unbiassed choice, and the +fear of making Sir George, by whom I supposed myself beloved, unhappy, +have thus long prevented my resolving to break with him for ever; and +though I could not bring myself to marry him, I found myself at the +same time incapable of assuming sufficient resolution to tell him so, +’till his mother’s letter gave me so happy an occasion.</p> + +<p>“There is no saying what transport I feel in being freed from the +insupportable yoke of this engagement, which has long sat heavy on my +heart, and suspended the natural chearfulness of my temper.</p> + +<p>“Yes, my dear, your Emily has been wretched, without daring to +confess it even to you: I was ashamed of owning I had entered into such +engagements with a man whom I had never loved, though I had for a short +time mistaken esteem for a greater degree of affection than my heart +ever really knew. How fatal, my dear Bell, is this mistake to half our +sex, and how happy am I to have discovered mine in time!</p> + +<p>“I have scarce yet asked myself what I intend; but I think it will +be most prudent to return to England in the first ship, and retire to a +relation of my mother’s in the country, where I can live with decency +on my little fortune.</p> + +<p>“Whatever is my fate, no situation can be equally unhappy with that +of being wife to a man for whom I have not even the slightest +friendship or esteem, for whose conversation I have not the least +taste, and who, if I know him, would for ever think me under an +obligation to him for marrying me.</p> + +<p>“I have the pleasure to see I give no pain to his heart, by a step +which has relieved mine from misery: his feelings are those of wounded +vanity, not of love.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">“Adieu! Your<br></span> +<span class="i6">Emily Montague.”</span> +</div> + +<p>I have no patience with relations, Lucy; this sweet girl has been +two years wretched under the bondage her uncle’s avarice (for he +foresaw Sir George’s acquisition, though she did not) prepared for her. +Parents should chuse our company, but never even pretend to direct our +choice; if they take care we converse with men of honor only, <span class="origtext">tis</span><span class="correction">’tis</span> +impossible we can chuse amiss: a conformity of taste and sentiment +alone can make marriage happy, and of that none but the parties +concerned can judge.</p> + +<p>By the way, I think long engagements, even between persons who love, +extremely unfavorable to happiness: it is certainly right to be long +enough acquainted to know something of each other’s temper; but ’tis +bad to let the first fire burn out before we come together; and when +we have once resolved, I have no notion of delaying a moment.</p> + +<p>If I should ever consent to marry Fitzgerald, and he should not fly +for a licence before I had finished the sentence, I would dismiss him +if there was not another lover to be had in Canada.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i6">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> +<p class="addendum">My Emily is now free as air; a sweet little bird escaped from the +gilded cage. Are you not glad of it, Lucy? I am amazingly.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.066">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXVI.</span><span class="let-num">66.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, Feb. 11.</div> + +<p>Would one think it possible, Lucy, that Sir George should console +himself for the loss of all that is lovely in woman, by the sordid +prospect of acquiring, by an interested marriage, a little more of that +wealth of which he has already much more than he can either enjoy or +become? By what wretched motives are half mankind influenced in the +most important action of their lives!</p> + +<p>The vulgar of every rank expect happiness where it is not to be +found, in the ideal advantages of splendor and dissipation; those who +dare to think, those minds who partake of the celestial fire, seek it +in the real solid pleasures of nature and soft affection.</p> + +<p>I have seen my lovely Emily since I wrote to you; I shall not see +her again of some days; I do not intend at present to make my visits to +Silleri so frequent as I have done lately, lest the world, ever +studious to blame, should misconstrue her conduct on this very delicate +occasion. I am even afraid to shew my usual attention to her when +present, lest she herself should think I presume on the politeness she +has ever shewn me, and see her breaking with Sir George in a false +light: the greater I think her obliging partiality to me, the more +guarded I ought to be in my behaviour to her; her situation has some +resemblance to widowhood, and she has equal decorums to observe.</p> + +<p>I cannot however help encouraging a pleasing hope that I am not +absolutely indifferent to her: her lovely eyes have a softness when +they meet mine, to which words cannot do justice: she talks less to me +than to others, but it is in a tone of voice which penetrates my soul; +and when I speak, her attention is most flattering, though of a nature +not to be seen by common observers; without seeming to distinguish me +from the crowd who strive to engage her esteem and friendship, she has +a manner of addressing me which the heart alone can feel; she contrives +to prevent my appearing to give her any preference to the rest of her +sex, yet I have seen her blush at my civility to another.</p> + +<p>She has at least a friendship for me, which alone would make the +happiness of my life; and which I would prefer to the love of the most +charming woman imagination could form, sensible as I am to the sweetest +of all passions: this friendship, however, time and assiduity may ripen +into love; at least I should be most unhappy if I did not think so.</p> + +<p>I love her with a tenderness of which few of my sex are capable: you +have often told me, and you were right, that my heart has all the +sensibility of woman.</p> + +<p>A mail is arrived, by which I hope to hear from you; I must hurry to +the post office; you shall hear again in a few days.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i6">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.067">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXVII.</span><span class="let-num">67.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec.</div> +<div class="dateline">London, Dec. 1.</div> + +<p>You need be in no pain, my dear brother, on Mr. Temple’s account; +my heart is in no danger from a man of his present character: his +person and manner are certainly extremely pleasing; his understanding, +and I believe his principles, are worthy of your friendship; an +encomium which, let me observe, is from me a very high one: he will be +admired every where, but to be beloved, he wants, or at least appears +to me to want, the most endearing of all qualities, that genuine +tenderness of soul, that almost feminine sensibility, which, with all +your firmness of mind and spirit, you possess beyond any man I ever yet +met with.</p> + +<p>If your friend wishes to please me, which I almost fancy he does, he +must endeavor to resemble you; ’tis rather hard upon me, I think, that +the only man I perfectly approve, and whose disposition is formed to +make me happy, should be my brother: I beg you will find out somebody +very like yourself for your sister, for you have really made me saucy.</p> + +<p>I pity you heartily, and wish above all things to hear of your +Emily’s marriage, for your present situation must be extremely +unpleasant.</p> + +<p>But, my dear brother, as you were so very wise about Temple, allow +me to ask you whether it is quite consistent with prudence to throw +yourself in the way of a woman so formed to inspire you with +tenderness, and whom it is so impossible you can ever hope to possess: +is not this acting a little like a foolish girl, who plays round the +flame which she knows will consume her?</p> + +<p>My mother is well, but will never be happy till you return to +England; I often find her in tears over your letters: I will say no +more on a subject which I know will give you pain. I hope, however, to +hear you have given up all thoughts of settling in America: it would be +a better plan to turn farmer in <span class="origtext">Northamptonshire;</span><span class="errata">Rutland;</span> we could double the +estate by living upon it, and I am sure I should make the prettiest +milk-maid in the county.</p> + +<p>I am serious, and think we could live very superbly all together in +the country; consider it well, my dear Ned, for I cannot bear to see my +mother so unhappy as your absence makes her. I hear her on the stairs; +I must hurry away my letter, for I don’t chuse she should know I write +to you on this subject.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Lucy Rivers.</span> +</div> +<p class="addendum">Say every thing for me to Bell Fermor; and in your own manner to +your Emily, in whose friendship I promise myself great happiness.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.068">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXVIII.</span><span class="let-num">68.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Montague, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline">Montreal, Feb. 10.</div> + +<p>Never any astonishment equalled mine, my dear Emily, at hearing you +had broke an engagement of years, so much to your advantage as to +fortune, and with a man of so very unexceptionable a character as Sir +George, without any other apparent cause than a slight indelicacy in a +letter of his mother’s, for which candor and affection would have found +a thousand excuses. I will not allow myself to suppose, what is however +publicly said here, that you have <span class="origtext">sarificed</span><span class="errata">sacrificed</span> prudence, decorum, and I +had almost said honor, to an imprudent inclination for a man, to whom +there is the strongest reason to believe you are indifferent, and who +is even said to have an attachment to another: I mean Colonel Rivers, +who, though a man of worth, is in a situation which makes it impossible +for him to think of you, were you even as dear to him as the world says +he is to you.</p> + +<p>I am too unhappy to say more on this subject, but expect from our +past friendship a very sincere answer to two questions; whether love +for Colonel Rivers was the real motive for the indiscreet step you have +taken? and whether, if it was, you have the excuse of knowing he loves +you? I should be glad to know what are your views, if you have any. I +am,</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">My dear Emily,<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate friend,<br></span> +<span class="i8">E. Melmoth.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.069">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXIX.</span><span class="let-num">69.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Melmoth, at Montreal.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Feb. 19.</div> +<div class="salutation">My dear Madam,</div> + +<p>I am too sensible of the rights of friendship, to refuse answering +your questions; which I shall do in as few words as possible. I have +not the least reason to suppose myself beloved by Colonel Rivers; nor, +if I know my heart, do I <i>love him</i> in that sense of the word +your question supposes: I think him the best, the most amiable of +mankind; and my extreme affection for him, though I believe that +affection only a very lively friendship, first awakened me to a sense +of the indelicacy and impropriety of marrying Sir George.</p> + +<p>To enter into so sacred an engagement as marriage with one man, with +a stronger affection for another, of how calm and innocent a nature +soever that affection may be, is a degree of baseness of which my heart +is incapable.</p> + +<p>When I first agreed to marry Sir George, I had no superior esteem +for any other man; I thought highly of him, and wanted courage to +resist the pressing solicitations of my uncle, to whom I had a thousand +obligations. I even almost persuaded myself I loved him, nor did I find +my mistake till I saw Colonel Rivers, in whose conversation I had so +very lively a pleasure as soon convinced me of my mistake: I therefore +resolved to break with Sir George, and nothing but the fear of giving +him pain prevented my doing it sooner: his behaviour on the receipt of +his mother’s letter removed that fear, and set me free in my own +opinion, and I hope will in yours, from engagements which were equally +in the way of my happiness, and his ambition. If he is sincere, he will +tell you my refusal of him made him happy, though he chuses to affect a +chagrin which he does not feel.</p> + +<p>I have no view but that of returning to England in the spring, and +fixing with a relation in the country.</p> + +<p>If Colonel Rivers has an attachment, I hope it is to one worthy of +him; for my own part, I never entertained the remotest thought of him +in any light but that of the most sincere and tender of friends. I am, +Madam, with great esteem,</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Your affectionate friend<br></span> +<span class="i4">and obedient servant,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.070">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXX.</span><span class="let-num">70.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Feb. 27.</div> + +<p>There are two parties at Quebec in regard to Emily: the prudent +mammas abuse her for losing a good match, and suppose it to proceed +from her partiality to your brother, to the imprudence of which they +give no quarter; whilst the misses admire her generosity and spirit, in +sacrificing all for love; so impossible it is to please every body. +However, she has, in my opinion, done the wisest thing in the world; +that is, she has pleased herself.</p> + +<p>As to her inclination for your brother, I am of their opinion, that +she loves him without being quite clear in the point herself: she has +not yet confessed the fact even to me; but she has speaking eyes, Lucy, +and I think I can interpret their language.</p> + +<p>Whether he sees it or not I cannot tell; I rather think he does, +because he has been less here, and more guarded in his manner when +here, than before this matrimonial affair was put an end to; which is +natural enough on that supposition, because he knows the impertinence +of Quebec, and is both prudent and delicate to a great degree.</p> + +<p>He comes, however, and we are pretty good company, only a little +more reserved on both sides; which is, in my opinion, a little +symptomatic.</p> + +<p>La! here’s papa come up to write at my bureau; I dare say, it’s only +to pry into what I am about; but excuse me, my dear Sir, for that. +Adieu! <i>jusqu’au demain, ma tres chere</i>.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.071">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXXI.</span><span class="let-num">71.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, Feb. 20.</div> + +<p>Every hour, my Lucy, convinces me more clearly there is no happiness +for me without this lovely woman; her turn of mind is so correspondent +to my own, that we seem to have but one soul: the first moment I saw +her the idea struck me that we had been friends in some pre-existent +state, and were only renewing our acquaintance here; when she speaks, +my heart vibrates to the sound, and owns every thought she expresses a +native there.</p> + +<p>The same dear affections, the same tender sensibility, the most +precious gift of Heaven, inform our minds, and make us peculiarly +capable of exquisite happiness or misery.</p> + +<p>The passions, my Lucy, are common to all; but the affections, the +lively sweet affections, the only sources of true pleasure, are the +portion only of a chosen few.</p> + +<p>Uncertain at present of the nature of her sentiments, I am +determined to develop them clearly before I discover mine: if she loves +as I do, even a perpetual exile here will be pleasing. The remotest +wood in Canada with her would be no longer a desert wild; it would be +the habitation of the Graces.</p> + +<p>But I forget your letter, my dear girl; I am hurt beyond words at +what you tell me of my mother; and would instantly return to England, +did not my fondness for this charming woman detain me here: you are +both too good in wishing to retire with me to the country; will your +tenderness lead you a step farther, my Lucy? It would be too much to +hope to see you here; and yet, if I marry Emily, it will be impossible +for me to think of returning to England.</p> + +<p>There is a man here whom I should prefer of all men I ever saw for +you; but he is already attached to your friend Bell Fermor, who is very +inattentive to her own happiness, if she refuses him: I am very happy +in finding you think of Temple as I wish you should.</p> + +<p>You are so very civil, Lucy, in regard to me, I am afraid of +becoming vain from your praises.</p> + +<p>Take care, my dear, you don’t spoil me by this excess of civility, +for my only merit is that of not being a coxcomb.</p> + +<p>I have a heaviness of heart, which has never left me since I read +your letter: I am shocked at the idea of giving pain to the best parent +that ever existed; yet have less hope than ever of seeing England, +without giving up the tender friend, the dear companion, the adored +mistress; in short the very woman I have all my life been in search of: +I am also hurt that I cannot place this object of all my wishes in a +station equal to that she has rejected, and I begin to think rejected +for me.</p> + +<p>I never before repined at seeing the gifts of fortune lavished on +the unworthy.</p> + +<p>Adieu, my dear! I will write again when I can write more chearfully.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.072">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXXII.</span><span class="let-num">72.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To the Earl of <span class="origtext">——</span><span class="correction">——.</span></div> +<div class="salutation">My Lord,</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Feb. 20.</div> + +<p>Your Lordship does me great honor in supposing me capable of giving +any satisfactory account of a country in which I have spent only a few +months.</p> + +<p>As a proof, however, of my zeal, and the very strong desire I have +to merit the esteem you honor me with, I shall communicate from time to +time the little I have observed, and may observe, as well as what I +hear from good authority, with that lively pleasure with which I have +ever obeyed every command of your Lordship’s.</p> + +<p>The French, in the first settling this colony, seem to have had an +eye only to the conquest of ours: their whole system of policy seems +to have been military, not commercial; or only so far commercial as was +necessary to supply the wants, and by so doing to gain the friendship, +of the savages, in order to make use of them against us.</p> + +<p>The lands are held on military tenure: every peasant is a soldier, +every seigneur an officer, and both serve without pay whenever called +upon; this service is, except a very small quit-rent by way of +acknowledgement, all they pay for their lands: the seigneur holds of +the crown, the peasant of the seigneur, who is at once his lord and +commander.</p> + +<p>The peasants are in general tall and robust, notwithstanding their +excessive indolence; they love war, and hate labor; are brave, hardy, +alert in the field, but lazy and inactive at home; in which they +resemble the savages, whose manners they seem strongly to have +imbibed. The government appears to have encouraged a military spirit +all over the colony; though ignorant and stupid to a great degree, +these peasants have a strong sense of honor; and though they serve, as +I have said, without pay, are never so happy as when called to the +field.</p> + +<p>They are excessively vain, and not only look on the French as the +only civilized nation in the world, but on themselves as the flower of +the French nation: they had, I am told, a great aversion to the regular +troops which came from France in the late war, and a contempt equal to +that aversion; they however had an affection and esteem for the late +Marquis De Montcalm, which almost rose to idolatry; and I have even at +this distance of time seen many of them in tears at the mention of his +name: an honest tribute to the memory of a commander equally brave and +humane; for whom his enemies wept even on the day when their own hero +fell.</p> + +<p>I am called upon for this letter, and have only time to assure your +Lordship of my respect, and of the pleasure I always receive from your +commands. I have the honor to be,</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">My Lord,<br></span> +<span class="i6">Your Lordship’s, &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">William Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.073">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXXIII.</span><span class="let-num">73.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor.</div> +<div class="dateline">Feb. 24, Eleven at night.</div> + +<p>I have indeed, my dear, a pleasure in his conversation, to which +words cannot do justice: love itself is less tender and lively than my +friendship for Rivers; from the first moment I saw him, I lost all +taste for other conversation; even yours, amiable as you are, borrows +its most prevailing charm from the pleasure of hearing you talk of him.</p> + +<p>When I call my tenderness for him friendship, I do not mean either +to paint myself as an enemy to tenderer sentiments, or him as one whom +it is easy to see without feeling them: all I mean is, that, as our +situations make it impossible for us to think of each other except as +friends, I have endeavored—I hope with success—to see him in no +other light: it is not in his power to marry without fortune, and mine +is a trifle: had I worlds, they should be his; but, I am neither so +selfish as to desire, nor so romantic as to expect, that he should +descend from the rank of life he has been bred in, and live lost to the +world with me.</p> + +<p>As to the impertinence of two or three women, I hear of it with +perfect indifference: my dear Rivers esteems me, he approves my +conduct, and all else is below my care: the applause of worlds would +give me less pleasure than one smile of approbation from him.</p> + +<p>I am astonished your father should know me so little, as to suppose +me capable of being influenced even by you: when I determined to refuse +Sir George, it was from the feelings of my own heart alone; the first +moment I saw Colonel Rivers convinced me my heart had till then been a +stranger to true tenderness: from that moment my life has been one +continued struggle between my reason, which shewed me the folly as well +as indecency of marrying one man when I so infinitely preferred +another, and a false point of honor and mistaken compassion: from which +painful state, a concurrence of favorable accidents has at length +happily relieved me, and left me free to act as becomes me.</p> + +<p>Of this, my dear, be assured, that, though I have not the least idea +of ever marrying Colonel Rivers, yet, whilst my sentiments for him +continue what they are, I will never marry any other man.</p> + +<p>I am hurt at what Mrs. Melmoth hinted in her letter to you, of +Rivers having appeared to attach himself to me from vanity; she +endeavors in vain to destroy my esteem for him: you well know, he never +did appear to attach himself to me; he is incapable of having done it +from such a motive; but if he had, such delight have I in whatever +pleases him, that I should with joy have sacrificed my own vanity to +gratify his.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Your<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.074">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXXIV.</span><span class="let-num">74.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Montague.</div> +<div class="dateline">Feb. 25, Eight o’clock, just up.</div> + +<p>My dear, you deceive yourself; you love Colonel Rivers; you love him +even with all the tenderness of romance: read over again the latter +part of your letter; I know friendship, and of what it is capable; but +I fear the sacrifices it makes are of a different nature.</p> + +<p>Examine your heart, my Emily, and tell me the result of that +examination. It is of the utmost consequence to you to be clear as to +the nature of your affection for Rivers.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.075">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXXV.</span><span class="let-num">75.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor.</div> + +<p>Yes, my dear Bell, you know me better than I know myself; your Emily +loves.—But tell me, and with that clear sincerity which is the +cement of our friendship; has not your own heart discovered to you the +secret of mine? do you not also love this most amiable of mankind? Yes, +you do, and I am lost: it is not in woman to see him without love; +there are a thousand charms in his conversation, in his look, nay in +the very sound of his voice, to which it is impossible for a soul like +yours to be insensible.</p> + +<p>I have observed you a thousand times listening to him with that air +of softness and complacency—Believe me, my dear, I am not angry with +you for loving him; he is formed to charm the heart of woman: I have +not the least right to complain of you; you knew nothing of my passion +for him; you even regarded me almost as the wife of another. But tell +me, though my heart dies within me at the question, is your tenderness +mutual? does he love you? I have observed a coldness in his manner +lately, which now alarms me.—My heart is torn in pieces. Must I +receive this wound from the two persons on earth most dear to me? +Indeed, my dear, this is more than your Emily can bear. Tell me only +whether you love: I will not ask more.—Is there on earth a man who +can please where he appears?</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.076">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXXVI.</span><span class="let-num">76.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Montague.</div> + +<p>You have discovered me, my sweet Emily: I love—not quite so +dyingly as you do; but I love; will you forgive me when I add that I am +beloved? It is unnecessary to add the name of him I love, as you have +so kindly appropriated the whole sex to Colonel Rivers.</p> + +<p>However, to shew you it is possible you may be mistaken, ’tis the +little Fitz I love, who, in my eye, is ten times more agreable than +even your nonpareil of a Colonel; I know you will think me a shocking +wretch for this depravity of taste; but so it is.</p> + +<p>Upon my word, I am half inclined to be angry with you for not being +in love with Fitzgerald; a tall Irishman, with good eyes, has as clear +a title to make conquests as other people.</p> + +<p>Yes, my dear, <i>there is a man on earth</i>, and even in the little +town of Quebec, <i>who can please where he appears</i>. Surely, child, +if there was but one man on earth who could please, you would not be so +unreasonable as to engross him all to yourself.</p> + +<p>For my part, though I like Fitzgerald extremely, I by no means +insist that every other woman shall.</p> + +<p>Go, you are a foolish girl, and don’t know what you would be at. +Rivers is a very handsome agreable fellow; but <i>it is in woman</i> to +see him without dying for love, of which behold your little Bell an +example. Adieu! be wiser, and believe me</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Ever yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> +<p class="addendum">Will you go this morning to Montmorenci on the ice, and dine on the +island of Orleans? dare you trust yourself in a covered carriole with +the dear man? Don’t answer this, because I am certain you can say +nothing on the subject, which will not be very foolish.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.077">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXXVII.</span><span class="let-num">77.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor.</div> + +<p>I am glad you do not see Colonel Rivers with my eyes; yet it seems +to me very strange; I am almost piqued at your giving another the +preference. I will say no more, it being, as you observe, impossible to +avoid being absurd on such a subject.</p> + +<p>I will go to Montmorenci; and, to shew my courage, will venture in a +covered carriole with Colonel Rivers, though I should rather wish your +father for my cavalier at present.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.078">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXXVIII.</span><span class="let-num">78.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Montague.</div> + +<p>You are right, my dear: ’tis more prudent to go with my father. I +love prudence; and will therefore send for Mademoiselle Clairaut to be +Rivers’s belle.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i6">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.079">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXXIX.</span><span class="let-num">79.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor.</div> + +<p>You are a provoking chit, and I will go with Rivers. Your father may +attend Madame Villiers, who you know will naturally take it ill if she +is not of our party. We can ask Mademoiselle Clairaut another time.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Your<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.080">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXXX.</span><span class="let-num">80.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Feb. 25.</div> + +<p>Those who have heard no more of a Canadian winter than what regards +the intenseness of its cold, must suppose it a very joyless season: +’tis, I assure you, quite otherwise; there are indeed some days here of +the severity of which those who were never out of England can form no +conception; but those days seldom exceed a dozen in a whole winter, +nor do they come in succession; but at intermediate periods, as the +winds set in from the North-West; which, coming some hundred leagues, +from frozen lakes and rivers, over woods and mountains covered with +snow, would be insupportable, were it not for the furs with which the +country abounds, in such variety and plenty as to be within the reach +of all its inhabitants.</p> + +<p>Thus defended, the British belles set the winter of Canada at +defiance; and the season of which you seem to entertain such terrible +ideas, is that of the utmost chearfulness and festivity.</p> + +<p>But what particularly pleases me is, there is no place where women +are of such importance: not one of the sex, who has the least share of +attractions, is without a levee of beaux interceding for the honor of +attending her on some party, of which every day produces three or four.</p> + +<p>I am just returned from one of the most agreable jaunts imagination +can paint, to the island of Orleans, by the falls of Montmorenci; the +latter is almost nine miles distant, across the great bason of Quebec; +but as we are obliged to reach it in winter by the waving line, our +direct road being intercepted by the inequalities of the ice, it is now +perhaps a third more. You will possibly suppose a ride of this kind +must want one of the greatest essentials to entertainment, that of +variety, and imagine it only one dull whirl over an unvaried plain of +snow: on the contrary, my dear, we pass hills and mountains of ice in +the trifling space of these few miles. The bason of Quebec is formed by +the conflux of the rivers St. Charles and Montmorenci with the great +river St. Lawrence, the rapidity of whose flood tide, as these rivers +are gradually seized by the frost, breaks up the ice, and drives it +back in heaps, till it forms ridges of transparent rock to an height +that is astonishing, and of a strength which bids defiance to the +utmost rage of the most furiously rushing tide.</p> + +<p>This circumstance makes this little journey more pleasing than you +can possibly conceive: the serene blue sky above, the dazling +brightness of the sun, and the colors from the refraction of its rays +on the transparent part of these ridges of ice, the winding course +these oblige you to make, the sudden disappearing of a train of fifteen +or twenty carrioles, as these ridges intervene, which again discover +themselves on your rising to the top of the frozen mount, the +tremendous appearance both of the ascent and descent, which however are +not attended with the least danger; all together give a grandeur and +variety to the scene, which almost rise to enchantment.</p> + +<p>Your dull foggy climate affords nothing that can give you the least +idea of our frost pieces in Canada; nor can you form any notion of our +amusements, of the agreableness of a covered carriole, with a sprightly +fellow, rendered more sprightly by the keen air and romantic scene +about him; to say nothing of the fair lady at his side.</p> + +<p>Even an overturning has nothing alarming in it; you are laid gently +down on a soft bed of snow, without the least danger of any kind; and +an accident of this sort only gives a pretty fellow occasion to vary +the style of his civilities, and shew a greater degree of attention.</p> + +<p>But it is almost time to come to Montmorenci: to avoid, however, +fatiguing you or myself, I shall refer the rest of our tour to another +letter, which will probably accompany this: my meaning is, that two +moderate letters <span class="origtext">aae</span><span class="errata">are</span> vastly better than one long one; in which +sentiment I know you agree with</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.081">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXXXI.</span><span class="let-num">81.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Feb. 25, Afternoon.</div> + +<p>So, my dear, as I was saying, this same ride to Montmorenci—where +was I, Lucy? I forget.—O, I believe pretty near the mouth of the +bay, embosomed in which lies the lovely cascade of which I am to give +you a winter description, and which I only slightly mentioned when I +gave you an account of the rivers by which it is <span class="origtext">supplied</span><span class="correction">supplied.</span></p> + +<p>The road, about a mile before you reach this bay, is a regular +glassy level, without any of those intervening hills of ice which I +have mentioned; hills, which with the ideas, though false ones, of +danger and difficulty, give those of beauty and magnificence too.</p> + +<p>As you gradually approach the bay, you are struck with an awe, which +increases every moment, as you come nearer, from the grandeur of a +scene, which is one of the noblest works of nature: the beauty, the +proportion, the solemnity, the wild magnificence of which, surpassing +every possible effect of art, impress one strongly with the idea of its +Divine Almighty Architect.</p> + +<p>The rock on the east side, which is first in view as you approach, +is a smooth and almost perpendicular precipice, of the same height as +the fall; the top, which a little over-hangs, is beautifully covered +with pines, firs, and ever-greens of various kinds, whose verdant +lustre is rendered at this season more shining and lovely by the +surrounding snow, as well as by that which is sprinkled irregularly on +their branches, and glitters half melted in the sun-beams: a thousand +smaller shrubs are scattered on the side of the ascent, and, having +their roots in almost imperceptible clefts of the rock, seem to those +below to grow in air.</p> + +<p>The west side is equally lofty, but more sloping, which, from that +circumstance, affords soil all the way, upon shelving inequalities of +the rock, at little distances, for the growth of trees and shrubs, by +which it is almost entirely hid.</p> + +<p>The most pleasing view of this miracle of nature is certainly in +summer, and in the early part of it, when every tree is in foliage and +full verdure, every shrub in flower; and when the river, swelled with a +waste of waters from the mountains from which it derives its source, +pours down in a tumultuous torrent, that equally charms and astonishes +the beholder.</p> + +<p>The winter scene has, notwithstanding, its beauties, though of a +different kind, more resembling the stillness and inactivity of the +season.</p> + +<p>The river being on its sides bound up in frost, and its channel +rendered narrower than in the summer, affords a less body of water to +supply the cascade; and the fall, though very steep, yet not being +exactly perpendicular, masses of ice are formed, on different shelving +projections of the rock, in a great variety of forms and proportions.</p> + +<p>The torrent, which before rushed with such impetuosity down the deep +descent in one vast sheet of water, now descends in some parts with a +slow and majestic pace; in others seems almost suspended in mid air; +and in others, bursting through the obstacles which interrupt its +course, pours down with redoubled fury into the foaming bason below, +from whence a spray arises, which, freezing in its ascent, becomes on +each side a wide and irregular frozen breast-work; and in front, the +spray being there much greater, a lofty and magnificent pyramid of +solid ice.</p> + +<p>I have not told you half the grandeur, half the beauty, half the +lovely wildness of this scene: if you would know what it is, you must +take no information but that of your own eyes, which I pronounce +strangers to the loveliest work of creation till they have seen the +river and fall of Montmorenci.</p> + +<p>In short, my dear, I am Montmorenci-mad.</p> + +<p>I can hardly descend to tell you, we passed the ice from thence to +Orleans, and dined out of doors on six feet of snow, in the charming +enlivening warmth of the sun, though in the month of February, at a +time when you in England scarce feel his beams.</p> + +<p>Fitzgerald made violent love to me all the way, and I never felt +myself listen with such complacency.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I have wrote two immense letters. Write oftener; you are +lazy, yet expect me to be an absolute slave in the scribbling way.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> +<p class="preverse">Do you know your brother has admirable ideas? He contrived to lose +his way on our return, and kept Emily ten minutes behind the rest of +the company. I am apt to fancy there was something like a declaration, +for she blushed,</p> +<div class="verse"> + “Celestial rosy red,”</div> +<p class="postverse">when he led her into the dining room at Silleri.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Once more, adieu!</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.082">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXXXII.</span><span class="let-num">82.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">March 1.</div> + +<p>I was mistaken, my dear; not a word of love between your brother and +Emily, as she positively assures me; something very tender has passed, +I am convinced, notwithstanding, for she blushes more than ever when he +approaches, and there is a certain softness in his voice when he +addresses her, which cannot escape a person of my penetration.</p> + +<p>Do you know, my dear Lucy, that there is a little impertinent girl +here, a Mademoiselle Clairaut, who, on the meer merit of features and +complexion, sets up for being as handsome as Emily and me?</p> + +<p>If beauty, as I will take the liberty to assert, is given us for the +purpose of pleasing, she who pleases most, that is to say, she who +excites the most passion, is to all intents and purposes the most +beautiful woman; and, in this case, I am inclined to believe your +little Bell stands pretty high on the roll of beauty; the men’s <i>eyes</i> +may perhaps <i>say</i> she is handsome, but their <i>hearts feel</i> +that I am so.</p> + +<p>There is, in general, nothing so insipid, so uninteresting, as a +beauty; which those men experience to their cost, who chuse from +vanity, not inclination. I remember Sir Charles Herbert, a Captain in +the same regiment with my father, who determined to marry Miss Raymond +before he saw her, merely because he had been told she was a celebrated +beauty, though she was never known to have inspired a real passion: he +saw her, not with his own eyes, but those of the public, took her +charms on trust; and, till he was her husband, never found out she was +not his taste; a secret, however, of some little importance to his +happiness.</p> + +<p>I have, however, known some beauties who had a right to please; that +is, who had a mixture of that invisible charm, that nameless grace +which by no means depends on beauty, and which strikes the heart in a +moment; but my first aversion is your <i>fine women</i>: don’t you +think <i>a fine woman</i> a detestable creature, Lucy? I do: they are +vastly well to <i>fill</i> public places; but as to the heart—Heavens, +my dear! yet there are men, I suppose, to be found, who have a taste +for the great sublime in beauty.</p> + +<p>Men are vastly foolish, my dear; very few of them have spirit to +think for themselves; there are a thousand Sir Charles Herberts: I +have seen some of them weak enough to decline marrying the woman on +earth most pleasing to themselves, because not thought handsome by the +generality of their companions.</p> + +<p class="preverse">Women are above this folly, and therefore chuse much oftener from +affection than men. We are a thousand times wiser, Lucy, than these +important beings, these mighty lords,</p> +<div class="verse"> + “Who strut and fret their hour upon the stage;”</div> +<p class="postverse">and, instead of playing the part in life which nature dictates to +their reason and their hearts, act a borrowed one at the will of +others.</p> + +<p>I had rather even judge ill, than not judge for myself.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! yours ever,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.083">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXXXIII.</span><span class="let-num">83.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, March 4.</div> + +<p>After debating with myself some days, I am determined to pursue +Emily; but, before I make a declaration, will go to see some ungranted +lands at the back of Madame Des Roches’s estate; which, lying on a very +fine river, and so near the St. Lawrence, may I think be cultivated at +less expence than those above Lake Champlain, though in a much inferior +climate: if I make my settlement here, I will purchase the estate +Madame Des Roches has to sell, which will open me a road to the river +St. Lawrence, and consequently treble the value of my lands.</p> + +<p>I love, I adore this charming woman; but I will not suffer my +tenderness for her to make her unhappy, or to lower her station in +life: if I can, by my present plan, secure her what will in this +country be a degree of affluence, I will endeavor to change her +friendship for me into a tenderer and more lively affection; if she +loves, I know by my own heart, that Canada will be no longer a place of +exile; if I have flattered myself, and she has only a friendship for +me, I will return immediately to England, and retire with you and my +mother to our little estate in the country.</p> + +<p>You will perhaps say, why not make Emily of our party? I am almost +ashamed to speak plain; but so weak are we, and so guided by the +prejudices we fancy we despise, that I cannot bear my Emily, after +refusing a coach and six, should live without an equipage suitable at +least to her birth, and the manner in which she has always lived when +in England.</p> + +<p>I know this is folly, that it is a despicable pride; but it is a +folly, a pride, I cannot conquer.</p> + +<p>There are moments when I am above all this childish prejudice, but +it returns upon me in spite of myself.</p> + +<p>Will you come to us, my Lucy? Tell my mother, I will build her a +rustic palace, and settle a little principality on you both.</p> + +<p>I make this a private excursion, because I don’t chuse any body +should even guess at my views. I shall set out in the evening, and make +a circuit to cross the river above the town.</p> + +<p>I shall not even take leave at Silleri, as I propose being back in +four days, and I know your friend Bell will be inquisitive about my +journey.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.084">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXXXIV.</span><span class="let-num">84.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, March 6.</div> + +<p>Your brother is gone nobody knows whither, and without calling upon +us before he set off; we are piqued, I assure you, my dear, and with +some little reason.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Four o’clock.</div> + +<p>Very strange news, Lucy; they say Colonel Rivers is gone to marry +Madame Des Roches, a lady at whose house he was some time in autumn; if +this is true, I forswear the whole sex: his manner of stealing off is +certainly very odd, and she is rich and agreable; but, if he does not +love Emily, he has been excessively cruel in shewing an attention which +has deceived her into a passion for him. I cannot believe it possible: +not that he has ever told her he loved her; but a man of honor will +not tell an untruth even with his eyes, and his have spoke a very +unequivocal language.</p> + +<p>I never saw any thing like her confusion, when she was told he was +gone to visit Madame Des Roches; but, when it was hinted with what +design, I was obliged to take her out of the room, or she would have +discovered all the fondness of her soul. I really thought she would +have fainted as I led her out.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Eight o’clock.</div> + +<p>I have sent away all the men, and drank tea in Emily’s apartment; +she has scarce spoke to me; I am miserable for her; she has a paleness +which alarms me, the tears steal every moment into her lovely eyes. +Can Rivers act so unworthy a part? her tenderness cannot have been +unobserved by him; it was too visible to every body.</p> + +<div class="dateline">9th, Ten o’clock.</div> + +<p>Not a line from your brother yet; only a confirmation of his being +with Madame Des Roches, having been seen there by some Canadians who +are come up this morning: I am not quite pleased, though I do not +believe the report; he might have told us surely where he was going.</p> + +<p>I pity Emily beyond words; she says nothing, but there is a dumb +eloquence in her countenance which is not to be described.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Twelve o’clock.</div> + +<p>I have been an hour alone with the dear little girl, who has, from a +hint I dropt on purpose, taken courage to speak to me on this very +interesting subject; she says, “she shall be most unhappy if this +report is true, though without the least right to complain of Colonel +Rivers, who never even hinted a word of any affection for her more +tender than friendship; that if her vanity, her self-love, or her +tenderness, have deceived her, she ought only to blame herself.” She +added, “that she wished him to marry Madame Des Roches, if she could +make him happy;” but when she said this, an involuntary tear seemed to +contradict the generosity of her sentiments.</p> + +<p>I beg your pardon, my dear, but my esteem for your brother is +greatly lessened; I cannot help fearing there is something in the +report, and that this is what Mrs. Melmoth meant when she mentioned his +having an attachment.</p> + +<p>I shall begin to hate the whole sex, Lucy, if I find your brother +unworthy, and shall give Fitzgerald his dismission immediately.</p> + +<p>I am afraid Mrs. Melmoth knows men better than we foolish girls do: +she said, he attached himself to Emily meerly from vanity, and I begin +to believe she was right: how cruel is this conduct! The man who from +vanity, or perhaps only to amuse an idle hour, can appear to be +attached where he is not, and by that means seduce the heart of a +deserving woman, or indeed of any woman, falls in my opinion very +little short in baseness of him who practises a greater degree of +seduction.</p> + +<p>What right has he to make the most amiable of women wretched? a +woman who would have deserved him had he been monarch of the universal +world! I might add, who has sacrificed ease and affluence to her +tenderness for him?</p> + +<p>You will excuse my warmth on such an occasion; however, as it may +give you pain, I will say no more.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i6">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.085">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXXXV.</span><span class="let-num">85.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Kamaraskas, March 12.</div> + +<p>I have met with something, my dear Lucy, which has given me infinite +uneasiness; Madame Des Roches, from my extreme zeal to serve her in an +affair wherein she has been hardly used, from my second visit, and a +certain involuntary attention, and softness of manner I have to all +women, has supposed me in love with her, and with a frankness I cannot +but admire, and a delicacy not to be described, has let me know I am +far from being indifferent to her.</p> + +<p>I was at first extremely embarrassed; but when I had reflected a +moment, I considered that the ladies, though another may be the object, +always regard with a kind of complacency a man who <i>loves</i>, as +one who acknowledges the power of the sex, whereas an indifferent is a +kind of rebel to their empire; I considered also that the confession +of a prior inclination saves the most delicate vanity from being +wounded; and therefore determined to make her the confidante of my +tenderness for Emily; leaving her an opening to suppose that, if my +heart had been disengaged, it could not have escaped her attractions.</p> + +<p>I did this with all possible precaution, and with every softening +friendship and politeness could suggest; she was shocked at my +confession, but soon recovered herself enough to tell me she was highly +flattered by this proof of my confidence and esteem; that she believed +me a man to have only the more respect for a woman who by owning her +partiality had told me she considered me not only as the most amiable, +but the most noble of my sex; that she had heard, no love was so +tender as that which was the child of friendship; but that of this she +was convinced, that no friendship was so tender as that which was the +child of love; that she offered me this tender, this lively friendship, +and would for the future find her happiness in the consideration of +mine.</p> + +<p>Do you know, my dear, that, since this confession, I feel a kind of +tenderness for her, to which I cannot give a name? It is not love; for +I love, I idolize another: but it is softer and more pleasing, as well +as more animated, than friendship.</p> + +<p>You cannot conceive what pleasure I find in her conversation; she +has an admirable understanding, a feeling heart, and a mixture of +softness and spirit in her manner, which is peculiarly pleasing to men. +My Emily will love her; I must bring them acquainted: she promises to +come to Quebec in May; I shall be happy to shew her every attention +when there.</p> + +<p>I have seen the lands, and am pleased with them: I believe this will +be my residence, if Emily, as I cannot avoid hoping, will make me +happy; I shall declare myself as soon as I return, but must continue +here a few days longer: I shall not be less pleased with this situation +for its being so near Madame Des Roches, in whom Emily will find a +friend worthy of her esteem, and an entertaining lively companion.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu, my dear Lucy!<br></span> +<span class="i6">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> +<p class="addendum">I have fixed on the loveliest spot on earth, on which to build a +house for my mother: do I not expect too much in fancying she will +follow me hither?</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.086">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXXXVI.</span><span class="let-num">86.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, March 13.</div> + +<p>Still with Madame Des Roches; appearances are rather against him, +you must own, Lucy: but I will not say all I think to you. Poor Emily! +we dispute continually, for she will persist in defending his conduct; +she says, he has a right to marry whoever he pleases; that her loving +him is no tie upon his honor, especially as he does not even know of +this preference; that she ought only to blame the weakness of her own +heart, which has betrayed her into a false belief that their tenderness +was mutual: this is pretty talking, but he has done every thing to +convince her of his feeling the strongest passion for her, except +making a formal declaration.</p> + +<p>She talks of returning to England the moment the river is open: +indeed, if your brother <span class="origtext">marrie ,</span><span class="correction">marries,</span> it is the only step left her to take. I +almost wish now she had married Sir George: she would have had all the +<i>douceurs</i> of marriage; and as to love, I begin to think men +incapable of feeling it: some of them can indeed talk well on the +subject; but self-interest and vanity are the real passions of their +souls. I detest the whole sex.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i6">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.087">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXXXVII.</span><span class="let-num">87.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To the Earl of <span class="origtext">——</span><span class="correction">——.</span></div> +<div class="salutation">My Lord,</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, March 13.</div> + +<p>I generally distrust my own opinion when it differs from your +Lordship’s; but in this instance I am most certainly in the right: +allow me to say, nothing can be more ill-judged than your Lordship’s +design of retiring into a small circle, from that world of which you +have so long been one of the most brilliant ornaments. What you say of +the disagreableness of age, is by no means applicable to your Lordship; +nothing is in this respect so fallible as the parish register. Why +should any man retire from society whilst he is capable of contributing +to the pleasures of it? Wit, vivacity, good-nature, and politeness, +give an eternal youth, as stupidity and moroseness a premature old +age. Without a thousandth part of your Lordship’s shining qualities, I +think myself much younger than half the boys about me, meerly because I +have more good-nature, and a stronger desire of pleasing.</p> + +<p>My daughter is much honored by your Lordship’s enquiries: she is +Bell Fermor still; but is addressed by a gentleman who is extremely +agreable to me, and I believe not less so to her; I however know too +well the free spirit of woman, of which she has her full share, to let +Bell know I approve her choice; I am even in doubt whether it would not +be good policy to seem to dislike the match, in order to secure her +consent: there is something very pleasing to a young girl, in opposing +the will of her father.</p> + +<p>To speak truth, I am a little out of humor with her at present, for +having contributed, and I believe entirely from a spirit of opposition +to me, to break a match on which I had extremely set my heart; the +lady was the <span class="origtext">daughter</span><span class="errata">niece</span> of my particular friend, and one of the most +lovely and deserving women I ever knew: the gentleman very worthy, with +an agreable, indeed a very handsome person, and a fortune which with +those who know the world, would have compensated for the want of most +other advantages.</p> + +<p>The fair lady, after an engagement of two years, took a whim that +there was no happiness in marriage without being madly in love, and +that her passion was not sufficiently romantic; in which piece of folly +my rebel encouraged her, and the affair broke off in a manner which has +brought on her the imputation of having given way to an idle +prepossession in favor of another.</p> + +<p>Your Lordship will excuse my talking on a subject very near my +heart, though uninteresting to you; I have too often experienced your +Lordship’s indulgence to doubt it on this occasion: your good-natured +philosophy will tell you, much fewer people talk or write to amuse or +inform their friends, than to give way to the feelings of their own +hearts, or indulge the governing passion of the moment.</p> + +<p>In my next, I will endeavor in the best manner I can, to obey your +Lordship’s commands in regard to the political and religious state of +Canada: I will make a point of getting the best information possible; +what I have yet seen, has been only the surface.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i0">I have the honor to be,<br></span> +<span class="i2">My Lord,<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your Lordship’s &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">William Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.088">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXXXVIII.</span><span class="let-num">88.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, March 16, Monday.</div> + +<p>Your brother is come back; and has been here: he came after dinner +yesterday. My Emily is more than woman; I am proud of her behaviour: +he entered with his usual impatient air; she received him with a +dignity which astonished me, and disconcerted him: there was a cool +dispassionate indifference in her whole manner, which I saw cut his +vanity to the quick, and for which he was by no means prepared.</p> + +<p>On such an occasion I should have flirted violently with some other +man, and have shewed plainly I was piqued: she judged much better; I +have only to wish it may last. He is the veriest coquet in nature, for, +after all, I <span class="origtext">amconvinced</span><span class="correction">am convinced</span> he loves Emily.</p> + +<p>He stayed a very little time, and has not been here this morning; he +may pout if he pleases, but I flatter myself we shall hold out the +longest.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Nine o’clock.</div> + +<p>He came to dine; we kept up our state all dinner time; he begged a +moment’s conversation, which we refused, but with a timid air that +makes me begin to fear we shall beat a parley: he is this moment gone, +and Emily retired to her apartment on pretence of indisposition: I am +afraid she is a foolish girl.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Half hour after six.</div> +<p class="preverse">It will not do, Lucy: I found her in tears at the window, following +Rivers’s carriole with her eyes: she turned to me with such a look—in +short, my dear,</p> +<div class="verse"> + “The weak, the fond, the fool, the coward woman”</div> +<p class="postverse">has prevailed over all her resolution: her love is only the more +violent for having been a moment restrained; she is not equal to the +task she has undertaken; her resentment was concealed tenderness, and +has retaken its first form.</p> + +<p>I am sorry to find there is not one wise woman in the world but +myself.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Past ten.</div> + +<p>I have been with her again: she seemed a little calmer; I commended +her spirit; she disavowed it; was peevish with me, angry with herself; +said she had acted in a manner unworthy her character; accused herself +of caprice, artifice, and cruelty; said she ought to have seen him, if +not alone, yet with me only: that it was natural he should be surprized +at a reception so inconsistent with true friendship, and therefore +that he should wish an explanation; that <i>her</i> Rivers (and why not +Madame Des Roches’s Rivers?) was incapable of acting otherwise than as +became the best and most tender of mankind, and that therefore she +ought not to have suffered a whisper injurious to his honor: that I had +meant well, but had, by depriving her of Rivers’s friendship, which she +had lost by her haughty behaviour, destroyed all the happiness of her +life.</p> + +<p>To be sure, your poor Bell is always to blame: but if ever I +intermeddle between lovers again, Lucy—</p> + +<p>I am sure she was ten times more angry with him than I was, but this +it is to be too warm in the interest of our friends.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu! till to-morrow.<br></span> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + +<p>I can only say, that if Fitzgerald had visited a handsome rich +French widow, and staid with her ten days <i>téte à téte</i> in the +country, without my permission—</p> + +<p>O Heavens! here is <i>mon cher pere</i>: I must hide my letter.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i6"><i>Bon soir. </i></span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.089">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXXXV.</span><span class="let-num">89.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, March 6.</div> + +<p>I cannot account, my dear, for what has happened to me. I left +Madame Des Roches’s full of the warm impatience of love, and flew to my +Emily at Silleri: I was received with a disdainful coldness which I did +not think had been in her nature, and which has shocked me beyond all +expression.</p> + +<p>I went again to-day, and met with the same reception; I even saw my +presence was painful to her, therefore shortened my visit, and, if I +have resolution to persevere, will not go again till invited by Captain +Fermor in form.</p> + +<p>I could bear any thing but to lose her affection; my whole heart was +set upon her: I had every reason to believe myself dear to her. Can +caprice find a place in that bosom which is the abode of every virtue?</p> + +<p>I must have been misrepresented to her, or surely this could not +have happened: I will wait to-morrow, and if I hear nothing will write +to her, and ask an explanation by letter; she refused me a verbal one +to-day, though I begged to speak with her only for a moment.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Tuesday.</div> + +<p>I have been asked on a little riding party, and, as I cannot go to +Silleri, have accepted it: it will amuse my present anxiety.</p> + +<p>I am to drive <span class="origtext">Madamoiselle</span><span class="correction">Mademoiselle</span> Clairaut, a very pretty French lady: this +is however of no consequence, for my eyes see nothing lovely but Emily.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i6">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.090">LETTER <span class="origtext">XC.</span><span class="let-num">90.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Wednesday morning.</div> + +<p>Poor Emily is to meet with perpetual mortification: we have been +carrioling with Fitzgerald and my father; and, coming back, met your +brother driving Mademoiselle Clairaut: Emily trembled, turned pale, and +scarce returned Rivers’s bow; I never saw a poor little girl so in +love; she is amazingly altered within the last fortnight.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Two o’clock.</div> + +<p>A letter from Mrs. Melmoth: I send you a copy of it with this.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.091">LETTER <span class="origtext">XCI.</span><span class="let-num">91.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Montague, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline">Montreal, March 19.</div> + +<p>If you are not absolutely resolved on destruction, my dear Emily, it +is yet in your power to retrieve the false step you have made.</p> + +<p>Sir George, whose good-nature is in this instance almost without +example, has been prevailed on by Mr. Melmoth to consent I should write +to you before he leaves Montreal, and again offer you his hand, though +rejected in a manner so very mortifying both to vanity and love.</p> + +<p>He gives you a fortnight to consider his offer, at the end of which +if you refuse him he sets out for England over the lakes.</p> + +<p>Be assured, the man for whom it is too plain you have acted this +imprudent part, is so far from returning your affection, that he is at +this moment addressing another; I mean Madame Des Roches, a near +relation of whose assured me that there was an attachment between them: +indeed it is impossible he could have thought of a woman whose fortune +is as small as his own. Men, Miss Montague, are not the romantic beings +you seem to suppose them; you will not find many Sir George Claytons.</p> + +<p>I beg as early an answer as is consistent with the attention so +important a proposal requires, as a compliment to a passion so generous +and disinterested as that of Sir George. I am, my dear Emily,</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate friend,<br></span> +<span class="i8">E. Melmoth.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.092">LETTER <span class="origtext">XCII.</span><span class="let-num">92.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Melmoth, at Montreal.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, March 19.</div> + +<p>I am sorry, my dear Madam, you should know so little of my heart, as +to suppose it possible I could have broke my engagements with Sir +George from any motive but the full conviction of my wanting that +tender affection for him, and that lively taste for his conversation, +which alone could have ensured either his felicity or my own; happy is +it for both that I discovered this before it was too late: it was a +very unpleasing circumstance, even under an intention only of marrying +him, to find my friendship stronger for another; what then would it +have been under the most sacred of all engagements, that of marriage? +What wretchedness would have been the portion of both, had timidity, +decorum, or false honor, carried me, with this partiality in my heart, +to fulfill those views, entered into from compliance to my family, and +continued from a false idea of propriety, and weak fear of the censures +of the world?</p> + +<p>The same reason therefore still subsisting, nay being every moment +stronger, from a fuller conviction of the merit of him my heart +prefers, in spite of me, to Sir George, our union is more impossible +than ever.</p> + +<p>I am however obliged to you, and Major Melmoth, for your zeal to +serve me, though you must permit me to call it a mistaken one; and to +Sir George, for a concession which I own I should not have made in his +situation, and which I can only suppose the effect of Major Melmoth’s +persuasions, which he might suppose were known to me, and an +imagination that my sentiments for him were changed: assure him of my +esteem, though love is not in my power.</p> + +<p>As Colonel Rivers never gave me the remotest reason to suppose him +more than my friend, I have not the least right to disapprove his +marrying: on the contrary, as his friend, I <i>ought</i> to wish a +connexion which I am told is greatly to his advantage.</p> + +<p>To prevent all future importunity, painful to me, and, all +circumstances considered, degrading to Sir George, whose honor is very +dear to me, though I am obliged to refuse him that hand which he surely +cannot wish to receive without my heart, I am compelled to say, that, +without an idea of ever being united to Colonel Rivers, I will never +marry any other man.</p> + +<p>Were I never again to behold him, were he even the husband of +another, my tenderness, a tenderness as innocent as it is lively, +would never cease: nor would I give up the refined delight of loving +him, independently of any hope of being beloved, for any advantage in +the power of fortune to bestow.</p> + +<p>These being my sentiments, sentiments which no time can alter, they +cannot be too soon known to Sir George: I would not one hour keep him +in suspence in a point, which this step seems to say is of consequence +to his happiness.</p> + +<p>Tell him, I entreat him to forget me, and to come into views which +will make his mother, and I have no doubt himself, happier than a +marriage with a woman whose chief merit is that very sincerity of heart +which obliges her to refuse him.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">I am, Madam,<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate, &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.093">LETTER <span class="origtext">XCIII.</span><span class="let-num">93.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Thursday.</div> + +<p>Your brother dines here to-day, by my father’s invitation; I am +afraid it will be but an awkward party.</p> + +<p>Emily is at this moment an exceeding fine model for a statue of +tender melancholy.</p> + +<p>Her anger is gone; not a trace remaining; ’tis sorrow, but the most +beautiful sorrow I ever beheld: she is all grief for having offended +the dear man.</p> + +<p>I am out of patience with this look; it is so flattering to him, I +could beat her for it: I cannot bear his vanity should be so +gratified.</p> + +<p>I wanted her to treat him with a saucy, unconcerned, flippant air; +but her whole appearance is gentle, tender, I had almost said, +supplicating: I am ashamed of the folly of my own sex: O, that I could +to-day inspire her with a little of my spirit! she is a poor tame +household dove, and there is no making any thing of her.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Eleven o’clock.</div> +<div class="verse"> + “For my shepherd is kind, and my heart is at ease.”</div> +<p class="postverse">What fools women are, Lucy! He took her hand, expressed concern for +her health, softened the tone of his voice, looked a few civil things +with those expressive lying eyes of his, and without one word of +explanation all was forgot in a moment.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Good night! Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + +<p>Heavens! the fellow is here, has followed me to my dressing-room; +was ever any thing so confident? These modest men have ten times the +assurance of your impudent fellows. I believe absolutely he is going to +make love to me: ’tis a critical hour, Lucy; and to rob one’s friend of +a lover is really a temptation.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Twelve o’clock.</div> + +<p>The dear man is gone, and has made all up: he insisted on my +explaining the reasons of the cold reception he had met with; which you +know was impossible, without betraying the secret of poor Emily’s +little foolish heart.</p> + +<p>I however contrived to let him know we were a little piqued at his +going without seeing us, and that we were something inclined to be +jealous of his <i>friendship</i> for Madame Des Roches.</p> + +<p>He made a pretty decent defence; and, though I don’t absolutely +acquit him of coquetry, yet upon the whole I think I forgive him.</p> + +<p>He loves Emily, which is great merit with me: I am only sorry they +are two such poor devils, it is next to impossible they should ever +come together.</p> + +<p>I think I am not angry now; as to Emily, her eyes dance with +pleasure; she has not the same countenance as in the morning; this +love is the finest cosmetick in the world.</p> + +<p>After all, he is a charming fellow, and has eyes, Lucy—Heaven be +praised, he never pointed their fire at me!</p> + +<p>Adieu! I will try to sleep.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.094">LETTER <span class="origtext">XCIV.</span><span class="let-num">94.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, March 20.</div> + +<p>The coldness of which I complained, my dear Lucy, in regard to +Emily, was the most flattering circumstance which could have happened: +I will not say it was the effect of jealousy, but it certainly was of +a delicacy of affection which extremely resembles it.</p> + +<p>Never did she appear so lovely as yesterday; never did she display +such variety of loveliness: there was a something in her look, when I +first addressed her on entering the room, touching beyond all words, a +certain inexpressible melting languor, a dying softness, which it was +not in man to see unmoved: what then must a lover have felt?</p> + +<p>I had the pleasure, after having been in the room a few moments, to +see this charming languor change to a joy which animated her whole +form, and of which I was so happy as to believe myself the cause: my +eyes had told her all that passed in my heart; hers had shewed me +plainly they understood their language. We were standing at a window at +some little distance from the rest of the company, when I took an +opportunity of hinting my concern at having, though without knowing it, +offended her: she blushed, she looked down, she again raised her lovely +eyes, they met mine, she sighed; I took her hand, she withdrew it, but +not in anger; a smile, like that of the poet’s Hebe, told me I was +forgiven.</p> + +<p>There is no describing what then passed in my soul: with what +difficulty did I restrain my transports! never before did I really know +love: what I had hitherto felt even for her, was cold to that +enchanting, that impassioned moment.</p> + +<p>She is a thousand times dearer to me than life: my Lucy, I cannot +live without her.</p> + +<p>I contrived, before I left Silleri, to speak to Bell Fermor on the +subject of Emily’s reception of me; she did not fully explain herself, +but she convinced me hatred had no part in her resentment.</p> + +<p>I am going again this afternoon: every hour not passed with her is +lost.</p> + +<p>I will seek a favorable occasion of telling her the whole happiness +of my life depends on her tenderness.</p> + +<p>Before I write again, my fate will possibly be determined: with +every reason to hope, the timidity inseparable from love makes me dread +a full explanation of my sentiments: if her native softness should have +deceived me—but I will not study to be unhappy.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.095">LETTER <span class="origtext">XCV.</span><span class="let-num">95.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, March 20.</div> + +<p>I have been telling Fitzgerald I am jealous of his prodigious +attention to Emily, whose cecisbeo he has been the last ten days: the +simpleton took me seriously, and began to vindicate himself, by +explaining the nature of his regard for her, pleading her late +indisposition as an excuse for shewing her some extraordinary +civilities.</p> + +<p class="preverse">I let him harangue ten minutes, then stops me him short, puts on my +poetical face, and repeats,</p> +<div class="verse"> + “When sweet Emily complains,<br> + I have sense of all her pains;<br> + But for little Bella, I<br> + Do not only grieve, but die.”</div> + +<p>He smiled, kissed my hand, praised my amazing penetration, and was +going to take this opportunity of saying a thousand civil things, when +my divine Rivers appeared on the side of the hill; I flew to meet him, +and left my love to finish the conversation alone.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Twelve o’clock.</div> + +<p>I am the happiest of all possible women; Fitzgerald is in the +sullens about your brother; surely there is no pleasure in nature equal +to that of plaguing a fellow who really loves one, especially if he has +as much merit as Fitzgerald, for otherwise he would not be worth +tormenting. He had better not pout with me: I believe I know who will +be tired first.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Eight in the evening.</div> + +<p>I have passed a most delicious day: Fitzgerald took it into his wise +head to endeavor to make me jealous of a little pert French-woman, the +wife of a Croix de St. Louis, who I know he despises; I then thought +myself at full liberty to play off all my airs, which I did with +ineffable success, and have sent him home in a humor to hang himself. +Your brother stays the evening, so does a very handsome fellow I have +been flirting with all the day: Fitz was engaged here too, but I told +him it was impossible for him not to attend Madame La Brosse to Quebec; +he looked at me with a spite in his countenance which charmed me to the +soul, and handed the fair lady to his carriole.</p> + +<p>I’ll teach him to coquet, Lucy; let him take his Madame La Brosse: +indeed, as her husband is at Montreal, I don’t see how he can avoid +pursuing his conquest: I am delighted, because I know she is his +aversion.</p> + +<p>Emily calls me to cards. Adieu! my dear little Lucy.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.096">LETTER <span class="origtext">XCVI.</span><span class="let-num">96.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec.</div> +<div class="dateline">Pall Mall, January 3.</div> + +<p>I have but a moment, my dear Ned, to tell you, that without so much +as asking your leave, and in spite of all your wise admonitions, your +lovely sister has this morning consented to make me the happiest of +mankind: to-morrow gives me all that is excellent and charming in +woman.</p> + +<p>You are to look on my writing this letter as the strongest proof I +ever did, or ever can give you of my friendship. I must love you with +no common affection to remember at this moment that there is such a man +in being: perhaps you owe this recollection only to your being brother +to the loveliest woman nature ever formed; whose charms in a month +have done more towards my conversion than seven years of your preaching +would have done. I am going back to Clarges Street. Adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours, &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">John Temple.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.097">LETTER <span class="origtext">XCVII.</span><span class="let-num">97.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec.</div> +<div class="dateline">Clarges Street, January 3.</div> + +<p>I am afraid you knew very little of the sex, my dear brother, when +you cautioned me so strongly against loving Mr. Temple: I should +perhaps, with all his merit, have never thought of him but for that +caution.</p> + +<p>There is something very interesting to female curiosity in the idea +of these very formidable men, whom no woman can see without danger; we +gaze on the terrible creature at a distance, see nothing in him so very +alarming; he approaches, our little hearts palpitate with fear, he is +gentle, attentive, respectful; we are surprized at this respect, we are +sure the world wrongs the dear civil creature; he flatters, we are +pleased with his flattery; our little hearts still palpitate—but not +with fear.</p> + +<p>In short, my dear brother, if you wish to serve a friend with us, +describe him as the most dangerous of his sex; the very idea that he is +so, makes us think resistance vain, and we throw down our defensive +arms in absolute despair.</p> + +<p>I am not sure this is the reason of my discovering Mr. Temple to be +the most amiable of men; but of this I am certain, that I love him with +the most lively affection, and that I am convinced, notwithstanding all +you have said, that he deserves all my tenderness.</p> + +<p>Indeed, my dear prudent brother, you men fancy yourselves extremely +wise and penetrating, but you don’t know each other half so well as we +know you: I shall make Temple in a few weeks as tame a domestic animal +as you can possibly be, even with your Emily.</p> + +<p class="preverse">I hope you won’t be very angry with me for accepting an agreable +fellow, and a coach and six: if you are, I can only say, that finding +the dear man steal every day upon my heart, and recollecting how very +dangerous a creature he was,</p> +<div class="verse lineind"> + “I held it both safest and best<br> + To marry, for fear you should chide.”</div> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate, &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">Lucy Rivers.</span> +</div> + +<p>Please to observe, mamma was on Mr. Temple’s side, and that I only +take him from obedience to her commands. He has behaved like an angel +to her; but I leave himself to explain how: she has promised to live +with us. We are going a party to Richmond, and only wait for Mr. +Temple.</p> + +<p>With all my pertness, I tremble at the idea that to-morrow will +determine the happiness or misery of my life.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! my dearest brother.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.098">LETTER <span class="origtext">XCVIII.</span><span class="let-num">98.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, March 21.</div> + +<p>Were I convinced of your conversion, my dear Jack, I should be the +happiest man breathing in the thought of your marrying my sister; but I +tremble lest this resolution should be the effect of passion merely, +and not of that settled esteem and tender confidence without which +mutual repentance will be the necessary consequence of your connexion.</p> + +<p>Lucy is one of the most beautiful women I ever knew, but she has +merits of a much superior kind; her understanding and her heart are +equally lovely: she has also a sensibility which exceedingly alarms me +for her, as I know it is next to impossible that even her charms can +fix a heart so long accustomed to change.</p> + +<p>Do I not guess too truly, my dear Temple, when I suppose the +charming mistress is the only object you have in view; and that the +tender amiable friend, the pleasing companion, the faithful confidante, +is forgot?</p> + +<p>I will not however anticipate evils: if any merit has power to fix +you, Lucy’s cannot fail of doing it.</p> + +<p>I expect with impatience a further account of an event in which my +happiness is so extremely interested.</p> + +<p>If she is yours, may you know her value, and you cannot fail of +being happy: I only fear from your long habit of improper attachments; +naturally, I know not a heart filled with nobler sentiments than yours, +nor is there on earth a man for whom I have equal esteem. Adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.099">LETTER <span class="origtext">XCIX.</span><span class="let-num">99.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, March 23.</div> + +<p>I have received your second letter, my dear Temple, with the account +of your marriage.</p> + +<p>Nothing could make me so happy as an event which unites a sister I +idolize to the friend on earth most dear to me, did I not tremble for +your future happiness, from my perfect knowledge of both.</p> + +<p>I know the sensibility of Lucy’s temper, and that she loves you: I +know also the difficulty of weaning the heart from such a habit of +inconstancy as you have unhappily acquired.</p> + +<p>Virtues like Lucy’s will for ever command your esteem and +friendship; but in marriage it is equally necessary to keep love alive: +her beauty, her gaiety, her delicacy, will do much; but it is also +necessary, my dearest Temple, that you keep a guard on your heart, +accustomed to liberty, to give way to every light impression.</p> + +<p>I need not tell you, who have experienced the truth of what I say, +that happiness is not to be found in a life of intrigue; there is no +real pleasure in the possession of beauty without the heart; with it, +the fears, the anxieties, a man not absolutely destitute of humanity +must feel for the honor of her who ventures more than life for him, +must extremely counterbalance his transports.</p> + +<p>Of all the situations this world affords, a marriage of choice gives +the fairest prospect of happiness; without love, life would be a +tasteless void; an unconnected human being is the most wretched of all +creatures: by love I would be understood to mean that tender lively +friendship, that mixed sensation, which the libertine never felt; and +with which I flatter myself my amiable sister cannot fail of inspiring +a heart naturally virtuous, however at present warped by a foolish +compliance with the world.</p> + +<p>I hope, my dear Temple, to see you recover your taste for those +pleasures peculiarly fitted to our natures; to see you enjoy the pure +delights of peaceful domestic life, the calm social evening hour, the +circle of friends, the prattling offspring, and the tender impassioned +smile of real love.</p> + +<p>Your generosity is no more than I expected from your character; and +to convince you of my perfect esteem, I so far accept it, as to draw +out the money I have in the funds, which I intended for my sister: it +will make my settlement here turn to greater advantage, and I allow you +the pleasure of convincing Lucy of the perfect disinterestedness of +your affection: it would be a trifle to you, and will make me happy.</p> + +<p>But I am more delicate in regard to my mother, and will never +consent to resume the estate I have settled on her: I esteem you above +all mankind, but will not let <i>her</i> be dependent even on you: I +consent she visit you as often as she pleases, but insist on her +continuing her house in town, and living in every respect as she has +been accustomed.</p> + +<p>As to Lucy’s own little fortune, as it is not worth your receiving, +suppose she lays it out in jewels? I love to see beauty adorned; and +two thousand pounds, added to what you have given her, will set her on +a footing in this respect with a nabobess.</p> + +<p>Your marriage, my dear Temple, removes the strongest objection to +mine; the money I have in the funds, which whilst Lucy was unmarried I +never would have taken, enables me to fix to great advantage here. I +have now only to try whether Emily’s friendship for me is sufficiently +strong to give up all hopes of a return to England.</p> + +<p>I shall make an immediate trial: you shall know the event in a few +days. If she refuses me, I bid adieu to all my schemes, and embark in +the first ship.</p> + +<p>Give my kindest tenderest wishes to my mother and sister. My dear +Temple, only know the value of the treasure you possess, and you must +be happy. Adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.100">LETTER <span class="origtext">C.</span><span class="let-num">100.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To the Earl of ——.</div> +<div class="salutation">My Lord,</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, March 24.</div> + +<p>Nothing can be more just than your Lordship’s observation; and I am +the more pleased with it, as it coincides with what I had the honor of +saying to you in my last, in regard to the impropriety, the cruelty, +I had almost said the injustice, of your intention of deserting that +world of which you are at once the ornament and the example.</p> + +<p>Good people, as your Lordship observes, are generally too retired +and abstracted to let their example be of much service to the world: +whereas the bad, on the contrary, are conspicuous to all; they stand +forth, they appear on the fore ground of the picture, and force +themselves into observation.</p> + +<p>’Tis to that circumstance, I am persuaded, we may attribute that +dangerous and too common mistake, that vice is natural to the human +heart, and virtuous characters the creatures of fancy; a mistake of the +most fatal tendency, as it tends to harden our hearts, and destroy +that mutual confidence so necessary to keep the bands of society from +loosening, and without which man is the most ferocious of all beasts +of prey.</p> + +<p>Would all those whose virtues like your Lordship’s are adorned by +politeness and knowledge of the world, mix more in society, we should +soon see vice hide her head: would all the good appear in full view, +they would, I am convinced, be found infinitely the majority.</p> + +<p>Virtue is too lovely to be hid in cells, the world is her scene of +action: she is soft, gentle, indulgent; let her appear then in her own +form, and she must charm: let politeness be for ever her attendant, +that politeness which can give graces even to vice itself, which makes +superiority easy, removes the sense of inferiority, and adds to every +one’s enjoyment both of himself and others.</p> + +<p>I am interrupted, and must postpone till to-morrow what I have +further to say to your Lordship. I have the honor to be, my Lord,</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your Lordship’s, &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">W. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.101">LETTER <span class="origtext">CI.</span><span class="let-num">101.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, March 25.</div> + +<p>Your brother, my dear Lucy, has made me happy in communicating to me +the account he has received of your marriage. I know Temple; he is, +besides being very handsome, a fine, sprightly, agreable fellow, and is +particularly formed to keep a woman’s mind in that kind of play, that +gentle agitation, which will for ever secure her affection.</p> + +<p>He has in my opinion just as much coquetry as is necessary to +prevent marriage from degenerating into that sleepy kind of existence, +which to minds of the awakened turn of yours and mine would be +insupportable.</p> + +<p>He has also a fine fortune, which I hold to be a pretty enough +ingredient in marriage.</p> + +<p>In short, he is just such a man, upon the whole, as I should have +chose for myself.</p> + +<p>Make my congratulations to the dear man, and tell him, if he is not +the happiest man in the world, he will forfeit all his pretensions to +taste; and if he does not make you the happiest woman, he forfeits all +title to my favor, as well as to the favor of the whole sex.</p> + +<p>I meant to say something civil; but, to tell you the truth, I am not +<i>en train</i>; I am excessively out of humor: Fitzgerald has not been +here of several days, but spends his whole time in gallanting Madame +La Brosse, a woman to whom he knows I have an aversion, and who has +nothing but a tolerable complexion and a modest assurance to recommend +her.</p> + +<p>I certainly gave him some provocation, but this is too much: +however, ’tis very well; I don’t think I shall break my heart, though +my vanity is a little piqued. I may perhaps live to take my revenge.</p> + +<p>I am hurt, because I began really to like the creature; a secret +however to which he is happily a stranger. I shall see him to-morrow at +the governor’s, and suppose he will be in his penitentials: I have some +doubt whether I shall let him dance with me; yet it would look so +particular to refuse him, that I believe I shall do him the honor.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i6">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> +<div class="dateline">26th, Thursday, 11 at night.</div> + +<p>No, Lucy, if I forgive him this, I have lost all the free spirit of +woman; he had the insolence to dance with Madame La Brosse to-night at +the governor’s. I never will forgive him. There are men perhaps quite +his <span class="origtext">equal!</span><span class="errata">equals!</span>—but ’tis no matter—I do him too much honor to be +piqued—yet on the footing we were—I could not have believed—</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i6">Adieu!</span> +</div> + +<p>I was so certain he would have danced with me, that I refused +Colonel H——, one of the most agreable men in the place, and therefore +could not dance at all. Nothing hurt me so much as the impertinent +looks of the women; I could cry for vexation.</p> + +<p>Would your brother have behaved thus to Emily? but why do I name +other men with your brother! do you know he and Emily had the +good-nature to refuse to dance, that my sitting still might be the less +taken notice of? We all played at cards, and Rivers contrived to be of +my party, by which he would have won Emily’s heart if he had not had it +before.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i6">Good night.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.102">LETTER <span class="origtext">CII.</span><span class="let-num">102.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, March <span class="origtext">2.</span><span class="correction">27.</span></div> + +<p>I have been twice at Silleri with the intention of declaring my +passion, and explaining my situation, to Emily; but have been prevented +by company, which made it impossible for me to find the opportunity I +wished.</p> + +<p>Had I found that opportunity, I am not sure I should have made use +of it; a degree of timidity is inseparable from true tenderness; and I +am afraid of declaring myself a lover, lest, if not beloved, I should +lose the happiness I at present possess in visiting her as her friend: +I cannot give up the dear delight I find in seeing her, in hearing her +voice, in tracing and admiring every sentiment of that lovely +unaffected generous mind as it rises.</p> + +<p>In short, my Lucy, I cannot live without her esteem and friendship; +and though her eyes, her attention to me, her whole manner, encourage +me in the hope of being beloved, yet the possibility of my being +mistaken makes me dread an explanation by which I hazard losing the +lively pleasure I find in her friendship.</p> + +<p>This timidity however must be conquered; ’tis pardonable to feel +it, but not to give way to it. I have ordered my carriole, and am +determined to make my attack this very morning like a man of courage +and a soldier.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + +<p>A letter from Bell Fermor, to whom I wrote this morning on the +subject:</p> +<div class="toline">“To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Friday morning.</div> + +<p>“You are a foolish creature, and know nothing of women. Dine at +Silleri, and we will air after dinner; ’tis a glorious day, and if you +are timid in a covered carriole, I give you up.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">“Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i6">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.”</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.103">LETTER <span class="origtext">CIII.</span><span class="let-num">103.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, March 27, 11 at night.</div> + +<p>She is an angel, my dear Lucy, and no words can do her justice: I am +the happiest of mankind; I painted my passion with all the moving +eloquence of undissembled love; she heard me with the most flattering +attention; she said little, but her looks, her air, her tone of voice, +her blushes, her very silence—how could I ever doubt her tenderness? +have not those lovely eyes a thousand times betrayed the dear secret of +her heart?</p> + +<p>My Lucy, we were formed for each other; our souls are of +intelligence; every thought, every idea—from the first moment I +beheld her—I have a thousand things to say, but the tumult of my +joy—she has given me leave to write to her; what has she not said in +that permission?</p> + +<p>I cannot go to bed; I will go and walk an hour on the battery; ’tis +the loveliest night I ever beheld, even in Canada: the day is scarce +brighter.</p> + +<div class="dateline">One in the morning.</div> + +<p>I have had the sweetest walk imaginable: the moon shines with a +splendor I never saw before; a thousand streaming meteors add to her +brightness; I have stood gazing on the lovely planet, and delighting +myself with the idea that ’tis the same moon that lights my Emily.</p> + +<p>Good night, my Lucy! I love you beyond all expression; I always +loved you tenderly, but there is a softness about my heart +to-night—this lovely woman—</p> + +<p>I know not what I would say, but till this night I could never be +said to live.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.104">LETTER <span class="origtext">CIV.</span><span class="let-num">104.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, 28th March.</div> + +<p>I had this morning a short billet from her dear hand, entreating me +to make up a quarrel between Bell Fermor and her lover: your friend has +been indiscreet; her spirit of coquetry is eternally carrying her +wrong; but in my opinion Fitzgerald has been at least equally to blame.</p> + +<p>His behaviour at the governor’s on Thursday night was inexcusable, +as it exposed her to the sneers of a whole circle of her own sex, many +of them jealous of her perfections.</p> + +<p>A lover should overlook little caprices, where the heart is good and +amiable like Bell’s: I should think myself particularly obliged to +bring this affair to an amicable conclusion, even if Emily had not +desired it, as I was originally the innocent cause of their quarrel. In +my opinion he ought to beg her pardon; and, as a friend tenderly +interested for both, I have a right to tell him I think so: he loves +her, and I know must suffer greatly, though a foolish pride prevents +his acknowledging it.</p> + +<p>My greatest fear is, that an idle resentment may engage him in an +intrigue with the lady in question, who is a woman of gallantry, and +whom he may find very troublesome hereafter. It is much easier to +commence an affair of this kind than to break it off; and a man, though +his heart was disengaged, should be always on his guard against any +thing like an attachment where his affections are not really +interested: meer passion or meer vanity will support an affair <i>en +passant</i>; but, where the least degree of constancy and attention are +expected, the heart must feel, or the lover is subjecting himself to a +slavery as irksome as a marriage without inclination.</p> + +<p>Temple will tell you I speak like an oracle; for I have often seen +him led by vanity into this very disagreable situation: I hope I am not +too late to save Fitzgerald from it.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Six in the evening.</div> + +<p>All goes well: his proud heart is come down, he has begged her +pardon, and is forgiven; you have no idea how civil both are to me, +for having persuaded them to do what each of them has longed to do from +the first moment: I love to advise, when I am sure the heart of the +person advised is on my side. Both were to blame, but I always love to +save the ladies from any thing mortifying to the dignity of their +characters; a little pride in love becomes them, but not us; and ’tis +always our part to submit on these occasions.</p> + +<p>I never saw two happier people than they are at present, as I have a +little preserved decorum on both sides, and taken the whole trouble of +the reconciliation on myself: Bell knows nothing of my having applied +to Fitzgerald, nor he that I did it at Emily’s request: my conversation +with him on this subject seemed accidental. I was obliged to leave +them, having business in town; but my lovely Emily thanked me by a +smile which would overpay a thousand such little services.</p> + +<p>I am to spend to-morrow at Silleri: how long shall I think this +evening!</p> + +<p>Adieu! my tenderest wishes attend you all!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.105">LETTER <span class="origtext">CV.</span><span class="let-num">105.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, March 27, evening.</div> + +<p>Fitzgerald has been here, and has begged my pardon; he declares he +had no thought of displeasing me at the governor’s, but from my +behaviour was afraid of importuning me if he addressed me as usual.</p> + +<p>I thought who would come to first; for my part, if he had stayed +away for ever, I would not have suffered papa to invite him to Silleri: +it was easy to see his neglect was all pique; it would have been +extraordinary indeed if such a woman as Madame La Brosse could have +rivalled me: I am something younger; and, if either my glass or the men +are to be believed, as handsome: <i>entre nous</i>, there is some +little difference; if she was not so very fair, she would be +absolutely ugly; and these very fair women, you know, Lucy, are always +insipid; she is the taste of no man breathing, though eternally making +advances to every man; without spirit, fire, understanding, vivacity, +or any quality capable of making amends for the mediocrity of her +charms.</p> + +<p>Her insolence in attempting to attach Fitzgerald is intolerable, +especially when the whole province knows him to be my lover: there is +no expressing to what a degree I hate her.</p> + +<p>The next time we meet I hope to return her impertinence on Thursday +night at the governor’s; I will never forgive Fitzgerald if he takes +the least notice of her.</p> + +<p>Emily has read my letter; and says she did not think I had so much +of the woman in me; insists on my being civil to Madame La Brosse, but +if I am, Lucy—</p> + +<p>These Frenchwomen are not to be supported; they fancy vanity and +assurance are to make up for the want of every other virtue; forgetting +that delicacy, softness, sensibility, tenderness, are attractions to +which they are strangers: some of them here are however tolerably +handsome, and have a degree of liveliness which makes them not quite +insupportable.</p> + +<p>You will call all this spite, as Emily does, so I will say no more: +only that, in order to shew her how very easy it is to be civil to a +rival, I wish for the pleasure of seeing another French lady, that I +could mention, at Quebec.</p> + +<p>Good night, my dear! tell Temple, I am every thing but in love with +him.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your faithful,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> +<p class="addendum">I will however own, I encouraged Fitzgerald by a kind look. I was +so pleased at his return, that I could not keep up the farce of disdain +I had projected: in love affairs, I am afraid, we are all fools alike.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.106">LETTER <span class="origtext">CVI.</span><span class="let-num">106.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor.</div> +<div class="dateline">Saturday noon.</div> + +<p>Come to my dressing-room, my dear; I have a thousand things to say +to you: I want to talk of my Rivers, to tell you all the weakness of my +soul.</p> + +<p>No, my dear, I cannot love him more, a passion like mine will not +admit addition; from the first moment I saw him my whole soul was his: +I knew not that I was dear to him; but true genuine love is +self-existent, and does not depend on being beloved: I should have +loved him even had he been attached to another.</p> + +<p>This declaration has made me the happiest of my sex; but it has not +increased, it could not increase, my tenderness: with what softness, +what diffidence, what respect, what delicacy, was this declaration +made! my dear friend, he is a god, and my ardent affection for him is +fully justified.</p> + +<p>I love him—no words can speak how much I love him.</p> + +<p>My passion for him is the first and shall be the last of my life: my +bosom never heaved a sigh but for my Rivers.</p> + +<p>Will you pardon the folly of a heart which till now was ashamed to +own its feelings, and of which you are even now the only confidante?</p> + +<p>I find all the world so insipid, nothing amuses me one moment; in +short, I have no pleasure but in Rivers’s conversation, nor do I count +the hours of his absence in my existence.</p> + +<p>I know all this will be called folly, but it is a folly which makes +all the happiness of my life.</p> + +<p>You love, my dear Bell; and therefore will pardon the weakness of +your</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i6">Emily.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.107">LETTER <span class="origtext">CVII.</span><span class="let-num">107.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Montague.</div> +<div class="dateline">Saturday.</div> + +<p>Yes, my dear, I love, at least I think so; but, thanks to my stars, +not in the manner you do.</p> + +<p>I prefer Fitzgerald to all the rest of his sex; but <i>I count the +hours of his absence in my existence</i>; and contrive sometimes to +pass them pleasantly enough, if any other agreable man is in the way: +in short, I relish flattery and attention from others, though I +infinitely prefer them from him.</p> + +<p>I certainly love him, for I was jealous of Madame La Brosse; but, in +general, I am not alarmed when I see him flirt a little with others. +Perhaps my vanity was as much wounded as my love, with regard to Madame +La Brosse.</p> + +<p>I find love is quite a different plant in different soils; it is an +exotic, and grows faintly, with us coquets; but in its native climate +with you people of sensibility and sentiment.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I will attend you in a quarter of an hour.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.108">LETTER <span class="origtext">CVIII.</span><span class="let-num">108.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor.</div> + +<p>Not alarmed, my dear, at his attention to others? believe me, you +know nothing of love.</p> + +<p>I think every woman who beholds my Rivers a rival; I imagine I see +in every female countenance a passion tender and lively as my own; I +turn pale, my heart dies within me, if I observe his eyes a moment +fixed on any other woman; I tremble at the possibility of his changing; +I cannot support the idea that the time may come when I may be less +dear to my Rivers than at present. Do you believe it possible, my +dearest Bell, for any heart, not prepossessed, to be insensible one +moment to my Rivers?</p> + +<p>He is formed to charm the soul of woman; his delicacy, his +sensibility, the mind that speaks through those eloquent eyes; the +thousand graces of his air, the sound of his voice—my dear, I never +heard him speak without feeling a softness of which it is impossible to +convey an idea.</p> + +<p>But I am wrong to encourage a tenderness which is already too great; +I will think less of him; I will not talk of him; do not speak of him +to me, my dear Bell: talk to me of Fitzgerald; there is no danger of +your passion becoming too violent.</p> + +<p>I wish you loved more tenderly, my dearest; you would then be more +indulgent to my weakness: I am ashamed of owning it even to you.</p> + +<p>Ashamed, did I say? no, I rather glory in loving the most amiable, +the most angelic of mankind.</p> + +<p>Speak of him to me for ever; I abhor all conversation of which he is +not the subject. I am interrupted. Adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily.</span> +</div> + +<p>My dearest, I tremble; he is at the door; how shall I meet him +without betraying all the weakness of my heart? come to me this moment, +I will not go down without you. Your father is come to fetch me; +follow me, I entreat: I cannot see him alone; my heart is too much +softened at this moment. He must not know to what excess he is beloved.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.109">LETTER <span class="origtext">CIX.</span><span class="let-num">109.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, March 28.</div> + +<p>I am at present, my dear Lucy, extremely embarrassed; Madame Des +Roches is at Quebec: it is impossible for me not to be more than polite +to her; yet my Emily has all my heart, and demands all my attention; +there is but one way of seeing them both as often as I wish; ’tis to +bring them as often as possible together: I wish extremely that Emily +would visit her, but ’tis a point of the utmost delicacy to manage.</p> + +<p>Will it not on reflection be cruel to Madame Des Roches? I know her +generosity of mind, but I also know the weakness of the human heart: +can she see with pleasure a beloved rival?</p> + +<p>My Lucy, I never so much wanted your advice: I will consult Bell +Fermor, who knows every thought of my Emily’s heart.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Eleven o’clock.</div> + +<p>I have visited Madame Des Roches at her relation’s; she received me +with a pleasure which was too visible not to be observed by all +present: she blushed, her voice faltered when she addressed me; her +eyes had a softness which seemed to reproach my insensibility: I was +shocked at the idea of having inspired her with a tenderness not in my +power to return; I was afraid of increasing that tenderness; I scarce +dared to meet her looks.</p> + +<p>I felt a criminal in the presence of this amiable woman; for both +our sakes, I must see her seldom: yet what an appearance will my +neglect have, after the attention she has shewed me, and the friendship +she has expressed for me to all the world?</p> + +<p>I know not what to determine. I am going to Silleri. Adieu till my +return.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Eight o’clock.</div> + +<p>I have entreated Emily to admit Madame Des Roches among the number +of her friends, and have asked her to visit her to-morrow morning: she +changed color at my request, but promised to go.</p> + +<p>I almost repent of what I have done: I am to attend Emily and Bell +Fermor to Madame Des Roches in the morning: I am afraid I shall +introduce them with a very bad grace. Adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.110">LETTER <span class="origtext">CX.</span><span class="let-num">110.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor.</div> +<div class="dateline">Sunday morning.</div> + +<p>Could you have believed he would have expected such a proof of my +desire to oblige him? but what can he ask that his Emily will refuse? I +will see this <i>friend</i> of his, this Madame Des Roches; I will even +love her, if it is in woman to be so disinterested. She loves him; he +sees her; they say she is amiable; I could have wished her visit to +Quebec had been delayed.</p> + +<p>But he comes; he looks up; his eyes seem to thank me for this excess +of complaisance: what is there I would not do to give him pleasure?</p> + +<div class="dateline">Six o’clock.</div> + +<p>Do you think her so very pleasing, my dear Bell? she has fine eyes, +but have they not more fire than softness? There was a vivacity in her +manner which hurt me extremely: could she have behaved with such +unconcern, had she loved as I do?</p> + +<p>Do you think it possible, <span class="origtext">Lucy,</span><span class="correction">Bell,</span> for a Frenchwoman to love? is not +vanity the ruling passion of their hearts?</p> + +<p>May not Rivers be deceived in supposing her so much attached to him? +was there not some degree of affectation in her particular attention to +me? I cannot help thinking her artful.</p> + +<p>Perhaps I am prejudiced: she may be amiable, but I will own she does +not please me.</p> + +<p>Rivers begged me to have a friendship for her; I am afraid this is +more than is in my power: friendship, like love, is the child of +sympathy, not of constraint.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.111">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXI.</span><span class="let-num">111.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Montague.</div> +<div class="dateline">Monday.</div> + +<p>The inclosed, my dear, is as much to you as to me, perhaps more; I +pardon the lady for thinking you the handsomest. Is not this the +strongest proof I could give of my friendship? perhaps I should have +been piqued, however, had the preference been given by a man; but I +can with great tranquillity allow you to be the women’s beauty.</p> + +<p>Dictate an answer to your little Bell, who waits your commands at +her bureau.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i6">Adieu!</span> +</div> +<div class="toline">“To Miss Fermor, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline">Monday.</div> + +<p>“You and your lovely friend obliged me beyond words, my dear Bell, +by your visit of yesterday: Madame Des <span class="origtext">Rroches</span><span class="errata">Roches</span> is charmed with you +both: you will not be displeased when I tell you she gives Emily the +preference; she says she is beautiful as an angel; that she should +think the man insensible, who could see her without love; that she is +<i>touchant</i>, to use her own word, beyond any thing she ever beheld.</p> + +<p>“She however does justice to your charms, though Emily’s seem to +affect her most. She even allows you to be perhaps more the taste of +men in general.</p> + +<p>“She intends paying her respects to you and Emily this afternoon; +and has sent to desire me to conduct her. As it is so far, I would wish +to find you at home.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">“Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.”</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.112">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXII.</span><span class="let-num">112.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor.</div> + +<p>Always Madame Des Roches! but let her come: indeed, my dear, she is +artful; she gains upon him by this appearance of generosity; I cannot +return it, I do not love her; yet I will receive her with politeness.</p> + +<p>He is to drive her too; but ’tis no matter; if the tenderest +affection can secure his heart, I have nothing to fear: loving him as I +do, it is impossible not to be apprehensive: indeed, my dear, he knows +not how I love him.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i8">Your Emily.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.113">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXIII.</span><span class="let-num">113.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor.</div> +<div class="dateline">Monday evening.</div> + +<p>Surely I am the weakest of my weak sex; I am ashamed to tell you all +my feelings: I cannot conquer my dislike to Madame Des Roches: she +said a thousand obliging things to me, she praised my Rivers; I made +her no answer, I even felt tears ready to start; what must she think of +me? there is a meanness in my jealousy of her, which I cannot forgive +myself.</p> + +<p>I cannot account for her attention to me, it is not natural; she +behaved to me not only with politeness, but with the appearance of +affection; she seemed to feel and pity my confusion. She is either the +most artful, or the most noble of women.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i6">Your<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.114">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXII.</span><span class="let-num">114.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, March 29.</div> + +<p>We are going to dine at a farm house in the country, where we are to +meet other company, and have a ball: the snow begins a little to +soften, from the warmth of the sun, which is greater than in England in +May. Our winter parties are almost at an end.</p> + +<p>My father drives Madame Des Roches, who is of our party, and your +brother Emily; I hope the little fool will be easy now, Lucy; she is +very humble, to be jealous of one, who, though really very pleasing, is +neither so young nor so handsome as herself; and who professes to wish +only for Rivers’s friendship.</p> + +<p>But I have no right to say a word on this subject, after having been +so extremely hurt at Fitzgerald’s attention to such a woman as Madame +La Brosse; an attention too which was so plainly meant to pique me.</p> + +<p>We are all, I am afraid, a little absurd in these affairs, and +therefore ought to have some degree of indulgence for others.</p> + +<p>Emily and I, however, differ in our ideas of love: it is the +business of her life, the amusement of mine; ’tis the food of her +hours, the seasoning of mine.</p> + +<p>Or, in other words, she loves like a foolish woman, I like a +sensible man: for men, you know, compared to women, love in about the +proportion of one to twenty.</p> + +<p>’Tis a mighty wrong thing, after all, Lucy, that parents will +educate creatures so differently, who are to live with and for each +other.</p> + +<p>Every possible means is used, even from infancy, to soften the minds +of women, and to harden those of men; the contrary endeavor might be of +use, for the men creatures are unfeeling enough by nature, and we are +born too tremblingly alive to love, and indeed to every soft affection.</p> + +<p>Your brother is almost the only one of his sex I know, who has the +tenderness of woman with the spirit and firmness of man: a circumstance +which strikes every woman who converses with him, and which contributes +to make him the favorite he is amongst us. Foolish women who cannot +distinguish characters may possibly give the preference to a coxcomb; +but I will venture to say, no woman of sense was ever much acquainted +with Colonel Rivers without feeling for him an affection of some kind +or other.</p> + +<p><i>A propos</i> to women, the estimable part of us are divided into +two classes only, the tender and the lively.</p> + +<p>The former, at the head of which I place Emily, are infinitely more +capable of happiness; but, to counterbalance this advantage, they are +also capable of misery in the same degree. We of the other class, who +feel less keenly, are perhaps upon the whole as happy, at least I would +fain think so.</p> + +<p>For example, if Emily and I marry our present lovers, she will +certainly be more exquisitely happy than I shall; but if they should +change their minds, or any accident prevent our coming together, I am +inclined to fancy my situation would be much the most agreable.</p> + +<p class="preverse">I should pout a month, and then look about for another lover; whilst +the tender Emily would</p> +<div class="verse"> + “Sit like patience on a monument,”</div> +<p class="postverse">and pine herself into a consumption.</p> + +<p>Adieu! They wait for me.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i6">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> +<div class="dateline">Tuesday, midnight.</div> + +<p>We have had a very agreable day, Lucy, a pretty enough kind of a +ball, and every body in good humor: I danced with Fitzgerald, whom I +never knew so agreable.</p> + +<p>Happy love is gay, I find; Emily is all sprightliness, your +brother’s eyes have never left her one moment, and her blushes seemed +to shew her sense of the distinction; I never knew her look so handsome +as this day.</p> + +<p>Do you know I felt for Madame Des Roches? Emily was excessively +complaisant to her: she returned her civility, but I could perceive a +kind of constraint in her manner, very different from the ease of her +behaviour when we saw her before: she felt the attention of Rivers to +Emily very strongly: in short, the ladies seemed to have changed +characters for the day.</p> + +<p>We supped with your brother on our return, and from his windows, +which look on the river St. Charles, had the pleasure of observing one +of the most beautiful objects imaginable, which I never remember to +have seen before this evening.</p> + +<p>You are to observe the winter method of fishing here, is to break +openings like small fish ponds on the ice, to which the fish coming for +air, are taken in prodigious quantities on the surface.</p> + +<p>To shelter themselves from the excessive cold of the night, the +fishermen build small houses of ice on the river, which are arranged in +a semicircular form, and extend near a quarter of a mile, and which, +from the blazing fires within, have a brilliant transparency and vivid +lustre, not easy either to imagine or to describe: the starry +semicircle looks like an immense crescent of diamonds, on which the sun +darts his meridian rays.</p> + +<p>Absolutely, Lucy, you see nothing in Europe: you are cultivated, you +have the tame beauties of art; but to see nature in her lovely wild +luxuriance, you must visit your brother when he is prince of the +Kamaraskas.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + +<p>The variety, as well of grand objects, as of amusements, in this +country, confirms me in an opinion I have always had, that Providence +had made the conveniences and inconveniences of life nearly equal every +where.</p> + +<p>We have pleasures here even in winter peculiar to the climate, which +counterbalance the evils we suffer from its rigor.</p> + +<p>Good night, my dear Lucy!</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.115">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXIII.</span><span class="let-num">115.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, April 2.</div> + +<p>I have this moment, my dear, a letter from Montreal, describing some +lands on Lake Champlain, which my friend thinks much better worth my +taking than those near the Kamaraskas: he presses me to come up +immediately to see them, as the ice on the rivers will in a few days be +dangerous to travel on.</p> + +<p>I am strongly inclined to go, and for this reason; I am convinced my +wish of bringing about a friendship between Emily and Madame Des +Roches, the strongest reason I had for fixing at the Kamaraskas, was an +imprudent one: gratitude and (if the expression is not impertinent) +compassion give me a softness in my behaviour to the latter, which a +superficial observer would take for love, and which her own tenderness +may cause even her to misconstrue; a circumstance which must retard her +resolution of changing the affection with which she has honored me, +into friendship.</p> + +<p>I am also delicate in my love, and cannot bear to have it one moment +supposed, my heart can know a wish but for my Emily.</p> + +<p>Shall I say more? The blush on Emily’s cheek on her first seeing +Madame Des Roches convinced me of my indiscretion, and that vanity +alone carried me to desire to bring together two women, whose affection +for me is from their extreme merit so very flattering.</p> + +<p>I shall certainly now fix in Canada; I can no longer doubt of +Emily’s tenderness, though she refuses me her hand, from motives which +make her a thousand times more dear to me, but which I flatter myself +love will over-rule.</p> + +<p>I am setting off in an hour for Montreal, and shall call at Silleri +to take Emily’s commands.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Seven in the evening, Des Chambeaux.</div> + +<p>I asked her advice as to fixing the place of my settlement; she said +much against my staying in America at all; but, if I was determined, +recommended Lake Champlain rather than the Kamaraskas, on account of +climate. Bell smiled; and a blush, which I perfectly understood, +over-spread the lovely cheek of my sweet Emily. Nothing could be more +flattering than this circumstance; had she seen Madame Des Roches with +a calm indifference, had she not been alarmed at the idea of fixing +near her, I should have doubted of the degree of her affection; a +little apprehension is inseparable from real love.</p> + +<p>My courage has been to-day extremely put to the proof: had I staid +three days longer, it would have been impossible to have continued my +journey.</p> + +<p>The ice cracks under us at every step the horses set, a rather +unpleasant circumstance on a river twenty fathom deep: I should not +have attempted the journey had I been aware of this particular. I hope +no man meets inevitable danger with more spirit, but no man is less +fond of seeking it where it is honorably to be avoided.</p> + +<p>I am going to sup with the seigneur of the village, who is, I am +told, married to one of the handsomest women in the province.</p> + +<p>Adieu! my dear! I shall write to you from Montreal.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.116">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXIV.</span><span class="let-num">116.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Montreal, April 3.</div> + +<p>I am arrived, my dear, after a very disagreable and dangerous +journey; I was obliged to leave the river soon after I left Des +Chambeaux, and to pursue my way on the land over melting snow, into +which the horses feet sunk half a yard every step.</p> + +<p>An officer just come from New York has given me a letter from you, +which came thither by a private ship: I am happy to hear of your +health, and that Temple’s affection for you seems rather to increase +than lessen since your marriage.</p> + +<p>You ask me, my dear Lucy, how to preserve this affection, on the +continuance of which, you justly say, your whole happiness depends.</p> + +<p>The question is perhaps the most delicate and important which +respects human life; the caprice, the inconstancy, the injustice of +men, makes the task of women in marriage infinitely difficult.</p> + +<p>Prudence and virtue will certainly secure esteem; but, +unfortunately, esteem alone will not make a happy marriage; passion +must also be kept alive, which the continual presence of the object +beloved is too apt to make subside into that apathy, so insupportable +to sensible minds.</p> + +<p>The higher your rank, and the less your manner of life separates you +from each other, the more danger there will be of this indifference.</p> + +<p>The poor, whose necessary avocations divide them all day, and whose +sensibility is blunted by the coarseness of their education, are in no +danger of being weary of each other; and, unless naturally vicious, you +will see them generally happy in marriage; whereas even the virtuous, +in more affluent situations, are not secure from this unhappy cessation +of tenderness.</p> + +<p>When I received your letter, I was reading Madame De Maintenon’s +advice to the Dutchess of Burgundy, on this subject. I will transcribe +so much of it as relates to <i>the woman</i>, leaving her advice +to <i>the princess</i> to those whom it may concern.</p> + +<p>“Do not hope for perfect happiness; there is no such thing in this +sublunary state.</p> + +<p>“Your sex is the more exposed to suffer, because it is always in +dependence: be neither angry nor ashamed of this dependence on a +husband, nor of any of those which are in the order of Providence.</p> + +<p>“Let your husband be your best friend and your only confidant.</p> + +<p>“Do not hope that your union will procure you perfect peace: the +best marriages are those where with softness and patience they bear by +turns with each other; there are none without some contradiction and +disagreement.</p> + +<p>“Do not expect the same degree of friendship that you feel: men are +in general less tender than women; and you will be unhappy if you are +too delicate in friendship.</p> + +<p>“Beg of God to guard your heart from jealousy: do not hope to bring +back a husband by complaints, ill humor, and reproaches. The only means +which promise success, are patience and softness: impatience sours and +alienates hearts; softness leads them back to their duty.</p> + +<p>“In sacrificing your own will, pretend to no right over that of a +husband: men are more attached to theirs than women, because educated +with less constraint.</p> + +<p>“They are naturally tyrannical; they will have pleasures and +liberty, yet insist that women renounce both: do not examine whether +their rights are well founded; let it suffice to you, that they are +established; they are masters, we have only to suffer and obey with a +good grace.”</p> + +<p>Thus far Madame De Maintenon, who must be allowed to have known the +heart of man, since, after having been above twenty years a widow, she +enflamed, even to the degree of bringing him to marry her, that of a +great monarch, younger than herself, surrounded by beauties, habituated +to flattery, in the plenitude of power, and covered with glory; and +retained him in her chains to the last moment of his life.</p> + +<p>Do not, however, my dear, be alarmed at the picture she has drawn of +marriage; nor fancy with her, that women are only born to suffer and +to obey.</p> + +<p>That we are generally tyrannical, I am obliged to own; but such of +us as know how to be happy, willingly give up the harsh title of +master, for the more tender and endearing one of friend; men of sense +abhor those customs which treat your sex as if created meerly for the +happiness of the other; a supposition injurious to the Deity, though +flattering to our tyranny and self-love; and wish only to bind you in +the soft chains of affection.</p> + +<p>Equality is the soul of friendship: marriage, to give delight, must +join two minds, not devote a slave to the will of an imperious lord; +whatever conveys the idea of subjection necessarily destroys that of +love, of which I am so convinced, that I have always wished the word +<em class="sc">obey</em> expunged from the marriage ceremony.</p> + +<p>If you will permit me to add my sentiments to those of a lady so +learned in the art of pleasing; I would wish you to study the taste of +your husband, and endeavor to acquire a relish for those pleasures +which appear most to affect him; let him find amusement at home, but +never be peevish at his going abroad; he will return to you with the +higher gust for your conversation: have separate apartments, since your +fortune makes it not inconvenient; be always elegant, but not too +expensive, in your dress; retain your present exquisite delicacy of +every kind; receive his friends with good-breeding and complacency; +contrive such little parties of pleasure as you know are agreable to +him, and with the most agreable people you can select: be lively even +to playfulness in your general turn of conversation with him; but, at +the same time, spare no pains so to improve your understanding, which +is an excellent one, as to be no less capable of being the companion of +his graver hours: be ignorant of nothing which it becomes your sex to +know, but avoid all affectation of knowledge: let your oeconomy be +exact, but without appearing otherwise than by the effect.</p> + +<p>Do not imitate those of your sex who by ill temper make a husband +pay dear for their fidelity; let virtue in you be drest in smiles; and +be assured that chearfulness is the native garb of innocence.</p> + +<p>In one word, my dear, do not lose the mistress in the wife, but let +your behaviour to him as a husband be such as you would have thought +most proper to attract him as a lover: have always the idea of pleasing +before you, and you cannot fail to please.</p> + +<p>Having lectured you, my dear Lucy, I must say a word to Temple: a +great variety of rules have been given for the conduct of women in +marriage; scarce any for that of men; as if it was not essential to +domestic happiness, that the man should preserve the heart of her with +whom he is to spend his life; or as if bestowing happiness were not +worth a man’s attention, so he possessed it: if, however, it is +possible to feel true happiness without giving it.</p> + +<p>You, my dear Temple, have too just an idea of pleasure to think in +this manner: you would be beloved; it has been the pursuit of your +life, though never really attained perhaps before. You at present +possess a heart full of sensibility, a heart capable of loving with +ardor, and from the same cause as capable of being estranged by +neglect: give your whole attention to preserving this invaluable +treasure; observe every rule I have given to her, if you would be +happy; and believe me, the heart of woman is not less delicate than +tender; their sensibility is more keen, they feel more strongly than +we do, their tenderness is more easily wounded, and their hearts are +more difficult to recover if once lost.</p> + +<p>At the same time, they are both by nature and education more +constant, and scarce ever change the object of their affections but +from ill treatment: for which reason there is some excuse for a custom +which appears cruel, that of throwing contempt on the husband for the +ill conduct of the wife.</p> + +<p>Above all things, retain the politeness and attention of a lover; +and avoid that careless manner which wounds the vanity of human nature, +a passion given us, as were all passions, for the wisest ends, and +which never quits us but with life.</p> + +<p>There is a certain attentive tenderness, difficult to be described, +which the manly of our sex feel, and which is peculiarly pleasing to +woman: ’tis also a very delightful sensation to ourselves, as well as +productive of the happiest consequences: regarding them as creatures +placed by Providence under our protection, and depending on us for +their happiness, is the strongest possible tie of affection to a +well-turned mind.</p> + +<p>If I did not know Lucy perfectly, I should perhaps hesitate in the +next advice I am going to give you; which is, to make her the +confidante, and the <i>only</i> confidante, of your gallantries, if you +are so unhappy as to be inadvertently betrayed into any: her heart will +possibly be at first a little wounded by the confession, but this proof +of perfect esteem will increase her friendship for you; she will regard +your error with compassion and indulgence, and lead you gently back by +her endearing tenderness to honor and herself.</p> + +<p>Of all tasks I detest that of giving advice; you are therefore +under infinite obligation to me for this letter.</p> + +<p>Be assured of my tenderest affection; and believe me,</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours, &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.117">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXV.</span><span class="let-num">117.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To the Earl of ——.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, April 8.</div> + +<p>Nothing can be more true, my Lord, than that poverty is ever the +inseparable companion of indolence.</p> + +<p>I see proofs of it every moment before me; with a soil fruitful +beyond all belief, the Canadians are poor on lands which are their own +property, and for which they pay only a trifling quit-rent to their +seigneurs.</p> + +<p>This indolence appears in every thing: you scarce see the meanest +peasant walking; even riding on horseback appears to them a fatigue +insupportable; you see them lolling at ease, like their lazy lords, in +carrioles and calashes, according to the season; a boy to guide the +horse on a seat in the front of the carriage, too lazy even to take the +trouble of driving themselves, their hands in winter folded in an +immense muff, though perhaps their families are in want of bread to eat +at home.</p> + +<p>The winter is passed in a mixture of festivity and inaction; dancing +and feasting in their gayer hours; in their graver smoking, and +drinking brandy, by the side of a warm stove: and when obliged to +cultivate the ground in spring to procure the means of subsistence, you +see them just turn the turf once lightly over, and, without manuring +the ground, or even breaking the clods of earth, throw in the seed in +the same careless manner, and leave the event to chance, without +troubling themselves further till it is fit to reap.</p> + +<p>I must, however, observe, as some alleviation, that there is +something in the climate which strongly inclines both the body and +mind, but rather the latter, to indolence: the heat of the summer, +though pleasing, enervates the very soul, and gives a certain lassitude +unfavorable to industry; and the winter, at its extreme, binds up and +chills all the active faculties of the soul.</p> + +<p>Add to this, that the general spirit of amusement, so universal here +in winter, and so necessary to prevent the ill effects of the season, +gives a habit of dissipation and pleasure, which makes labor doubly +irksome at its return.</p> + +<p>Their religion, to which they are extremely bigoted, is another +great bar, as well to industry as population: <span class="origtext">ther</span><span class="correction">their</span> numerous festivals +inure them to idleness; their religious houses rob the state of many +subjects who might be highly useful at present, and at the same time +retard the increase of the colony.</p> + +<p>Sloth and superstition equally counterwork providence, and render +the bounty of heaven of no effect.</p> + +<p>I am surprized the French, who generally make their religion +subservient to the purposes of policy, do not discourage convents, and +lessen the number of festivals, in the colonies, where both are so +peculiarly pernicious.</p> + +<p>It is to this circumstance one may in great measure attribute the +superior increase of the British American settlements compared to +those of France: a religion which encourages idleness, and makes a +virtue of celibacy, is particularly unfavorable to colonization.</p> + +<p>However religious prejudice may have been suffered to counterwork +policy under a French government, it is scarce to be doubted that this +cause of the poverty of Canada will by degrees be removed; that these +people, slaves at present to ignorance and superstition, will in time +be enlightened by a more liberal education, and gently led by reason to +a religion which is not only preferable, as being that of the country +to which they are now annexed, but which is so much more calculated to +make them happy and prosperous as a people.</p> + +<p>Till that time, till their prejudices subside, it is equally just, +humane, and wise, to leave them the free right of worshiping the Deity +in the manner which they have been early taught to believe the best, +and to which they are consequently attached.</p> + +<p>It would be unjust to deprive them of any of the rights of citizens +on account of religion, in America, where every other sect of +dissenters are equally capable of employ with those of the established +church; nay where, from whatever cause, the church of England is on a +footing in many colonies little better than a toleration.</p> + +<p>It is undoubtedly, in a political light, an object of consequence +every where, that the national religion, whatever it is, should be as +universal as possible, agreement in religious worship being the +strongest tie to unity and obedience; had all prudent means been used +to lessen the number of dissenters in our colonies, I cannot avoid +believing, from what I observe and hear, that we should have found in +them a spirit of rational loyalty, and true freedom, instead of that +factious one from which so much is to be apprehended.</p> + +<p>It seems consonant to reason, that the religion of every country +should have a relation to, and coherence with, the civil constitution: +the Romish religion is best adapted to a despotic government, the +presbyterian to a republican, and that of the church of England to a +limited monarchy like ours.</p> + +<p>As therefore the civil government of America is on the same plan +with that of the mother country, it were to be wished the religious +establishment was also the same, especially in those colonies where the +people are generally of the national church; though with the fullest +liberty of conscience to dissenters of all denominations.</p> + +<p>I would be clearly understood, my Lord; from all I have observed +here, I am convinced, nothing would so much contribute to diffuse a +spirit of order, and rational obedience, in the colonies, as the +appointment, under proper restrictions, of bishops: I am equally +convinced that nothing would so much strengthen the hands of +government, or give such pleasure to the well-affected in the colonies, +who are by much the most numerous, as such an appointment, however +clamored against by a few abettors of sedition.</p> + +<p>I am called upon for this letter, and must remit to another time +what I wished to say more to your Lordship in regard to this country.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i0">I have the honor to be,<br></span> +<span class="i4">My Lord, &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">Wm. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.118">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXVI.</span><span class="let-num">118.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Melmoth, at Montreal.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, April 8.</div> + +<p>I am indeed, Madam, this inconsistent creature. I have at once +refused to marry Colonel Rivers, and owned to him all the tenderness of +my soul.</p> + +<p>Do not however think me mad, or suppose my refusal the effect of an +unmeaning childish affectation of disinterestedness: I can form to +myself no idea of happiness equal to that of spending my life with +Rivers, the best, the most tender, the most amiable of mankind; nor can +I support the idea of his marrying any other woman: I would therefore +marry him to-morrow were it possible without ruining him, without +dooming him to a perpetual exile, and obstructing those views of +honest ambition at home, which become his birth, his connexions, his +talents, his time of life; and with which, as his friend, it is my +duty to inspire him.</p> + +<p>His affection for me at present blinds him, he sees no object but me +in the whole universe; but shall I take advantage of that inebriation +of tenderness, to seduce him into a measure inconsistent with his real +happiness and interest? He must return to England, must pursue fortune +in that world for which he was formed: shall his Emily retard him in +the glorious race? shall she not rather encourage him in every laudable +attempt? shall she suffer him to hide that shining merit in the +uncultivated wilds of Canada, the seat of barbarism and ignorance, +which entitles him to hope a happy fate in the dear land of arts and +arms?</p> + +<p>I entreat you to do all you can to discourage his design. Remind him +that his sister’s marriage has in some degree removed the cause of his +coming hither; that he can have now no motive for fixing here, but his +tenderness for me; that I shall be justly blamed by all who love him +for keeping him here. Tell him, I will not marry him in Canada; that +his stay makes the best mother in the world wretched; that he owes his +return to himself, nay to his Emily, whose whole heart is set on seeing +him in a situation worthy of him: though without ambition as to myself, +I am proud, I am ambitious for him; if he loves me, he will gratify +that pride, that ambition; and leave Canada to those whose duty +confines them here, or whose interest it is to remain unseen. Let him +not once think of me in his determination: I am content to be beloved, +and will leave all else to time. You cannot so much oblige or serve me, +as by persuading Colonel Rivers to return to England.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i0">Believe me, my dear Madam,<br></span> +<span class="i6">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.119">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXVII.</span><span class="let-num">119.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, April 9.</div> + +<p>Your brother, my dear, is gone to Montreal to look out for a +settlement, and Emily to spend a fortnight at Quebec, with a lady she +knew in England, who is lately arrived from thence by New York.</p> + +<p>I am lost without my friend, though my lover endeavors in some +degree to supply her place; he lays close siege; I know not how long I +shall be able to hold out: this fine weather is exceedingly in his +favor; the winter freezes up all the avenues to the heart; but this +sprightly April sun thaws them again amazingly. I was the cruellest +creature breathing whilst the chilly season lasted, but can answer for +nothing now the sprightly May is approaching.</p> + +<p>I can see papa is vastly in Fitzgerald’s interest; but he knows our +sex well enough to keep this to himself.</p> + +<p>I shall, however, for decency’s sake, ask his opinion on the affair +as soon as I have taken my resolution; which is the very time at which +all the world ask advice of their friends.</p> + +<p>A letter from Emily, which I must answer: she is extremely absurd, +which your tender lovers always are.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> +<p class="addendum">Sir George Clayton had left Montreal some days before your brother +arrived there; I was pleased to hear it, because, with all your +<span class="origtext">bother’s</span><span class="correction">brother’s</span> good sense, and concern for Emily’s honor, and Sir George’s +natural coldness of temper, a quarrel between them would have been +rather difficult to have been avoided.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.120">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXVIII.</span><span class="let-num">120.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, Thursday morning.</div> + +<p>Do you think, my dear, that Madame Des Roches has heard from Rivers? +I wish you would ask her this afternoon at the governor’s: I am +anxious to know, but ashamed to enquire.</p> + +<p>Not, my dear, that I have the weakness to be jealous; but I shall +think his letter to me a higher compliment, if I know he writes to +nobody else. I extremely approve his friendship for Madame Des Roches; +she is very amiable, and certainly deserves it: but you know, Bell, it +would be cruel to encourage an affection, which she must conquer, or be +unhappy: if she did not love him, there would be nothing wrong in his +writing to her; but, as she does, it would be doing her the greatest +injury possible: ’tis as much on her account as my own I am thus +anxious.</p> + +<p class="preverse">Did you ever read so tender, yet so lively a letter as Rivers’s to +me? he is alike in all: there is in his letters, as in his +conversation,</p> +<div class="verse"> + “All that can softly win, or gaily charm<br> + The heart of woman.”</div> +<p class="postverse">Even strangers listen to him with an involuntary attention, and hear +him with a pleasure for which they scarce know how to account.</p> + +<p>He charms even without intending it, and in spite of himself; but +when he wishes to please, when he addresses the woman he loves, when +his eyes speak the soft language of his heart, when your Emily reads +in them the dear confession of his tenderness, when that melodious +voice utters the sentiments of the noblest mind that ever animated a +human form—My dearest, the eloquence of angels cannot paint my Rivers +as he is.</p> + +<p>I am almost inclined not to go to the governor’s to-night; I am +determined not to dance till Rivers returns, and I know there are too +many who will be ready to make observations on my refusal: I think I +will stay at home, and write to him against Monday’s post: I have a +thousand things to say, and you know we are continually interrupted at +Quebec; I shall have this evening to myself, as all the world will be +at the governor’s.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu, your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.121">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXIX.</span><span class="let-num">121.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Montague, at Quebec.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Thursday morning.</div> + +<p>I dare say, my dear, Madame Des Roches has not heard from Rivers; +but suppose she had. If he loves you, of what consequence is it to whom +he writes? I would not for the world any friend of yours should ask her +such a question.</p> + +<p>I shall call upon you at six o’clock, and shall expect to find you +determined to go to the governor’s this evening, and to dance: +Fitzgerald begs the honor of being your partner.</p> + +<p>Believe me, Emily, these kind of unmeaning sacrifices are childish; +your heart is new to love, and you have all the romance of a girl: +Rivers would, on your account, be hurt to hear you had refused to dance +in his absence, though he might be flattered to know you had for a +moment entertained such an idea.</p> + +<p>I pardon you for having the romantic fancies of seventeen, provided +you correct them with the good sense of four and twenty.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I have engaged myself to Colonel H——, on the presumption +that you are too polite to refuse to dance with Fitzgerald, and too +prudent to refuse to dance at all.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.122">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXX.</span><span class="let-num">122.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, Saturday morning.</div> + +<p>How unjust have I been in my hatred of Madame Des Roches! she spent +yesterday with us, and after dinner desired to converse with me an hour +in my apartment, where she opened to me all her heart on the subject of +her love for Rivers.</p> + +<p>She is the noblest and most amiable of women, and I have been in +regard to her the most capricious and unjust: my hatred of her was +unworthy my character; I blush to own the meanness of my sentiments, +whilst I admire the generosity of hers.</p> + +<p>Why, my dear, should I have hated her? she was unhappy, and deserved +rather my compassion: I had deprived her of all hope of being beloved, +it was too much to wish to deprive her also of his conversation. I +knew myself the only object of Rivers’s love; why then should I have +envied her his friendship? she had the strongest reason to hate me, but +I should have loved and pitied her.</p> + +<p>Can there be a misfortune equal to that of loving Rivers without +hope of a return? Yet she has not only born this misfortune without +complaint, but has been the confidante of his passion for another; he +owned to her all his tenderness for me, and drew a picture of me, +<span class="origtext">“which,</span><span class="correction">which,</span> she told me, ought, had she listened to reason, to have +destroyed even the shadow of hope: but that love, ever ready to flatter +and deceive, had betrayed her into the weakness of supposing it +possible I might refuse him, and that gratitude might, in that case, +touch his heart with tenderness for one who loved him with the most +pure and disinterested affection; that her journey to Quebec had +removed the veil love had placed between her and truth; that she was +now convinced the faint hope she had encouraged was madness, and that +our souls were formed for each other.</p> + +<p>She owned she still loved him with the most lively affection; yet +assured me, since she was not allowed to make the most amiable of +mankind happy herself, she wished him to be so with the woman on earth +she thought most worthy of him.</p> + +<p>She added, that she had on first seeing me, though she thought me +worthy his heart, felt an impulse of dislike which she was ashamed to +own, even now that reason and reflexion had conquered so unworthy a +sentiment; that Rivers’s complaisance had a little dissipated her +chagrin, and enabled her to behave to me in the manner she did: that +she had, however, almost hated me at the ball in the country: that the +tenderness in Rivers’s eyes that day whenever they met mine, and his +comparative inattention to her, had wounded her to the soul.</p> + +<p>That this preference had, however, been salutary, though painful; +since it had determined her to conquer a passion, which could only make +her life wretched if it continued; that, as the first step to this +conquest, she had resolved to see him no more: that she would return to +her house the moment she could cross the river with safety; and +conjured me, for her sake, to persuade him to give up all thoughts of a +settlement near her; that she could not answer for her own heart if she +continued to see him; that she believed in love there was no safety but +in flight.</p> + +<p>That his absence had given her time to think coolly; and that she +now saw so strongly the amiableness of my character, and was so +convinced of my perfect tenderness for him, that she should hate +herself were she capable of wishing to interrupt our happiness.</p> + +<p>That she hoped I would pardon her retaining a tender remembrance of +a man who, had he never seen me, might have returned her affection; +that she thought so highly of my heart, as to believe I could not hate +a woman who esteemed me, and who solicited my friendship, though a +happy <span class="origtext">rival.”</span><span class="correction">rival.</span></p> + +<p>I was touched, even to tears, at her behaviour: we embraced; and, if +I know my own weak foolish heart, I love her.</p> + +<p>She talks of leaving Quebec before Rivers’s return; she said, her +coming was an imprudence which only love could excuse; and that she +had no motive for her journey but the desire of seeing him, which was +so lively as to hurry her into an indiscretion of which she was afraid +the world took but too much notice. What openness, what sincerity, what +generosity, was there in all she said!</p> + +<p>How superior, my dear, is her character to mine! I blush for myself +on the comparison; I am shocked to see how much she soars above me: +how is it possible Rivers should not have preferred her to me? Yet this +is the woman I fancied incapable of any passion but vanity.</p> + +<p>I am sure, my dear Bell, I am not naturally envious of the merit of +others; but my excess of love for Rivers makes me apprehensive of +every woman who can possibly rival me in his tenderness.</p> + +<p>I was hurt at Madame Des Roches’s uncommon merit; I saw with pain +the amiable qualities of her mind; I could scarce even allow her person +to be pleasing: but this injustice is not that of my natural temper, +but of love.</p> + +<p>She is certainly right, my dear, to see him no more; I applaud, I +admire her resolution: do you think, however, she would pursue it if +she loved as I do? she has perhaps loved before, and her heart has lost +something of its native trembling sensibility.</p> + +<p>I wish my heart felt her merit as strongly as my reason: I esteem, I +admire, I even love her at present; but I am convinced Rivers’s return +while she continues here would weaken these sentiments of affection: +the least appearance of preference, even for a moment, would make me +relapse into my former weakness. I adore, I idolize her character; but +I cannot sincerely wish to cultivate her friendship.</p> + +<p>Let me see you this afternoon at Quebec; I am told the roads will +not be passable for carrioles above three days longer: let me therefore +see you as often as I can before we are absolutely shut from each +other.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! my dear!<br></span> +<span class="i6">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.123">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXXI.</span><span class="let-num">123.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To the Earl of <span class="origtext">——</span><span class="correction">——.</span></div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, April 14.</div> + +<p>England, however populous, is undoubtedly, my Lord, too small to +afford very large supplies of people to her colonies: and her people +are also too useful, and of too much value, to be suffered to emigrate, +if they can be prevented, whilst there is sufficient employment for +them at home.</p> + +<p>It is not only our interest to have colonies; they are not only +necessary to our commerce, and our greatest and surest sources of +wealth, but our very being as a powerful commercial nation depends on +them: it is therefore an object of all others most worthy our +attention, that they should be as flourishing and populous as +possible.</p> + +<p>It is however equally our interest to support them at as little +expence of our own inhabitants as possible: I therefore look on the +acquisition of such a number of subjects as we found in Canada, to be a +much superior advantage to that of gaining ten times the immense tract +of land ceded to us, if uncultivated and destitute of inhabitants.</p> + +<p>But it is not only contrary to our interest to spare many of our own +people as settlers in America; it must also be considered, that, if we +could spare them, the English are the worst settlers on new lands in +the universe.</p> + +<p>Their attachment to their native country, especially amongst the +lower ranks of people, is so very strong, that few of the honest and +industrious can be prevailed on to leave it; those therefore who go, +are generally the dissolute and the idle, who are of no use any where.</p> + +<p>The English are also, though industrious, active, and enterprizing, +ill fitted to bear the hardships, and submit to the wants, which +inevitably attend an infant settlement even on the most fruitful lands.</p> + +<p>The Germans, on the contrary, with the same useful qualities, have a +patience, a perseverance, an abstinence, which peculiarly fit them for +the cultivation of new countries; too great encouragement therefore +cannot be given to them to settle in our colonies: they make better +settlers than our own people; and at the same time their numbers are an +acquisition of real strength where they fix, without weakening the +mother country.</p> + +<p>It is long since the populousness of Europe has been the cause of +her sending out colonies: a better policy prevails; mankind are +enlightened; we are now convinced, both by reason and experience, that +no industrious people can be too populous.</p> + +<p>The northern swarms were compelled to leave their respective +countries, not because those countries were unable to support them, but +because they were too idle to cultivate the ground: they were a +ferocious, ignorant, barbarous people, averse to labor, attached to +war, and, like our American savages, believing every employment not +relative to this favorite object, beneath the dignity of man.</p> + +<p>Their emigrations therefore were less owing to their populousness, +than to their want of industry, and barbarous contempt of agriculture +and every useful art.</p> + +<p>It is with pain I am compelled to say, the late spirit of +encouraging the monopoly of farms, which, from a narrow short-sighted +policy, prevails amongst our landed men at home, and the alarming +growth of celibacy amongst the peasantry which is its necessary +consequence, to say nothing of the same ruinous increase of celibacy in +higher ranks, threaten us with such a decrease of population, as will +probably equal that caused by the ravages of those scourges of heaven, +the sword, the famine, and the pestilence.</p> + +<p>If this selfish policy continues to extend itself, we shall in a few +years be so far from being able to send emigrants to America, that we +shall be reduced to solicit their return, and that of their posterity, +to prevent England’s becoming in its turn an uncultivated desart.</p> + +<p>But to return to Canada; this large acquisition of people is an +invaluable treasure, if managed, as I doubt not it will be, to the best +advantage; if they are won by the gentle arts of persuasion, and the +gradual progress of knowledge, to adopt so much of our manners as tends +to make them happier in themselves, and more useful members of the +society to which they belong: if with our language, which they should +by every means be induced to learn, they acquire the mild genius of our +religion and laws, and that spirit of industry, enterprize, and +commerce, to which we owe all our greatness.</p> + +<p>Amongst the various causes which concur to render France more +populous than England, notwithstanding the disadvantage of a less +gentle government, and a religion so very unfavorable to the increase +of mankind, the cultivation of vineyards may be reckoned a principal +one; as it employs a much greater number of hands than even agriculture +itself, which has however infinite advantages in this respect above +pasturage, the certain cause of a want of people wherever it prevails +above its due proportion.</p> + +<p>Our climate denies us the advantages arising from the culture of +vines, as well as many others which nature has accorded to France; a +consideration which should awaken us from the lethargy into which the +avarice of individuals has plunged us, and set us in earnest on +improving every advantage we enjoy, in order to secure us by our native +strength from so formidable a rival.</p> + +<p>The want of bread to eat, from the late false and cruel policy of +laying small farms into great ones, and the general discouragement of +tillage which is its consequence, is in my opinion much less to be +apprehended than the want of people to eat it.</p> + +<p>In every country where the inhabitants are at once numerous and +industrious, there will always be a proportionable cultivation.</p> + +<p>This evil is so very destructive and alarming, that, if the great +have not virtue enough to remedy it, it is to be hoped it will in time, +like most great evils, cure itself.</p> + +<p>Your Lordship enquires into the nature of this climate in respect to +health. The air being uncommonly pure and serene, it is favorable to +life beyond any I ever knew: the people live generally to a very +advanced age; and are remarkably free from diseases of every kind, +except consumptions, to which the younger part of the inhabitants are a +good deal subject.</p> + +<p>It is however a circumstance one cannot help observing, that they +begin to look old much sooner than the people in Europe; on which my +daughter observes, that it is not very pleasant for women to come to +reside in a country where people have a short youth, and a long old +age.</p> + +<p>The diseases of cold countries are in general owing to want of +perspiration; for which reason exercise, and even dissipation, are here +the best medicines.</p> + +<p>The Indians therefore shewed their good sense in advising the +French, on their first arrival, to use dancing, mirth, chearfulness, +and content, as the best remedies against the inconveniences of the +climate.</p> + +<p>I have already swelled this letter to such a length, that I must +postpone to another time my account of the peculiar natural +productions of Canada; only observing, that one would imagine heaven +intended a social intercourse between the most distant nations, by +giving them productions of the earth so very different each from the +other, and each more than sufficient for itself, that the exchange +might be the means of spreading the bond of society and brotherhood +over the whole globe.</p> + +<p>In my opinion, the man who conveys, and causes to grow, in any +country, a grain, a fruit, or even a flower, it never possessed before, +deserves more praise than a thousand heroes: he is a benefactor, he is +in some degree a creator.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i0">I have the honor to be,<br></span> +<span class="i2">My Lord,<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your Lordship’s &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">William Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.124">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXXII.</span><span class="let-num">124.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Montague, at Quebec.</div> +<div class="dateline">Montreal, April 14.</div> + +<p>Is it possible, my dear Emily, you can, after all I have said, +persist in endeavoring to disswade me from a design on which my whole +happiness depends, and which I flattered myself was equally essential +to yours? I forgave, I even admired, your first scruple; I thought it +generosity: but I have answered it; and if you had loved as I do, you +would never again have named so unpleasing a subject.</p> + +<p>Does your own heart tell you mine will call a settlement here, with +you, an exile? Examine yourself well, and tell me whether your +aversion to staying in Canada is not stronger than your tenderness for +your Rivers.</p> + +<p>I am hurt beyond all words at the earnestness with which you press +Mrs. Melmoth to disswade me from staying in this country: you press +with warmth my return to England, though it would put an eternal bar +between us: you give reasons which, though the understanding may +approve, the heart abhors: can ambition come in competition with +tenderness? you fancy yourself generous, when you are only indifferent. +Insensible girl! you know nothing of love.</p> + +<p>Write to me instantly, and tell me every emotion of your soul, for I +tremble at the idea that your affection is less lively than mine.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I am wretched till I hear from you. Is it possible, my Emily, +you can have ceased to love him, who, as you yourself own, sees no +other object than you in the universe?</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> +<p class="addendum">You know not the heart of your Rivers, if you suppose it capable of +any ambition but that dear one of being beloved by you.</p> +<p class="addendum">What have you said, my dear Emily? <i>You will not marry me in +Canada</i>. You have passed a hard sentence on me: you know my fortune +will not allow me to marry you in England.</p> +<div class="ender">END OF VOL. II.</div> + +<h2>THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE.</h2> +<h2 class="vol-header" id="vol.3">Vol. III</h2> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.125">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXXIII.</span><span class="let-num">125.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers, at Montreal.</div> +<div class="dateline">Quebec, April 17.</div> + +<p>How different, my Rivers, is your last letter from all your Emily +has ever yet received from you! What have I done to deserve such +suspicions? How unjust are your sex in all their connexions with ours!</p> + +<p>Do I not know love? and does this reproach come from the man on whom +my heart doats, the man, whom to make happy, I would with transport +cease to live? can you one moment doubt your Emily’s tenderness? have +not her eyes, her air, her look, her indiscretion, a thousand times +told you, in spite of herself, the dear secret of her heart, long +before she was conscious of the tenderness of yours?</p> + +<p>Did I think only of myself, I could live with you in a desart; all +places, all situations, are equally charming to me, with you: without +you, the whole world affords nothing which could give a moment’s +pleasure to your Emily.</p> + +<p>Let me but see those eyes in which the tenderest love is painted, +let me but hear that enchanting voice, I am insensible to all else, I +know nothing of what passes around me; all that has no relation to you +passes away like a morning dream, the impression of which is effaced in +a moment: my tenderness for you fills my whole soul, and leaves no room +for any other idea. Rank, fortune, my native country, my friends, all +are nothing in the balance with my Rivers.</p> + +<p>For your own sake, I once more entreat you to return to England: I +will follow you; I will swear never to marry another; I will see you, +I will allow you to continue the tender inclination which unites us. +Fortune may there be more favorable to our wishes than we now hope; +may join us without destroying the peace of the best of parents.</p> + +<p>But if you persist, if you will sacrifice every consideration to +your tenderness—My Rivers, I have no will but yours.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.126">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXXIV.</span><span class="let-num">126.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline">London, Feb. 17.</div> +<div class="salutation">My dear Bell,</div> + +<p>Lucy, being deprived of the pleasure of writing to you, as she +intended, by Lady Anne Melville’s dining with her, desires me to make +her apologies.</p> + +<p>Allow me to say something for myself, and to share my joy with one +who will, I am sure, so very sincerely sympathize with me in it.</p> + +<p>I could not have believed, my dear Bell, it had been so very easy a +thing to be constant: I declare, but don’t mention this, lest I should +be laughed at, I have never felt the least inclination for any other +woman, since I married your lovely friend.</p> + +<p>I now see a circle of beauties with the same indifference as a bed +of snowdrops: no charms affect me but hers; the whole creation to me +contains no other woman.</p> + +<p>I find her every day, every hour, more lovely; there is in my Lucy a +mixture of modesty, delicacy, vivacity, innocence, and blushing +sensibility, which add a thousand unspeakable graces to the most +beautiful person the hand of nature ever formed.</p> + +<p>There is no describing her enchanting smile, the smile of +unaffected, artless tenderness. How shall I paint to you the sweet +involuntary glow of pleasure, the kindling fire of her eyes, when I +approach; or those thousand little dear attentions of which love alone +knows the value?</p> + +<p>I never, my dear girl, knew happiness till now; my tenderness is +absolutely a species of idolatry; you cannot think what a slave this +lovely girl has made me.</p> + +<p>As a proof of this, the little tyrant insists on my omitting a +thousand civil things I had to say to you, and attending her and Lady +Anne immediately to the opera; she bids me however tell you, she loves +you <i>passing the love of woman</i>, at least of handsome women, who +are not generally celebrated for their candor and good will to each +other.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i0">Adieu, my dearest Bell!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">J. Temple.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.127">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXXV.</span><span class="let-num">127.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, April 18.</div> + +<p>Indeed?</p> +<div class="verse"> + “Is this that haughty, gallant, gay Lothario,<br> + That dear perfidious—”</div> + +<p>Absolutely, my dear Temple, the sex ought never to forgive Lucy for +daring to monopolize so very charming a fellow. I had some thoughts of +a little <i>badinage</i> with you myself, if I should return soon to +England; but I now give up the very idea.</p> + +<p>One thing I will, however, venture to say, that love Lucy as much as +you please, you will never love her half so well as she deserves; +which, let me tell you, is a great deal for one woman, especially, as +you well observe, one handsome woman, to say of another.</p> + +<p>I am, however, not quite clear your idea is just: <i>cattism</i>, if +I may be allowed the expression, seeming more likely to be the vice of +those who are conscious of wanting themselves the dear power of +pleasing.</p> + +<p>Handsome women ought to be, what I profess myself, who am however +only pretty, too vain to be envious; and yet we see, I am afraid, too +often, some little sparks of this mean passion between rival beauties.</p> + +<p>Impartially speaking, I believe the best natured women, and the most +free from envy, are those who, without being very handsome, have that +<i>je ne sçai quoi</i>, those nameless graces, which please even without +beauty; and who therefore, finding more attention paid to them by men +than their looking-glass tells them they have a right to expect, are +for that reason in constant good humor with themselves, and of course +with every body else: whereas beauties, claiming universal empire, are +at war with all who dispute their rights; that is, with half the sex.</p> + +<p>I am very good natured myself; but it is, perhaps, because, though a +pretty woman, I am more agreable than handsome, and have an infinity of +the <i>je ne sçai quoi</i>.</p> + +<p><i>A propos</i>, my dear Temple, I am so pleased with what +Montesquieu says on this subject, that I find it is not in my nature to +resist translating and inserting it; you cannot then say I have sent +you a letter in which there is nothing worth reading.</p> + +<p>I beg you will read this to the misses, for which you cannot fail of +their thanks, and for this reason; there are perhaps a dozen women in +the world who do not think themselves handsome, but I will venture to +say, not one who does not think herself agreable, and that she has this +nameless charm, this so much talked of <i>I know not what</i>, which is +so much better than beauty. But to my Montesquieu:</p> + +<p>“There is sometimes, both in persons and things, an invisible charm, +a natural grace, which we cannot define, and which we are therefore +obliged to call the <i>je ne sçai quoi</i>.</p> + +<p>“It seems to me that this is an effect principally founded on +surprize.</p> + +<p>“We are touched that a person pleases us more than she seemed at +first to have a right to do; and we are agreably surprized that she +should have known how to conquer those defects which our eyes shewed +us, but which our hearts no longer believe: ’tis for this reason that +women, who are not handsome, have often graces or agreablenesses and +that beautiful ones very seldom have.</p> + +<p>“For a beautiful person does generally the very contrary of what we +expected; she appears to us by degrees less amiable, and, after having +surprized us pleasingly, she surprizes us in a contrary manner; but +the agreable impression is old, the disagreable one new: ’tis also +seldom that beauties inspire violent passions, which are almost always +reserved for those who have graces, that is to say, agreablenesses, +which we did not expect, and which we had no reason to expect.</p> + +<p>“Magnificent habits have seldom grace, which the dresses of +shepherdesses often have.</p> + +<p>“We admire the majesty of the draperies of Paul Veronese; but we are +touched with the simplicity of Raphael, and the exactness of Corregio.</p> + +<p>“Paul Veronese promises much, and pays all he promises; Raphael and +Corregio promise little, and pay much, which pleases us more.</p> + +<p>“These graces, these agreablenesses, are found oftener in the mind +than in the countenance: the charms of a beautiful countenance are +seldom hidden, they appear at first view; but the mind does not shew +itself except by degrees, when it pleases, and as much as it pleases; +it can conceal itself in order to appear, and give that species of +surprize to which those graces, of which I speak, owe their existence.</p> + +<p>“This grace, this agreableness, is less in the countenance than in +the manner; the manner changes every instant, and can therefore every +moment give us the pleasure of surprize: in one word, a woman can be +handsome but in one way, but she may be agreable in a hundred +thousand.”</p> + +<p>I like this doctrine of Montesquieu’s extremely, because it gives +every woman her chance, and because it ranks me above a thousand +handsomer women, in the dear power of inspiring passion.</p> + +<p>Cruel creature! why did you give me the idea of flowers? I now envy +you your foggy climate: the earth with you is at this moment covered +with a thousand lovely children of the spring; with us, it is an +universal plain of snow.</p> + +<p>Our beaux are terribly at a loss for similies: you have lilies of +the valley for comparisons; we nothing but what with the idea of +whiteness gives that of coldness too.</p> + +<p>This is all the quarrel I have with Canada: the summer is delicious, +the winter pleasant with all its severities; but alas! the smiling +spring is not here; we pass from winter to summer in an instant, and +lose the sprightly season of the Loves.</p> + +<p>A letter from the God of my idolatry—I must answer it instantly.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Yours, &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.128">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXXVI.</span><span class="let-num">128.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fitzgerald.</div> + +<p>Yes, I give permission; you may come this afternoon: there is +something amusing enough in your dear nonsense; and, as my father will +be at Quebec, I shall want amusement.</p> + +<p>It will also furnish a little chat for the misses at Quebec; a +<i>tête à tête</i> with a tall Irishman is a subject which cannot escape +their sagacity.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. F.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.129">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXXVII.</span><span class="let-num">129.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, April 20.</div> + +<p>After my immense letter to your love, my dear, you must not expect +me to say much to your fair ladyship.</p> + +<p>I am glad to find you manage Temple so admirably; the wisest, the +wildest, the gravest, and the gayest, are equally our slaves, when we +have proper ideas of petticoat politics.</p> + +<p>I intend to compose a code of laws for the government of husbands, +and get it translated into all the modern languages; which I apprehend +will be of infinite benefit to the world.</p> + +<p>Do you know I am a greater fool than I imagined? You may remember I +was always extremely fond of sweet waters. I left them off lately, upon +an idea, though a mistaken one, that Fitzgerald did not like them: I +yesterday heard him say the contrary; and, without thinking of it, went +mechanically to my dressing-room, and put lavender water on my +handkerchief.</p> + +<p>This is, I am afraid, rather a strong symptom of my being absurd; +however, I find it pleasant to be so, and therefore give way to it.</p> + +<p>It is divinely warm to-day, though the snow is still on the ground; +it is melting fast however, which makes it impossible for me to get to +Quebec. I shall be confined for at least a week, and Emily not with me: +I die for amusement. Fitzgerald ventures still at the hazard of his own +neck and his <span class="origtext">horses</span><span class="correction">horse's</span> legs; for the latter of which animals I have so +much compassion, that I have ordered both to stay at home a few days, +which days I shall devote to study and contemplation, and little pert +chit-chats with papa, who is ten times more fretful at being kept +within doors than I am: I intend to win a little fortune of him at +piquet before the world breaks in upon our solitude. Adieu! I am idle, +but always</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.130">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXXVIII.</span><span class="let-num">130.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To the Earl of ——.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, April 20.</div> + +<p>’Tis indeed, my Lord, an advantage for which we cannot be too +thankful to the Supreme Being, to be born in a country, whose religion +and laws are such, as would have been the objects of our wishes, had we +been born in any other.</p> + +<p>Our religion, I would be understood to mean Christianity in general, +carries internal conviction by the excellency of its moral precepts, +and its tendency to make mankind happy; and the peculiar mode of it +established in England breathes beyond all others the mild spirit of +the Gospel, and that charity which embraces all mankind as brothers.</p> + +<p>It is equally free from enthusiasm and superstition; its outward +form is decent and respectful, without affected ostentation; and what +shews its excellence above all others is, that every other church +allows it to be the best, except itself: and it is an established rule, +that he has an undoubted right to the first rank of merit, to whom +every man allows the second.</p> + +<p>As to our government, it would be impertinent to praise it; all +mankind allow it to be the master-piece of human wisdom.</p> + +<p>It has the advantage of every other form, with as little of their +inconveniences as the imperfection attendant on all human inventions +will admit: it has the monarchic quickness of execution and stability, +the aristocratic diffusive strength and wisdom of counsel, the +democratic freedom and equal distribution of property.</p> + +<p class="preverse">When I mention equal distribution of property, I would not be +understood to mean such an equality as never existed, nor can exist but +in idea; but that general, that comparative equality, which leaves to +every man the absolute and safe possession of the fruits of his labors; +which softens offensive distinctions, and curbs pride, by leaving +every order of men in some degree dependent on the other; and admits +of those gentle and almost imperceptible gradations, which the poet so +well calls,</p> +<div class="verse"> + “Th’ according music of a well-mix’d state.”</div> + +<p>The prince is here a centre of union; an advantage, the want of +which makes a democracy, which is so beautiful in theory, the very +worst of all possible governments, except absolute monarchy, in +practice.</p> + +<p>I am called upon, my Lord, to go to the citadel, to see the going +away of the ice; an object so new to me, that I cannot resist the +curiosity I have to see it, though my going thither is attended with +infinite difficulty.</p> + +<p>Bell insists on accompanying me: I am afraid for her, but she will +not be refused.</p> + +<p>At our return, I will have the honor of writing again to your +Lordship, by the gentleman who carries this to New York.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i0">I have the honor to be, my Lord,</span> +<span class="i4">Your Lordship’s, &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">Wm. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.131">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXXIX.</span><span class="let-num">131.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To the Earl of ——.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, April 20, Evening.</div> + +<p>We are returned, my Lord, from having seen an object as beautiful +and magnificent in itself, as pleasing from the idea it gives of +renewing once more our intercourse with Europe.</p> + +<p>Before I saw the breaking up of the vast body of ice, which forms +what is here called <i>the bridge</i>, from Quebec to Point Levi, I +imagined there could be nothing in it worth attention; that the ice +would pass away, or dissolve gradually, day after day, as the influence +of the sun, and warmth of the air and earth increased; and that we +should see the river open, without having observed by what degrees it +became so.</p> + +<p>But I found <i>the great river</i>, as the savages with much +propriety call it, maintain its dignity in this instance as in all +others, and assert its superiority over those petty streams which we +honor with the names of rivers in England. Sublimity is the +characteristic of this western world; the loftiness of the mountains, +the grandeur of the lakes and rivers, the majesty of the rocks shaded +<span class="origtext">with</span><span class="errata">with a</span> picturesque variety of beautiful trees and shrubs, and crowned +with the noblest of the offspring of the forest, which form the banks +of the latter, are as much beyond the power of fancy as that of +description: a landscape-painter might here expand his imagination, +and find ideas which he will seek in vain in our comparatively little +world.</p> + +<p>The object of which I am speaking has all the American magnificence.</p> + +<p>The ice before the town, or, to speak in the Canadian stile, <i>the +bridge</i>, being of a thickness not less than five feet, a league in +length, and more than a mile broad, resists for a long time the rapid +tide that attempts to force it from the banks.</p> + +<p>We are prepared by many previous circumstances to expect something +<span class="origtext">extraordidinary</span><span class="correction">extraordinary</span> in this event, if I may so call it: every increase of +heat in the weather for near a month before the ice leaves the banks; +every warm day gives you terror <span class="origtext">in</span><span class="errata">for</span> those you see venturing to pass it +in carrioles; yet one frosty night makes it again so strong, that even +the ladies, and the timid amongst them, still venture themselves over +in parties of pleasure; though greatly alarmed at their return, if a +few hours of uncommon warmth intervenes.</p> + +<p>But, during the last fortnight, the alarm grows indeed a very +serious one: the eye can distinguish, even at a considerable distance, +that the ice is softened and detached from the banks; and you dread +every step being death to those who have still the temerity to pass it, +which they will continue always to do till one or more pay their +rashness with their lives.</p> + +<p>From the time the ice is no longer a bridge on which you see crowds +driving with such vivacity on business or pleasure, every one is +looking eagerly for its breaking away, to remove the bar to the +continually wished and expected event, of the arrival of ships from +that world from whence we have seemed so long in a manner excluded.</p> + +<p>The hour is come; I have been with a crowd of both sexes, and all +ranks, hailing the propitious moment: our situation, on the top of Cape +Diamond, gave us a prospect some leagues above and below the town; +above Cape Diamond the river was open, it was so below Point Levi, the +rapidity of the current having forced a passage for the water under the +transparent bridge, which for more than a league continued firm.</p> + +<p>We stood waiting with all the eagerness of expectation; the tide +came rushing with an amazing impetuosity; the bridge seemed to shake, +yet resisted the force of the waters; the tide recoiled, it made a +pause, it stood still, it returned with redoubled fury, the immense +mass of ice gave way.</p> + +<p>A vast plain appeared in motion; it advanced with solemn and +majestic pace: the points of land on the banks of the river for a few +moments stopped its progress; but the immense weight of so prodigious a +body, carried along by a rapid current, bore down all opposition with a +force irresistible.</p> + +<p>There is no describing how beautiful the opening river appears, +every moment gaining on the sight, till, in a time less than can +possibly be imagined, the ice passing Point Levi, is hid in one moment +by the projecting land, and all is once more a clear plain before you; +giving at once the pleasing, but unconnected, ideas of that direct +intercourse with Europe from which we have been so many months +excluded, and of the earth’s again opening her fertile bosom, to feast +our eyes and imagination with her various verdant and flowery +productions.</p> + +<p>I am afraid I have conveyed a very inadequate idea of the scene +which has just passed before me; it however struck me so strongly, that +it was impossible for me not to attempt it.</p> + +<p>If my painting has the least resemblance to the original, your +Lordship will agree with me, that the very vicissitudes of season here +partake of the sublimity which so strongly characterizes the country.</p> + +<p>The changes of season in England, being slow and gradual, are but +faintly felt; but being here sudden, instant, violent, afford to the +mind, with the lively pleasure arising from meer change, the very high +additional one of its being accompanied with grandeur. I have the +honor to be,</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">My Lord,<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your Lordship’s, &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">William Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.132">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXXX.</span><span class="let-num">132.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">April 22.</div> + +<p>Certainly, my dear, you are so far right; a nun may be in many +respects a less unhappy being than some women who continue in the +world; her situation is, I allow, paradise to that of a married woman, +of sensibility and honor, who dislikes her husband.</p> + +<p>The cruelty therefore of some parents here, who sacrifice their +children to avarice, in forcing or seducing them into convents, would +appear more striking, if we did not see too many in England guilty of +the same inhumanity, though in a different manner, by marrying them +against their inclination.</p> + +<p>Your letter reminds me of what a French married lady here said to me +on this very subject: I was exclaiming violently against convents; and +particularly urging, what I thought unanswerable, the extreme hardship +of one circumstance; that, however unhappy the state was found on +trial, there was no retreat; that it was <i>for life</i>.</p> + +<p>Madame De —— turned quick, “And is not marriage for life?”</p> + +<p>“True, Madam; and, what is worse, without a year of probation. I +confess the force of your argument.”</p> + +<p>I have never dared since to mention convents before Madame De ——.</p> + +<p>Between you and I, Lucy, it is a little unreasonable that people +will come together entirely upon sordid principles, and then wonder +they are not happy: in delicate minds, love is seldom the consequence +of marriage.</p> + +<p>It is not absolutely certain that a marriage of which love is the +foundation will be happy; but it is infallible, I believe, that no +other can be so to souls capable of tenderness.</p> + +<p>Half the world, you will please to observe, have no souls; at least +none but of the vegetable and animal kinds: to this species of beings, +love and sentiment are entirely unnecessary; they were made to travel +through life in a state of mind neither quite awake nor asleep; and it +is perfectly equal to them in what company they take the journey.</p> + +<p>You and I, my dear, are something <i>awakened</i>; therefore it is +necessary we should love where we marry, and for this reason: our +souls, being of the active kind, can never be totally at rest; +therefore, if we were not to love our husbands, we should be in +dreadful danger of loving somebody else.</p> + +<p>For my part, whatever tall maiden aunts and cousins may say of the +indecency of a young woman’s distinguishing one man from another, and +of love coming after marriage; I think marrying, in that expectation, +on sober prudent principles, a man one dislikes, the most deliberate +and shameful degree of vice of which the human mind is capable.</p> + +<p>I cannot help observing here, that the great aim of modern education +seems to be, to eradicate the best impulses of the human heart, love, +friendship, compassion, benevolence; to destroy the social, and +encrease the selfish principle. Parents wisely attempt to root out +those affections which should only be directed to proper objects, and +which heaven gave us as the means of happiness; not considering that +the success of such an attempt is doubtful; and that, if they succeed, +they take from life all its sweetness, and reduce it to a dull unactive +round of tasteless days, scarcely raised above vegetation.</p> + +<p>If my ideas of things are right, the human mind is naturally +virtuous; the business of education is therefore less to give us good +impressions, which we have from nature, than to guard us against bad +ones, which are generally acquired.</p> + +<p>And so ends my sermon.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu! my dear!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + +<p>A letter from your brother; I believe the dear creature is out of +his wits: Emily has consented to marry him, and one would imagine by +his joy that nobody was ever married before.</p> + +<p>He is going to Lake Champlain, to fix on his seat of empire, or +rather Emily’s; for I see she will be the reigning queen, and he only +her majesty’s consort.</p> + +<p>I am going to Quebec; two or three dry days have made the roads +passable for summer carriages: Fitzgerald is come to fetch me. Adieu!</p> + +<div class="dateline">Eight o’clock.</div> + +<p>I am come back, have seen Emily, who is the happiest woman existing; +she has heard from your brother, and in such terms—his letter +breathes the very soul of tenderness. I wish they were richer. I don’t +half relish their settling in Canada; but, rather than not live +together, I believe they would consent to be set ashore on a desart +island. Good night.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.133">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXXXI.</span><span class="let-num">133.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To the Earl of <span class="origtext">——</span><span class="correction">——.</span></div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, April 25.</div> + +<p>The pleasure the mind finds in travelling, has undoubtedly, my Lord, +its source in that love of novelty, that delight in acquiring new +ideas, which is interwoven in its very frame, which shews itself on +every occasion from infancy to age, which is the first passion of the +human mind, and the last.</p> + +<p>There is nothing the mind of man abhors so much as a state of rest: +the great secret of happiness is to keep the soul in continual action, +without those violent exertions, which wear out its powers, and dull +its capacity of enjoyment; it should have exercise, not labor.</p> + +<p>Vice may justly be called the fever of the soul, inaction its +lethargy; passion, under the guidance of virtue, its health.</p> + +<p>I have the pleasure to see my daughter’s coquetry giving place to a +tender affection for a very worthy man, who seems formed to make her +happy: his fortune is easy; he is a gentleman, and a man of worth and +honor, and, what perhaps inclines me to be more partial to him, of my +own profession.</p> + +<p>I mention the last circumstance in order to introduce a request, +that your Lordship would have the goodness to employ that interest for +him in the purchase of a majority, which you have so generously offered +to me; I am determined, as there is no prospect of real duty, to quit +the army, and retire to that quiet which is so pleasing at my time of +life: I am privately in treaty with a gentleman for my company, and +propose returning to England in the first ship, to give in my +resignation: in this point, as well as that of serving Mr. Fitzgerald, +I shall without scruple call upon your Lordship’s friendship.</p> + +<p>I have settled every thing with Fitzgerald, but without saying a +word to Bell; and he is to seduce her into matrimony as soon as he +can, without my appearing at all interested in the affair: he is to ask +my consent in form, though we have already settled every preliminary.</p> + +<p>All this, as well as my intention of quitting the army, is yet a +secret to my daughter.</p> + +<p>But to the questions your Lordship does me the honor to ask me in +regard to the Americans, I mean those of our old colonies: they appear +to me, from all I have heard and seen of them, a rough, ignorant, +positive, very selfish, yet hospitable people.</p> + +<p>Strongly attached to their own opinions, but still more so to their +interests, in regard to which they have inconceivable sagacity and +address; but in all other respects I think naturally inferior to the +Europeans; as education does so much, it is however difficult to +ascertain this.</p> + +<p>I am rather of opinion they would not have refused submission to the +stamp act, or disputed the power of the legislature at home, had not +their minds been first embittered by what touched their interests so +nearly, the restraints laid on their trade with the French and Spanish +settlements, a trade by which England was an immense gainer; and by +which only a few enormously rich West India planters were hurt.</p> + +<p>Every advantage you give the North Americans in trade centers at +last in the mother country; they are the bees, who roam abroad for that +honey which enriches the paternal hive.</p> + +<p>Taxing them immediately after their trade is restrained, seems like +drying up the source, and expecting the stream to flow.</p> + +<p>Yet too much care cannot be taken to support the majesty of +government, and assert the dominion of the parent country.</p> + +<p>A good mother will consult the interest and happiness of her +children, but will never suffer her authority to be disputed.</p> + +<p>An equal mixture of mildness and spirit cannot fail of bringing +these mistaken people, misled by a few of violent temper and ambitious +views, into a just sense of their duty.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">I have the honor to be,<br></span> +<span class="i6">My Lord, &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">William Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.134">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXXXII.</span><span class="let-num">134.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">May 5.</div> + +<p>I have got my Emily again, to my great joy; I am nobody without her. +As the roads are already very good, we walk and ride perpetually, and +amuse ourselves as well as we can, <i>en attendant</i> your brother, +who is gone a settlement hunting.</p> + +<p>The quickness of vegetation in this country is astonishing; though +the hills are still covered with snow, and though it even continues in +spots in the vallies, the latter with the trees and shrubs in the woods +are already in beautiful verdure; and the earth every where putting +forth flowers in a wild and lovely variety and profusion.</p> + +<p>’Tis amazingly pleasing to see the strawberries and wild pansies +peeping their little foolish heads from beneath the snow.</p> + +<p>Emily and I are prodigiously fond after having been separated; it is +a divine relief to us both, to have again the delight of talking of our +lovers to each other: we have been a month divided; and neither of us +have had the consolation of a friend to be foolish to.</p> + +<p>Fitzgerald dines with us: he comes.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.135">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXXXIII.</span><span class="let-num">135.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To the Earl of ——.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, May 5.</div> +<div class="salutation">My Lord,</div> + +<p>I have been conversing, if the expression is not improper when I +have not had an opportunity of speaking a syllable, more than two hours +with a French officer, who has declaimed the whole time with the most +astonishing volubility, without uttering one word which could either +entertain or instruct his hearers; and even without starting any thing +that deserved the name of a thought.</p> + +<p>People who have no ideas out of the common road are, I believe, +generally the greatest talkers, because all their thoughts are low +enough for common conversation; whereas those of more elevated +understandings have ideas which they cannot easily communicate except +to persons of equal capacity with themselves.</p> + +<p>This might be brought as an argument of the inferiority of <span class="origtext">womens</span><span class="correction">women’s</span> +understanding to ours, as they are generally greater talkers, if we did +not consider the limited and trifling educations we give them; men, +amongst other advantages, have that of acquiring a greater variety as +well as sublimity of ideas.</p> + +<p>Women who have conversed much with men are undoubtedly in general +the most pleasing companions; but this only shews of what they are +capable when properly educated, since they improve so greatly by that +accidental and limited opportunity of acquiring knowledge.</p> + +<p>Indeed the two sexes are equal gainers, by conversing with each +other: there is a mutual desire of pleasing, in a mixed conversation, +restrained by politeness, which sets every amiable quality in a +stronger light.</p> + +<p>Bred in ignorance from one age to another, women can learn little of +their own sex.</p> + +<p>I have often thought this the reason why officers daughters are in +general more agreable than other women in an equal rank of life.</p> + +<p>I am almost tempted to bring Bell as an instance; but I know the +blindness and partiality of nature, and therefore check what paternal +tenderness would dictate.</p> + +<p>I am shocked at what your Lordship tells me of Miss H——. I know her +imprudent, I believe her virtuous: a great flow of spirits has been +ever hurrying her into indiscretions; but allow me to say, my Lord, it +is particularly hard to fix the character by our conduct, at a time of +life when we are not competent judges of our own actions; and when the +hurry and vivacity of youth carries us to commit a thousand follies and +indiscretions, for which we blush when the empire of reason begins.</p> + +<p>Inexperience and openness of temper betray us in early life into +improper connexions; and the very constancy, and nobleness of nature, +which characterize the best hearts, continue the delusion.</p> + +<p>I know Miss H—— perfectly; and am convinced, if her father will +treat her as a friend, and with the indulgent tenderness of affection +endeavor to wean her from a choice so very unworthy of her, he will +infallibly succeed; but if he treats her with harshness, she is lost +for ever.</p> + +<p>He is too stern in his behaviour, too rigid in his morals: it is the +interest of virtue to be represented as she is, lovely, smiling, and +ever walking hand in hand with pleasure: we were formed to be happy, +and to contribute to the happiness of our fellow creatures; there are +no real virtues but the social ones.</p> + +<p>’Tis the enemy of human kind who has thrown around us the gloom of +superstition, and taught that austerity and voluntary misery <span class="origtext">is</span><span class="errata">are</span> virtue.</p> + +<p>If moralists would indeed improve human nature, they should endeavor +to expand, not to contract the heart; they should build their system on +the passions and affections, the only foundations of the nobler +virtues.</p> + +<p>From the partial representations of narrow-minded bigots, who paint +the Deity from their own gloomy conceptions, the young are too often +frighted from the paths of virtue; despairing of ideal perfections, +they give up all virtue as unattainable, and start aside from the road +which they falsely suppose strewed with thorns.</p> + +<p>I have studied the heart with some attention; and am convinced +every parent, who will take the pains to gain his <span class="origtext">childrens</span><span class="correction">children’s</span> friendship, +will for ever be the guide and arbiter of their conduct: I speak from a +happy experience.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding all my daughter says in gaiety of heart, she would +sooner even relinquish the man she loves, than offend a father in whom +she has always found the tenderest and most faithful of friends. I am +interrupted, and have only time to say, I have the honor to be,</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">My Lord, &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">Wm. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.136">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXXXIV.</span><span class="let-num">136.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, May 13.</div> + +<p>Madame Des Roches has just left us; she returns to-day to the +Kamaraskas: she came to take leave of us, and shewed a concern at +parting from Emily, which really affected me. She is a most amiable +woman; Emily and she were in tears at parting; yet I think my sweet +friend is not sorry for her return: she loves her, but yet cannot +absolutely forget she has been her rival, and is as well satisfied that +she leaves Quebec before your brother’s arrival.</p> + +<p>The weather is lovely; the earth is in all its verdure, the trees in +foliage, and no snow but on the sides of the mountains; we are looking +eagerly out for ships from dear England: I expect by them volumes of +letters from my Lucy. We expect your brother in a week: in short, we +are all hope and expectation; our hearts beat at every rap of the door, +supposing it brings intelligence of a ship, or of the dear man.</p> + +<p>Fitzgerald takes such amazing pains to please me, that I begin to +think it is pity so much attention should be thrown away; and am half +inclined, from meer compassion, to follow the example you have so +heroically set me.</p> + +<p>Absolutely, Lucy, it requires amazing resolution to marry.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.137">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXXXV.</span><span class="let-num">137.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers, at Montreal.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, May 14.</div> + +<p>I am returned, my Rivers, to my sweet friend, and have again the +dear delight of talking of you without restraint; she bears with, she +indulges me in, all my weakness; if that name ought to be given to a +tenderness of which the object is the most exalted and worthy of his +sex.</p> + +<p>It was impossible I should not have loved you; the soul that spoke +in those eloquent eyes told me, the first moment we met, our hearts +were formed for each other; I saw in that amiable countenance a +sensibility similar to my own, but which I had till then sought in +vain; I saw there those benevolent smiles, which are the marks, and +the emanations of virtue; those thousand graces which ever accompany a +mind conscious of its own dignity, and satisfied with itself; in short, +that mental beauty which is the express image of the Deity.</p> + +<p>What defence had I against you, my Rivers, since your merit was such +that my reason approved the weakness of my heart?</p> + +<p>We have lost Madame Des Roches; we were both in tears at parting; we +embraced, I pressed her to my bosom: I love her, my dear Rivers; I have +an affection for her which I scarce know how to describe. I saw her +every day, I found infinite pleasure in being with her; she talked of +you, she praised you, and my heart was soothed; I however found it +impossible to mention your name to her; a reserve for which I cannot +account; I found pleasure in looking at her from the idea that she was +dear to you, that she felt for you the tenderest friendship: do you +know I think she has some resemblance of you? there is something in her +smile, which gives me an idea of you.</p> + +<p>Shall I, however, own all my folly? I never found this pleasure in +seeing her when you were present: on the contrary, your attention to +her gave me pain: I was jealous of every look; I even saw her amiable +qualities with a degree of envy, which checked the pleasure I should +otherwise have found in her conversation.</p> + +<p>There is always, I fear, some injustice mixed with love, at least +with love so ardent and tender as mine.</p> + +<p>You, my Rivers, will however pardon that injustice which is a proof +of my excess of tenderness.</p> + +<p>Madame Des Roches has promised to write to me: indeed I will love +her; I will conquer this little remain of jealousy, and do justice to +the most gentle and amiable of women.</p> + +<p>Why should I dislike her for seeing you with my eyes, for having a +soul whose feelings resemble my own?</p> + +<p>I have observed her voice is softened, and trembles like mine, when +she names you.</p> + +<p>My Rivers, you were formed to charm the heart of woman; there is +more pleasure in loving you, even without the hope of a return, than in +the adoration of all your sex: I pity every woman who is so insensible +as to see you without tenderness. This is the only fault I ever found +in Bell Fermor: she has the most lively friendship for you, but she has +seen you without love. Of what materials must her heart be composed?</p> + +<p>No other man can inspire the same sentiments with my Rivers; no +other man can deserve them: the delight of loving you appears to me so +superior to all other pleasures, that, of all human beings, if I was +not Emily Montague, I would be Madame Des Roches.</p> + +<p>I blush for what I have written; yet why blush for having a soul to +distinguish perfection, or why conceal the real feelings of my heart?</p> + +<p>I will never hide a thought from you; you shall be at once the +confidant and the dear object of my tenderness.</p> + +<p>In what words—my Rivers, you rule every emotion of my heart; +dispose as you please of your Emily: yet, if you allow her to form a +wish in opposition to yours, indulge her in the transport of returning +you to your friends; let her receive you from the hands of a mother, +whose happiness you ought to prefer even to hers.</p> + +<p>Why will you talk of the mediocrity of your fortune? have you not +enough for every real want? much less, with you, would make your Emily +blest: what have the trappings of life to do with happiness? ’tis only +sacrificing pride to love and filial tenderness; the worst of human +passions to the best.</p> + +<p>I have a thousand things to say, but am forced to steal this moment +to write to you: we have some French ladies here, who are eternally +coming to my apartment.</p> + +<p>They are at the door. Adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.138">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXXXVI.</span><span class="let-num">138.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To the Earl of ——.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, May 12.</div> + +<p>It were indeed, my Lord, to be wished that we had here schools, at +the expence of the public, to teach English to the rising generation: +nothing is a stronger tie of brotherhood and affection, a greater +cement of union, than speaking one common language.</p> + +<p>The want of attention to this circumstance has, I am told, had the +worst effects possible in the province of New York, where the people, +especially at a distance from the capital, continuing to speak Dutch, +retain their affection for their ancient masters, and still look on +their English fellow subjects as strangers and intruders.</p> + +<p>The Canadians are the more easily to be won to this, or whatever +else their own, or the general good requires, as their noblesse have +the strongest attachment to a court, and that favor is the great object +of their ambition: were English made by degrees the court language, it +would soon be universally spoke.</p> + +<p>Of the three great springs of the human heart, interest, pleasure, +vanity, the last appears to me much the strongest in the Canadians; and +I am convinced the most forcible tie their noblesse have to France, is +their unwillingness to part with their croix de St. Louis: might not +therefore some order of the same kind be instituted for Canada, and +given to all who have the croix, on their sending back the ensigns +they now wear, which are inconsistent with their allegiance as British +subjects?</p> + +<p>Might not such an order be contrived, to be given at the discretion +of the governor, as well to the Canadian gentlemen who merited most of +the government, as to the English officers of a certain rank, and such +other English as purchased estates, and settled in the country? and, to +give it additional lustre, the governor, for the time being, be always +head of the order?</p> + +<p>’Tis possible something of the same kind all over America might be +also of service; the passions of mankind are nearly the same every +where: at least I never yet saw the soil or climate, where vanity did +not grow; and till all mankind become philosophers, it is by their +passions they must be governed.</p> + +<p>The common people, by whom I mean the peasantry, have been great +gainers here by the change of masters; their property is more secure, +their independence greater, their profits much more than doubled: it is +not them therefore whom it is necessary to gain.</p> + +<p>The noblesse, on the contrary, have been in a great degree undone: +they have lost their employs, their rank, their consideration, and many +of them their fortunes.</p> + +<p>It is therefore equally consonant to good policy and to humanity +that they should be considered, and in the way most acceptable to them; +the rich conciliated by little honorary distinctions, those who are +otherwise by sharing in all lucrative employs; and all of them by +bearing a part in the legislature of their country.</p> + +<p>The great objects here seem to be to heal those wounds, which past +unhappy disputes have left still in some degree open; to unite the +French and English, the civil and military, in one firm body; to raise +a revenue, to encourage agriculture, and especially the growth of hemp +and flax; and find a staple, for the improvement of a commerce, which +at present labors under a thousand disadvantages.</p> + +<p>But I shall say little on this or any political subject relating to +Canada, for a reason which, whilst I am in this colony, it would look +like flattery to give: let it suffice to say, that, humanly speaking, +it is impossible that the inhabitants of this province should be +otherwise than happy.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">I have the honor to be,<br></span> +<span class="i6">My Lord, &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">William Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.139">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXXXVII.</span><span class="let-num">139.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, May 20.</div> + +<p>I confess the fact, my dear; I am, thanks to papa, amazingly +learned, and all that, for a young lady of twenty-two: yet you will +allow I am not the worse; no creature breathing would ever find it out: +envy itself must confess, I talk of lace and blond like another +christian woman.</p> + +<p>I have been thinking, Lucy, as indeed my ideas are generally a +little pindaric, how entertaining and improving would be the history of +the human heart, if people spoke all the truth, and painted themselves +as they really are: that is to say, if all the world were as sincere +and honest as I am; for, upon my word, I have such a contempt for +hypocrisy, that, upon the whole, I have always appeared to have fewer +good qualities than I really have.</p> + +<p>I am afraid we should find in the best characters, if we withdrew +the veil, a mixture of errors and inconsistencies, which would greatly +lessen our veneration.</p> + +<p>Papa has been reading me a wise lecture, this morning, on playing +the fool: I reminded him, that I was now arrived at years of +<i>indiscretion</i>; that every body must have their day; and that those +who did not play the fool young, ran a hazard of doing it when it would +not half so well become them.</p> + +<p><i>A propos</i> to playing the fool, I am strongly inclined to +believe I shall marry.</p> + +<p>Fitzgerald is so astonishingly pressing—Besides, some how or +other, I don’t feel happy without him: the creature has something of a +magnetic virtue; I find myself generally, without knowing it, on the +same side the room with him, and often in the next chair; and lay a +thousand little schemes to be of the same party at cards.</p> + +<p>I write pretty sentiments in my pocket-book, and carve his name on +trees when nobody sees me: did you think it possible I could be such an +ideot?</p> + +<p>I am as absurd as even the gentle love-sick Emily.</p> + +<p>I am thinking, my dear, how happy it is, since most human beings +differ so extremely one from another, that heaven has given us the same +variety in our tastes.</p> + +<p>Your brother is a divine fellow, and yet there is a sauciness about +Fitzgerald which pleases me better; as he has told me a thousand +times, he thinks me infinitely more agreable than Emily.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I am going to Quebec.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.140">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXXXVIII.</span><span class="let-num">140.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">May 20, Evening.</div> + +<p><i>Io triumphe!</i> A ship from England! You can have no idea of +the universal transport at the sight; the whole town was on the beach, +eagerly gazing at the charming stranger, who danced gaily on the waves, +as if conscious of the pleasure she inspired.</p> + +<p>If our joy is so great, who preserve a correspondence with Europe, +through our other colonies, during the winter, what must that of the +French have been, who were absolutely shut up six months from the rest +of the world?</p> + +<p>I can scarce conceive a higher delight than they must have felt at +being thus restored to a communication with mankind.</p> + +<p>The letters are not delivered; our servant stays for them at the +post-office; we expect him every moment: if I have not volumes from +you, I shall be very angry.</p> + +<p>He comes. Adieu! I have not patience to wait their being brought up +stairs.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> +<p class="addendum">They are here; six letters from you; I shall give three of them to +Emily to read, whilst I read the rest: you are very good, Lucy, and I +will never call you lazy again.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.141">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXXXIX.</span><span class="let-num">141.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline">Pall Mall, April 8.</div> + +<p>Whilst I was sealing my letter, I received yours of the 1st of +February.</p> + +<p>I am excessively alarmed, my dear, at the account it gives me of +Miss Montague’s having broke with her lover, and of my brother’s +extreme affection for her.</p> + +<p>I did not dare to let my mother see that letter, as I am convinced +the very idea of a marriage which must for ever separate her from a son +she loves to idolatry, would be fatal to her; she is altered since his +leaving England more than you can imagine; she is grown pale and thin, +her vivacity has entirely left her. Even my marriage scarce seemed to +give her pleasure; yet such is her delicacy, her ardor for his +happiness, she will not suffer me to say this to him, lest it should +constrain him, and prevent his making himself happy in his own way. I +often find her in tears in her apartment; she affects a smile when she +sees me, but it is a smile which cannot deceive one who knows her whole +soul as I do. In short, I am convinced she will not live long unless my +brother returns. She never names him without being softened to a +degree not to be expressed.</p> + +<p>Amiable and lovely as you represent this charming woman, and great +as the sacrifice is she has made to my brother, it seems almost cruelty +to wish to break his attachment to her; yet, situated as they are, what +can be the consequence of their indulging their tenderness at present, +but ruin to both?</p> + +<p>At all events, however, my dear, I intreat, I conjure you, to press +my brother’s immediate return to England; I am convinced, my mother’s +life depends on seeing him.</p> + +<p>I have often been tempted to write to Miss Montague, to use her +influence with him even against herself.</p> + +<p>If she loves him, she will have his true happiness at heart; she +will consider what a mind like his must hereafter suffer, should his +fondness for her be fatal to the best of mothers; she will urge, she +will oblige him to return, and make this step the condition of +preserving her tenderness.</p> + +<p>Read this letter to her; and tell her, it is to her affection for my +brother, to her generosity, I trust for the life of a parent who is +dearer to me than my existence.</p> + +<p>Tell her my heart is hers, that I will receive her as my guardian +angel, that we will never part, that we will be friends, that we will +be sisters, that I will omit nothing possible to make her happy with my +brother in England, and that I have very rational hopes it may be in +time accomplished; but that, if she marries him in Canada, and suffers +him to pursue his present design, she plants a dagger in the bosom of +her who gave him life.</p> + +<p>I scarce know what I would say, my dear Bell; but I am wretched; I +have no hope but in you. Yet if Emily is all you represent her—</p> + +<p>I am obliged to break off: my mother is here; she must not see this +letter.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Lucy Temple.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.142">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXL.</span><span class="let-num">142.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, May 21.</div> + +<p>Your letter of the 8th of April, my dear, was first read by Emily, +being one of the three I gave her for that purpose, as I before +mentioned.</p> + +<p>She went through it, and melting into tears, left the room without +speaking a word: she has been writing this morning, and I fancy to you, +for she enquired when the mail set out for England, and seemed pleased +to hear it went to-day.</p> + +<p>I am excessively shocked at your account of Mrs. Rivers: assure her, +in my name, of your brother’s immediate return; I know both him and +Emily too well to believe they will sacrifice her to their own +happiness: there is nothing, on the contrary, they will not suffer +rather than even afflict her.</p> + +<p>Do not, however, encourage an idea of ever breaking an attachment +like theirs; an attachment founded less in passion than in the +tenderest friendship, in a similarity of character, and a sympathy the +most perfect the world ever saw.</p> + +<p>Let it be your business, my Lucy, to endeavor to make them happy, +and to remove the bars which prevent their union in England; and depend +on seeing them there the very moment their coming is possible.</p> + +<p>From what I know of your brother, I suppose he will insist on +marrying Emily before he leaves Quebec; but, after your letter, which +I shall send him, you may look on his return as infallible.</p> + +<p>I send all yours and Temple’s letters for your brother to-day: you +may expect to hear from him by the same mail with this.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">I have only to say, I am,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.143">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXLI.</span><span class="let-num">143.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec.</div> +<div class="dateline">London, April 8.</div> + +<p>My own happiness, my dear Rivers, in a marriage of love, makes me +extremely unwilling to prevent your giving way to a tenderness, which +promises you the same felicity, with so amiable a woman as both you +and Bell Fermor represent Miss Montague to be.</p> + +<p>But, my dear Ned, I cannot, without betraying your friendship, and +hazarding all the quiet of your future days, dispense with myself from +telling you, though I have her express commands to the contrary, that +the peace, perhaps the life, of your excellent mother, depends on your +giving up all thoughts of a settlement in America, and returning +immediately to England.</p> + +<p>I know the present state of your affairs will not allow you to marry +this charming woman here, without descending from the situation you +have ever held, and which you have a right from your birth to hold, in +the world.</p> + +<p>Would you allow me to gratify my friendship for you, and shew, at +the same time, your perfect esteem for me, by commanding, what our +long affection gives you a right to, such a part of my fortune as I +could easily spare without the least inconvenience to myself, we might +all be happy, and you might make your Emily so: but you have already +convinced me, by your refusal of a former request of this kind, that +your esteem for me is much less warm than mine for you; and that you do +not think I merit the delight of making you happy.</p> + +<p>I will therefore say no more on this subject till we meet, than that +I have no doubt this letter will bring you immediately to us.</p> + +<p>If the tenderness you express for Miss Montague is yet conquerable, +it will surely be better for both it should be conquered, as fortune +has been so much less kind to each of you than nature; but if your +hearts are immoveably fixed on each other, if your love is of the kind +which despises every other consideration, return to the bosom of +friendship, and depend on our finding some way to make you happy.</p> + +<p>If you persist in refusing to share my fortune, you can have no +objection to my using all my interest, for a friend and brother so +deservedly dear to me, and in whose happiness I shall ever find my own.</p> + +<p>Allow me now to speak of myself; I mean of my dearer self, your +amiable sister, for whom my tenderness, instead of decreasing, grows +every moment stronger.</p> + +<p>Yes, my friend, my sweet Lucy is every hour more an angel: her +desire of being beloved, renders her a thousand times more lovely; a +countenance animated by true tenderness will always charm beyond all +the dead uninformed features the hand of nature ever framed; love +embellishes the whole form, gives spirit and softness to the eyes, the +most vivid bloom to the complexion, dignity to the air, grace to every +motion, and throws round beauty almost the rays of divinity.</p> + +<p>In one word, my Lucy was always more lovely than any other woman; +she is now more lovely than even her former self.</p> + +<p>You, my Rivers, will forgive the over-flowings of my fondness, +because you know the merit of its object.</p> + +<p>Adieu! We die to embrace you!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">J. Temple.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.144">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXLII.</span><span class="let-num">144.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, May 21.</div> + +<p>Your letter, Madam, to Miss Fermor, which, by an accident, was first +read by me, has removed the veil which love had placed before mine +eyes, and shewed me, in one moment, the folly of all those dear hopes I +had indulged.</p> + +<p>You do me but justice in believing me incapable of suffering your +brother to sacrifice the peace, much less the life, of an amiable +mother, to my happiness: I have no doubt of his returning to England +the moment he receives your letters; but, knowing his tenderness, I +will not expose him to a struggle on this occasion: I will myself, +unknown to him, as he is fortunately absent, embark in a ship which has +wintered here, and will leave Quebec in ten days.</p> + +<p>Your invitation is very obliging; but a moment’s reflection will +convince you of the extreme impropriety of my accepting it.</p> + +<p>Assure Mrs. Rivers, that her son will not lose a moment, that he +will probably be with her as soon as this letter; assure her also, that +the woman who has kept him from her, can never forgive herself for what +she suffers.</p> + +<p>I am too much afflicted to say more than that</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">I am, Madam,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.145">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXLIII.</span><span class="let-num">145.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Montague, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline">Montreal, May 20.</div> + +<p>It is with a pleasure no words can express I tell my sweet Emily, I +have fixed on a situation which promises every advantage we can wish as +to profit, and which has every beauty that nature can give.</p> + +<p>The land is rich, and the wood will more than pay the expence of +clearing it; there is a settlement within a few leagues, on which there +is an extreme agreable family: a number of Acadians have applied to me +to be received as settlers: in short, my dear angel, all seems to smile +on our design.</p> + +<p>I have spent some days at the house of a German officer, lately in +our service, who is engaged in the same design, but a little advanced +in it. I have seen him increasing every hour his little domain, by +clearing the lands; he has built a pretty house in a beautiful rustic +style: I have seen his pleasing labors with inconceivable delight. I +already fancy my own settlement advancing in beauty: I paint to myself +my Emily adorning those lovely shades; I see her, like the mother of +mankind, admiring a new creation which smiles around her: we appear, to +my idea, like the first pair in paradise.</p> + +<p>I hope to be with you the 1st of June: will you allow me to set down +the 2d as the day which is to assure to me a life of happiness?</p> + +<p>My Acadians, your new subjects, are waiting in the next room to +speak with me.</p> + +<p>All good angels guard my Emily.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! your<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.146">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXLIV.</span><span class="let-num">146.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, May 24.</div> + +<p>Emily has wrote to you, and appears more composed; she does not +however tell me what she has resolved; she has only mentioned a design +of spending a week at Quebec. I suppose she will take no resolution +till your brother comes down: he cannot be here in less than ten days.</p> + +<p>She has heard from him, and he has fixed on a settlement: depend +however on his return to England, even if it is not to stay. I wish he +could prevail on Mrs. Rivers to <span class="origtext">acompany</span><span class="correction">accompany</span> him back. The advantages of +his design are too great to lose; the voyage is nothing; the climate +healthy beyond all conception.</p> + +<p>I fancy he will marry as soon as he comes down from Montreal, set +off in the first ship for England, leave Emily with me, and return to +us next year: at least, this is the plan my heart has formed.</p> + +<p>I wish Mrs. Rivers had born his absence better; her impatience to +see him has broken in on all our schemes; Emily and I had in fancy +formed a little Eden on Lake Champlain: Fitzgerald had promised me to +apply for lands near them; we should have been so happy in our little +new world of friendship.</p> + +<p>There is nothing certain in this vile state of existence: I could +philosophize extremely well this morning.</p> + +<p>All our little plans of amusement too for this summer are now at an +end; your brother was the soul of all our parties. This is a trifle, +but my mind to-day seeks for every subject of chagrin.</p> + +<p>Let but my Emily be happy, and I will not complain, even if I lose +her: I have a thousand fears, a thousand uneasy reflections: if you +knew her merit, you would not wish to break the attachment.</p> + +<p>My sweet Emily is going this morning to Quebec; I have promised to +accompany her, and she now waits for me.</p> + +<p>I cannot write: I have a heaviness about my heart, which has never +left me since I read your letter. ’Tis the only disagreable one I ever +received from my dear Lucy: I am not sure I love you so well as before +I saw this letter. There is something unfeeling in the style of it, +which I did not expect from you.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.147">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXLV.</span><span class="let-num">147.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, May 25.</div> + +<p>I am unhappy beyond all words; my sweet Emily is gone to England; +the ship sailed this morning: I am just returned from the beach, after +conducting her on board.</p> + +<p>I used every art, every persuasion, in the power of friendship, to +prevent her going till your brother came down; but all I said was in +vain. She told me, <span class="origtext">“she</span><span class="correction">she</span> knew too well her own weakness to hazard seeing +him; that she also knew his tenderness, and was resolved to spare him +the struggle between his affection and his duty; that she was +determined never to marry him but with the consent of his mother; that +their meeting at Quebec, situated as they were, could only be the +source of unhappiness to both; that her heart doated on him, but that +she would never be the cause of his acting in a manner unworthy his +character: that she would see his family the moment she got to London, +and then retire to the house of a relation in Berkshire, where she +would wait for his arrival.</p> + +<p>That she had given you her promise, which nothing should make her +break, to embark in the first ship for <span class="origtext">England.”</span><span class="correction">England.</span></p> + +<p>She expressed no fears for herself as to the voyage, but trembled at +the idea of her Rivers’s danger.</p> + +<p>She sat down several times yesterday to write to him, but her tears +prevented her: she at last assumed courage enough to tell him her +design; but it was in such terms as convinced me she could not have +pursued it, had he been here.</p> + +<p>She went to the ship with an appearance of calmness that astonished +me; but the moment she entered, all her resolution forsook her: she +retired with me to her room, where she gave way to all the agony of her +soul.</p> + +<p>The word was given to sail; I was summoned away; she rose hastily, +she pressed me to her bosom, “Tell him, said she, his Emily”—she +could say no more.</p> + +<p>Never in my life did I feel any sorrow equal to this separation. +Love her, my Lucy; you can never have half the tenderness for her she +merits.</p> + +<p>She stood on the deck till the ship turned Point Levi, her eyes +fixed passionately on our boat.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Twelve o’clock.</div> + +<p>I have this moment a letter from your brother to Emily, which she +directed me to open, and send to her; I inclose it to you, as the +safest way of conveyance: there is one in it from Temple to him, on the +same subject with yours to me.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I will write again when my mind is more composed.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.148">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXLVI.</span><span class="let-num">148.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Montague, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline">Montreal, May 28.</div> + +<p>It was my wish, my hope, my noblest ambition, my dear Emily, to see +you in a situation worthy of you; my sanguine temper flattered me with +the idea of seeing this wish accomplished in Canada, though fortune +denied it me in England.</p> + +<p>The letter which I inclose has put an end to those fond delusive +hopes: I must return immediately to England; did not my own heart +dictate this step, I know too well the goodness of yours, to expect the +continuance of your esteem, were I capable of purchasing happiness, +even the happiness of calling you mine, at the expence of my mother’s +life, or even of her quiet.</p> + +<p>I must now submit to see my Emily in an humbler situation; to see +her want those pleasures, those advantages, those honors, which fortune +gives, and which she has so nobly sacrificed to true delicacy of mind, +and, if I do not flatter myself, to her generous and disinterested +affection for me.</p> + +<p>Be assured, my dearest angel, the inconveniencies attendant on a +narrow fortune, the only one I have to offer, shall be softened by all +which the most lively esteem, the most perfect friendship, the +tenderest love, can inspire; by that attention, that unwearied +solicitude to please, of which the heart alone knows the value.</p> + +<p>Fortune has no power over minds like ours; we possess a treasure to +which all she has to give is nothing, the dear exquisite delight of +loving, and of being beloved.</p> + +<p>Awake to all the finer feelings of tender esteem and elegant desire, +we have every real good in each other.</p> + +<p>I shall hurry down, the moment I have settled my affairs here; and +hope soon to have the transport of presenting the most charming of +friends, of mistresses, allow me to add, of wives, to a mother whom I +love and revere beyond words, and to whom she will soon be dearer than +myself.</p> + +<p>My going to England will detain me at Montreal a few days longer +than I intended; a delay I can very ill support.</p> + +<p>Adieu! my Emily! no language can express my tenderness or my +impatience.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.149">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXLVII.</span><span class="let-num">149.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Montreal, May 28.</div> + +<p>I cannot enough, my dear Temple, thank you for your last, though it +destroys my air-built scheme of happiness.</p> + +<p>Could I have supposed my mother would thus severely have felt my +absence, I had never left England; to make her easier, was my only +motive for that step.</p> + +<p>I with pleasure sacrifice my design of settling here to her peace of +mind; no consideration, however, shall ever make me give up that of +marrying the best and most charming of women.</p> + +<p>I could have wished to have had a fortune worthy of her; this was my +wish, not that of my Emily; she will with equal pleasure share with me +poverty or riches: I hope her consent to marry me before I leave +Canada. I know the advantages of affluence, my dear Temple, <span class="origtext">aud</span><span class="correction">and</span> am too +reasonable to despise them; I would only avoid rating them above their +worth.</p> + +<p>Riches undoubtedly purchase a variety of pleasures which are not +otherwise to be obtained; they give power, they give honors, they give +consequence; but if, to enjoy these subordinate goods, we must give up +those which are more essential, more real, more suited to our natures, +I can never hesitate one moment to determine between them.</p> + +<p>I know nothing fortune has to bestow, which can equal the transport +of being dear to the most amiable, most lovely of womankind.</p> + +<p>The stream of life, my dear Temple, stagnates without the gentle +gale of love; till I knew my Emily, till the dear moment which assured +me of her tenderness, I could scarce be said to live.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.150">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXLVIII.</span><span class="let-num">150.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, June 1.</div> + +<p>I can write, I can talk, of nothing but Emily; I never knew how much +I loved her till she was gone: I run eagerly to every place where we +have been together; every spot reminds me of her; I remember a +thousand conversations, endeared by confidence and affection: a tender +tear starts in spite of me: our walks, our airings, our pleasing little +parties, all rush at once on my memory: I see the same lovely scenes +around me, but they have lost half their power of pleasing.</p> + +<p>I visit every grove, every thicket, that she loved; I have a +redoubled fondness for every object in which she took pleasure.</p> + +<p>Fitzgerald indulges me in this enthusiasm of friendship; he leads me +to every place which can recall my Emily’s idea; he speaks of her with +a warmth which shews the sensibility and goodness of his own heart; he +endeavors to soothe me by the most endearing attention.</p> + +<p>What infinite pleasure, my dear Lucy, there is in being truly +beloved! Fond as I have ever been of general admiration, that of all +mankind is nothing to the least mark of Fitzgerald’s tenderness.</p> + +<p>Adieu! it will be some days before I can send this letter.</p> + +<div class="dateline">June 4.</div> + +<p>The governor gives a ball in honor of the day; I am dressing to go, +but without my sweet companion: every hour I feel more sensibly her +absence.</p> + +<div class="dateline">5th.</div> + +<p>We had last night, during the ball, the most dreadful storm I ever +heard; it seemed to shake the whole habitable globe.</p> + +<p>Heaven preserve my Emily from its fury: I have a thousand fears on +her account.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Twelve o’clock.</div> + +<p>Your brother is arrived; he has been here about an hour: he flew to +Silleri, without going at all to Quebec; he enquired for Emily; he +would not believe she was gone.</p> + +<p>There is no expressing how much he was shocked when convinced she +had taken this voyage without him; he would have followed her in an +open boat, in hopes of overtaking her at Coudre, if my father had not +detained him almost by force, and at last convinced him of the +impossibility of overtaking her, as the winds, having been constantly +fair, must before this have carried them out of the river.</p> + +<p>He has sent his servant to Quebec, with orders to take passage for +him in the first ship that sails; his impatience is not to be +described.</p> + +<p>He came down in the hope of marrying her here, and conducting her +himself to England; he forms to himself a thousand dangers to her, +which he fondly fancies his presence could have averted: in short, he +has all the unreasonableness of a man in love.</p> + +<p>I propose sending this, and a large packet more, by your brother, +unless some unexpected opportunity offers before.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu! my dear!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.151">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXLIX.</span><span class="let-num">151.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">6th.</div> + +<p>Your brother has taken his passage in a very fine ship, which will +sail the 10th; you may expect him every hour after you receive this; +which I send, with what I wrote yesterday, by a small vessel which +sails a week sooner then was intended.</p> + +<p>Rivers persuades Fitzgerald to apply for the lands which he had +fixed upon on Lake Champlain, as he has no thoughts of ever returning +hither.</p> + +<p>I will prevent this, however, if I have any influence: I cannot +think with patience of continuing in America, when my two amiable +friends have left it; I had no motive for wishing a settlement here, +but to form a little society of friends, of which they made the +principal part.</p> + +<p>Besides, the spirit of emulation would have kept up my courage, and +given fire and brilliancy to my fancy.</p> + +<p>Emily and I should have been trying who had the most lively genius +at creation; who could have produced the fairest flowers; who have +formed the woods and rocks into the most beautiful arbors, vistoes, +grottoes; have taught the streams to flow in the most pleasing +meanders; have brought into view the greatest number and variety of +those lovely little falls of water with which this fairy land abounds; +and shewed nature in the fairest form.</p> + +<p class="preverse">In short, we should have been continually endeavoring, following the +luxuriancy of female imagination, to render more charming the sweet +abodes of love and friendship; whilst our heroes, changing their +swords into plough-shares, and engaged in more substantial, more +profitable labors, were clearing land, raising cattle and corn, and +doing every thing becoming good farmers; or, to express it more +poetically,</p> +<div class="verse"> + “Taming the genius of the stubborn plain,<br> + Almost as quickly as they conquer’d Spain:”</div> + +<p>By which I would be understood to mean the Havannah, where, vanity +apart, I am told both of them did their duty, and a little more, if a +man can in such a case be said to do more.</p> + +<p>In one word, they would have been studying the useful, to support +us; we the agreable, to please and amuse them; which I take to be +assigning to the two sexes the employments for which nature intended +them, notwithstanding the vile example of the savages to the contrary.</p> + +<p>There are now no farmeresses in Canada worth my contending with; +therefore the whole pleasure of the thing would be at an end, even on +the supposition that friendship had not been the soul of our design.</p> + +<p>Say every thing for me to Temple and Mrs. Rivers; and to my dearest +Emily, if arrived.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.152">LETTER <span class="origtext">CL.</span><span class="let-num">152.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To the Earl of <span class="origtext">——</span><span class="correction">——.</span></div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, June 6, 1767.</div> + +<p>It is very true, my Lord, that the <span class="origtext">jesuit</span><span class="correction">Jesuit</span> missionaries still +continue in the Indian villages in Canada; and I am afraid it is no +less true, that they use every art to instill into those people an +aversion to the English; at least I have been told this by the Indians +themselves, who seem equally surprized and piqued that we do not send +missionaries amongst them.</p> + +<p>Their ideas of christianity are extremely circumscribed, and they +give no preference to one mode of our faith above another; they regard +a missionary of any nation as a kind father, who comes to instruct them +in the best way of worshiping the Deity, whom they suppose more +propitious to the Europeans than to themselves; and as an ambassador +from the prince whose subject he is: they therefore think it a mark of +honor, and a proof of esteem, to receive missionaries; and to our +remissness, and the French wise attention on this head, is owing the +extreme attachment the greater part of the savage nations have ever had +to the latter.</p> + +<p>The French missionaries, by studying their language, their manners, +their tempers, their dispositions; by conforming to their way of life, +and using every art to gain their esteem, have acquired an influence +over them which is scarce to be conceived; nor would it be difficult +for ours to do the same, were they judiciously chose, and properly +encouraged.</p> + +<p>I believe I have said, that there is a striking resemblance between +the manners of the Canadians and the savages; I should have explained +it, by adding, that this resemblance has been brought about, not by the +French having won the savages to receive European manners, but by the +very contrary; the peasants having acquired the savage indolence in +peace, their activity and ferocity in war; their fondness for field +sports, their hatred of labor; their love of a wandering life, and of +liberty; in the latter of which they have been in some degree indulged, +the laws here being much milder, and more favorable to the people, than +in France.</p> + +<p>Many of the officers also, and those of rank in the colony troops, +have been adopted into the savage tribes; and there is stronger +evidence than, for the honor of humanity, I would wish there was, that +some of them have led the death dance at the execution of English +captives, have even partook the horrid repast, and imitated them in all +their cruelties; cruelties, which to the eternal disgrace, not only of +our holy religion, but even of our nature, these poor people, whose +ignorance is their excuse, have been instigated to, both by the French +and English colonies, who, with a fury truly diabolical, have offered +rewards to those who brought in the scalps of their enemies. Rousseau +has taken great pains to prove that the most uncultivated nations are +the most virtuous: I have all due respect for this philosopher, of +whose writings I am an enthusiastic admirer; but I have a still greater +respect for truth, which I believe is not in this instance on his side.</p> + +<p>There is little reason to boast of the virtues of a people, who are +such brutal slaves to their appetites as to be unable to avoid +drinking brandy to an excess scarce to be conceived, whenever it falls +in their way, though eternally lamenting the murders and other +atrocious crimes of which they are so perpetually guilty when under its +influence.</p> + +<p>It is unjust to say we have corrupted them, that we have taught them +a vice to which we are ourselves not addicted; both French and English +are in general sober: we have indeed given them the means of +intoxication, which they had not before their intercourse with us; but +he must be indeed fond of praising them, who makes a virtue of their +having been sober, when water was the only liquor with which they were +acquainted.</p> + +<p>From all that I have observed, and heard of these people, it appears +to me an undoubted fact, that the most civilized Indian nations are +the most virtuous; a fact which makes directly against Rousseau’s ideal +system.</p> + +<p>Indeed all systems make against, instead of leading to, the +discovery of truth.</p> + +<p>Pere Lafitau has, for this reason, in his very learned comparison of +the manners of the savages with those of the first ages, given a very +imperfect account of Indian manners; he is even so candid as to own, he +tells you nothing but what makes for the system he is endeavoring to +establish.</p> + +<p>My wish, on the contrary, is not to make truth subservient to any +favorite sentiment or idea, any child of my fancy; but to discover it, +whether agreable or not to my own opinion.</p> + +<p>My accounts may therefore be false or imperfect from mistake or +misinformation, but will never be designedly warped from truth.</p> + +<p>That the savages have virtues, candor must own; but only a love of +paradox can make any man assert they have more than polished nations.</p> + +<p>Your Lordship asks me what is the general moral character of the +Canadians; they are simple and hospitable, yet extremely attentive to +interest, where it does not interfere with that laziness which is their +governing passion.</p> + +<p>They are rather devout than virtuous; have religion without +morality, and a sense of honor without very strict honesty.</p> + +<p>Indeed I believe wherever superstition reigns, the moral sense is +greatly weakened; the strongest inducement to the practice of morality +is removed, when people are brought to believe that a few outward +ceremonies will compensate for the want of virtue.</p> + +<p>I myself heard a man, who had raised a large fortune by very +indirect means, confess his life had been contrary to every precept of +the Gospel; but that he hoped the pardon of Heaven for all his sins, as +he intended to devote one of his daughters to a conventual life as an +expiation.</p> + +<p>This way of being virtuous by proxy, is certainly very easy and +convenient to such sinners as have children to sacrifice.</p> + +<p>By Colonel Rivers, who leaves us in a few days, I intend myself the +honor of addressing your Lordship again.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i0">I have the honor to be<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your Lordship’s, &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">Wm. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.153">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXLIX.</span><span class="let-num">153.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To the Earl of ——.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, June 9.</div> + +<p>Your Lordship will receive this from the hands of one of the most +worthy and amiable men I ever knew, Colonel Rivers, whom I am +particularly happy in having the honor to introduce to your Lordship, +as I know your delicacy in the choice of friends, and that there are so +few who have your perfect esteem and confidence, that the acquaintance +of one who merits both, at his time of life, will be regarded, even by +your Lordship, as an acquisition.</p> + +<p>’Tis to him I shall say the advantage I procure him, by making him +known to a nobleman, who, with the wisdom and experience of age, has +all the warmth of heart, the generosity, the noble confidence, the +enthusiasm, the fire, and vivacity of youth.</p> + +<p>Your Lordship’s idea, in regard to Protestant convents here, on the +footing of that we visited together at Hamburgh, is extremely well +worth the consideration of those whom it may concern; especially if the +Romish ones are abolished, as will most probably be the case.</p> + +<p>The noblesse have numerous families, and, if there are no convents, +will be at a loss where to educate their daughters, as well as where to +dispose of those who do not marry in a reasonable time: the convenience +they find in both respects from these houses, is one strong motive to +them to continue in their ancient religion.</p> + +<p>As I would however prevent the more useful, by which I mean the +lower, part of the sex from entering into this state, I would wish only +the daughters of the seigneurs to have the privilege of becoming nuns: +they should be obliged, on taking the vow, to prove their noblesse for +at least three generations; which would secure them respect, and, at +the same time, prevent their becoming too numerous.</p> + +<p>They should take the vow of obedience, but not of celibacy; and +reserve the power, as at Hamburgh, of going out to marry, though on no +other consideration.</p> + +<p>Your Lordship may remember, every nun at Hamburgh has a right of +marrying, except the abbess; and that, on your Lordship’s telling the +lady who then presided, and who was young and very handsome, you +thought this a hardship, she answered with great spirit, “O, my Lord, +you know it is in my power to resign.”</p> + +<p>I refer your Lordship to Colonel Rivers for that farther information +in regard to this colony, which he is much more able to give you than I +am, having visited every part of Canada in the design of settling in +it.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i0">I have the honor to be,<br></span> +<span class="i4">My Lord, &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">Wm. Fermor.</span> +</div> + +<p>Your Lordship’s mention of nuns has brought to my memory a little +anecdote on this subject, which I will tell you.</p> + +<p>I was, a few mornings ago, visiting a French lady, whose very +handsome daughter, of almost sixteen, told me, she was going into a +convent. I enquired which she had made choice of: she said, “The +General Hospital.”</p> + +<p>“I am glad, Mademoiselle, you have not chose the Ursulines; the +rules are so very severe, you would have found them hard to conform +to.”</p> + +<p>“As to the rules, Sir, I have no objection to their severity; but +the habit of the General Hospital—”</p> + +<p>I smiled.</p> + +<p>“Is so very light—”</p> + +<p>“And so becoming, Mademoiselle.”</p> + +<p>She smiled in her turn, and I left her fully convinced of the +sincerity of her vocation, and the great propriety and humanity of +suffering young creatures to chuse a kind of life so repugnant to human +nature, at an age when they are such excellent judges of what will make +them happy.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.154">LETTER <span class="origtext">CL.</span><span class="let-num">154.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, June 9.</div> + +<p>I send this by your brother, who sails to-morrow.</p> + +<p>Time, I hope, will reconcile me to his and Emily’s absence; but at +present I cannot think of losing them without a dejection of mind which +takes from me the very idea of pleasure.</p> + +<p>I conjure you, my dear Lucy, to do every thing possible to +facilitate their union; and remember, that to your request, and to Mrs. +Rivers’s tranquillity, they have sacrificed every prospect they had of +happiness.</p> + +<p>I would say more; but my spirits are so affected, I am incapable of +writing.</p> + +<p>Love my sweet Emily, and let her not repent the generosity of her +conduct.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.155">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLI.</span><span class="let-num">155.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, June 10, Evening.</div> + +<p>My poor Rivers! I think I felt more from his going than even from +Emily’s: whilst he was here, I seemed not quite to have lost her: I now +feel doubly the loss of both.</p> + +<p>He begged me to shew attention to Madame Des Roches, who he assured +me merited my tenderest friendship; he wrote to her, and has left the +letter open in my care: it is to thank her, in the most affectionate +terms, for her politeness and friendship, as well to himself as to his +Emily; and to offer her his best services in England in regard to her +estate, part of which some people here have very ungenerously applied +for a grant of, on pretence of its not being all settled according to +the original conditions.</p> + +<p>He owned to me, he felt some regret at leaving this amiable woman in +Canada, and at the idea of never seeing her more.</p> + +<p>I love him for this sensibility; and for his delicate attention to +one whose disinterested affection for him most certainly deserves it.</p> + +<p>Fitzgerald is below, he does all possible to console me for the loss +of my friends; but indeed, Lucy, I feel their absence most severely.</p> + +<p>I have an opportunity of sending your brother’s letter to Madame Des +Roches, which I must not lose, as they are not very frequent: ’tis by +a French gentleman who is now with my father.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! your faithful,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> +<div class="dateline">Twelve at night.</div> + +<p>We have been talking of your brother; I have been saying, there is +nothing I so much admire in him as that tenderness of soul, and almost +female sensibility, which is so uncommon in a sex, whose whole +education tends to harden their hearts.</p> + +<p>Fitzgerald admires his spirit, his understanding, his generosity, +his courage, the warmth of his friendship.</p> + +<p>My father his knowledge of the world; not that indiscriminate +suspicion of mankind which is falsely so called; but that clearness of +mental sight, and discerning faculty, which can distinguish virtue as +well as vice, wherever it resides.</p> + +<p>“I also love in him,” said my father, “that noble sincerity, that +integrity of character, which is the foundation of all the virtues.”</p> + +<p>“And yet, my dear papa, you would have had Emily prefer to him, that +<i>white curd of asses milk</i>, Sir George Clayton, whose highest +claim to virtue is the constitutional absence of vice, and who never +knew what it was to feel for the sorrows of another.”</p> + +<p>“You mistake, Bell: such a preference was impossible; but she was +engaged to Sir George; and he had also a fine fortune. Now, in these +degenerate days, my dear, people must eat; we have lost all taste for +the airy food of romances, when ladies rode behind their enamored +knights, dined luxuriously on a banquet of haws, and quenched their +thirst at the first stream.”</p> + +<p>“But, my dear papa—”</p> + +<p>“But my dear Bell—”</p> + +<p>I saw the sweet old man look angry, so chose to drop the subject; +but I do aver, now he is out of sight, that haws and a pillion, with +such a noble fellow as your brother, are preferable to ortolans and a +coach and six, with such a piece of still life and insipidity as Sir +George.</p> + +<p>Good night! my dear Lucy.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.156">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLII.</span><span class="let-num">156.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, June 17.</div> + +<p>I have this moment received a packet of letters from my dear Lucy; I +shall only say, in answer to what makes the greatest part of them, that +in a fortnight I hope you will have the pleasure of seeing your +brother, who did not hesitate one moment in giving up to Mrs. Rivers’s +peace of mind, all his pleasing prospects here, and the happiness of +being united to the woman he loved.</p> + +<p>You will not, I hope, my dear, forget his having made such a +sacrifice: but I think too highly of you to say more on this subject. +You will receive Emily as a friend, as a sister, who merits all your +esteem and tenderness, and who has lost all the advantages of fortune, +and incurred the censure of the world, by her disinterested attachment +to your brother.</p> + +<p>I am extremely sorry, but not surprized, at what you tell me of poor +Lady H——. I knew her intimately; she was sacrificed at eighteen, by +the avarice and ambition of her parents, to age, disease, ill-nature, +and a coronet; and her death is the natural consequence of her regret: +she had a soul formed for friendship; she found it not at home; her +elegance of mind, and native probity, prevented her seeking it abroad; +she died a melancholy victim to the tyranny of her friends, the +tenderness of her heart, and her delicate sense of honor.</p> + +<p>If her father has any of the feelings of humanity left, what must he +not suffer on this occasion?</p> + +<p>It is a painful consideration, my dear, that the happiness or misery +of our lives are generally determined before we are proper judges of +either.</p> + +<p>Restrained by custom, and the ridiculous prejudices of the world, we +go with the crowd, and it is late in life before we dare to think.</p> + +<p>How happy are you and I, Lucy, in having parents, who, far from +forcing our inclinations, have not even endeavored to betray us into +chusing from sordid motives! They have not labored to fill our young +hearts with vanity or avarice; they have left us those virtues, those +amiable qualities, we received from nature. They have painted to us the +charms of friendship, and not taught us to value riches above their +real price.</p> + +<p>My father, indeed, checks a certain excess of romance which there is +in my temper; but, at the same time, he never encouraged my receiving +the addresses of any man who had only the gifts of fortune to recommend +him; he even advised me, when very young, against marrying an officer +in his regiment, of a large fortune, but an unworthy character.</p> + +<p>If I have any knowledge of the human heart, it will be my own fault +if I am not happy with Fitzgerald.</p> + +<p>I am only afraid, that when we are married, and begin to settle into +a calm, my volatile disposition will carry me back to coquetry: my +passion for admiration is naturally strong, and has been increased by +indulgence; for without vanity I have been extremely the taste of the +men.</p> + +<p>I have a kind of an idea it won’t be long before I try the strength +of my resolution, for I heard papa and Fitzgerald in high consultation +this morning.</p> + +<p>Do you know, that, having nobody to love but Fitzgerald, I am ten +times more enamored of the dear creature than ever? My love is now like +the rays of the sun collected.</p> + +<p>He is so much here, I wonder I don’t grow tired of him; but somehow +he has the art of varying himself beyond any man I ever knew: it was +that agreable variety of character that first struck me; I considered +that with him I should have all the sex in one; he says the same of me; +and indeed, it must be owned we have both an infinity of agreable +caprice, which in love affairs is worth all the merit in the world.</p> + +<p>Have you never observed, Lucy, that the same person is seldom +greatly the object of both love and friendship?</p> + +<p>Those virtues which command esteem do not often inspire passion.</p> + +<p class="preverse">Friendship seeks the more real, more solid virtues; integrity, +constancy, and a steady uniformity of character: love, on the contrary, +admires it knows not what; creates itself the idol it worships; finds +charms even in defects; is pleased with follies, with inconsistency, +with caprice: to say all in one line,</p> +<div class="verse"> + “Love is a child, and like a child he plays.”</div> + +<p>The moment Emily arrives, I entreat that one of you will write to +me: no words can speak my impatience: I am equally anxious to hear of +my dear Rivers. Heaven send them prosperous gales!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.157">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLIII.</span><span class="let-num">157.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, June 30.</div> + +<p>You are extremely mistaken, my dear, in your idea of the society +here; I had rather live at Quebec, take it for all in all, than in any +town in England, except London; the manner of living here is uncommonly +agreable; the scenes about us are lovely, and the mode of amusements +make us taste those scenes in full perfection.</p> + +<p class="preverse">Whilst your brother and Emily were here, I had not a wish to leave +Canada; but their going has left a void in my heart, which will not +easily be filled up: I have loved Emily almost from childhood, and +there is a peculiar tenderness in those friendships, which</p> +<div class="verse"> + “Grow with our growth, and strengthen with our strength.”</div> +<p class="postverse">There was also something romantic and agreable in finding her here, +and unexpectedly, after we had been separated by Colonel Montague’s +having left the regiment in which my father served.</p> + +<p>In short, every thing concurred to make us dear to each other, and +therefore to give a greater poignancy to the pain of parting a second +time.</p> + +<p>As to your brother, I love him so much, that a man who had less +candor and generosity than Fitzgerald, would be almost angry at my very +lively friendship.</p> + +<p>I have this moment a letter from Madame Des Roches; she laments the +loss of our two amiable friends; begs me to assure them both of her +eternal remembrance: says, “she congratulates Emily on possessing the +heart of the man on earth most worthy of being beloved; that she cannot +form an idea of any human felicity equal to that of the woman, the +business of whose life it is to make Colonel Rivers happy. That, heaven +having denied her that happiness, she will never marry, nor enter into +an engagement which would make it criminal in her to remember him with +tenderness: that it is, however, she believes, best for her he has +left the country, for that it is impossible she should ever have seen +him with indifference.”</p> + +<p>It is perhaps as prudent not to mention these circumstances either +to your brother or Emily; I thought of sending her letter to them, but +there is a certain fire in her style, mixed with tenderness, when she +speaks of Rivers, which would only have given them both regret, by +making them see the excess of her affection for him; her expressions +are much stronger than those in which I have given you the sense of +them.</p> + +<p>I intend to be very intimate with her, because she loves my dear +Rivers; she loves Emily too, at least she fancies she does, but I am a +little doubtful as to the friendships between rivals: at this distance, +however, I dare say, they will always continue on the best terms +possible, and I would have Emily write to her.</p> + +<p>Do you know she has desired me to contrive to get her a picture of +your brother, without his knowing it? I am not determined whether I +shall indulge her in this fancy or not; if I do, I must employ you as +my agent. It is madness in her to desire it; but, as there is a +pleasure in being mad, I am not sure my morality will let me refuse +her, since pleasures are not very thick sown in this world.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.158">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLIV.</span><span class="let-num">158.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, July 10.</div> + +<p>By this time, my dear Lucy, I hope you are happy with your brother +and my sweet Emily: I am all impatience to know this from yourselves; +but it will be five or six weeks, perhaps much more, before I can have +that satisfaction.</p> + +<p>As to me—to be plain, my dear, I can hold no longer; I have been +married this fortnight. My father wanted to keep it a secret, for some +very foolish reasons; but it is not in my nature; I hate secrets, they +are only fit for politicians, and people whose thoughts and actions +will not bear the light.</p> + +<p>For my part, I am convinced the general loquacity of human kind, and +our inability to keep secrets without a natural kind of uneasiness, +were meant by Providence to guard against our laying deep schemes of +treachery against each other.</p> + +<p>I remember a very sensible man, who perfectly knew the world, used +to say, there was no such thing in nature as a secret; a maxim as true, +at least I believe so, as it is salutary, and which I would advise all +good mammas, aunts, and governesses, to impress strongly on the minds +of young ladies.</p> + +<p>So, as I was saying, <i>voilà Madame Fitzgerald!</i></p> + +<p>This is, however, yet a secret here; but, according to my present +doctrine, and following the nature of things, it cannot long continue +so.</p> + +<p>You never saw so polite a husband, but I suppose they are all so the +first fortnight, especially when married in so interesting and romantic +a manner; I am very fond of the fancy of being thus married <i>as it +were</i>; but I have a notion I shall blunder it out very soon: we were +married on a party to Three Rivers, nobody with us but papa and Madame +Villiers, who have not yet published the mystery. I hear some misses at +Quebec are scandalous about Fitzgerald’s being so much here; I will +leave them in doubt a little, I think, merely to gratify their love of +scandal; every body should be amused in their way.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fitzgerald.</span> +</div> + +<p>Pray let Emily be married; every body marries but poor little Emily.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.159">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLV.</span><span class="let-num">159.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To the Earl of ——.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, July 10.</div> + +<p>I have the pleasure to tell your Lordship I have married my daughter +to a gentleman with whom I have reason to hope she will be happy.</p> + +<p>He is the second son of an Irish baronet of good fortune, and has +himself about five hundred pounds a year, independent of his +commission; he is a man of an excellent sense, and of honor, and has a +very lively tenderness for my daughter.</p> + +<p>It will, I am afraid, be some time before I can leave this country, +as I chuse to take my daughter and Mr. Fitzgerald with me, in order to +the latter’s soliciting a majority, in which pursuit I shall without +scruple tax your Lordship’s friendship to the utmost.</p> + +<p>I am extremely happy at this event, as Bell’s volatile temper made +me sometimes afraid of her chusing inconsiderately: their marriage is +not yet declared, for some family reasons, not worth particularizing to +your Lordship.</p> + +<p>As soon as leave of absence comes from New York, for me and Mr. +Fitzgerald, we shall settle things for taking leave of Canada, which I +however assure your Lordship I shall do with some reluctance.</p> + +<p>The climate is all the year agreable and healthy, in summer divine; +a man at my time of life cannot leave this chearing, enlivening sun +without reluctance; the heat is very like that of Italy or the South of +France, without that oppressive closeness which generally attends our +hot weather in England.</p> + +<p>The manner of life here is chearful; we make the most of our fine +summers, by the pleasantest country parties you can imagine. Here are +some very estimable persons, and the spirit of urbanity begins to +diffuse itself from the centre: in short, I shall leave Canada at the +very time when one would wish to come to it.</p> + +<p>It is astonishing, in a small community like this, how much depends +on the personal character of him who governs.</p> + +<p>I am obliged to break off abruptly, the person who takes this to +England being going immediately on board.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i0">I have the honor to be,<br></span> +<span class="i2">My Lord,<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your Lordship’s, &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">Wm. Fermor.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.160">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLVI.</span><span class="let-num">160.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, July 13.</div> + +<p>I agree with you, my dear Temple, that nothing can be more pleasing +than an <i>awakened</i> English woman; of which you and my <i>caro sposo</i> +have, I flatter myself, the happy experience; and wish with you that +the character was more common: but I must own, and I am sorry to own +it, that my fair countrywomen and fellow citizens (I speak of the +nation in general, and not of the capital) have an unbecoming kind of +reserve, which prevents their being the agreable companions, and +amiable wives, which nature meant them.</p> + +<p>From a fear, and I think a prudish one, of being thought too +attentive to please your sex, they have acquired a certain distant +manner to men, which borders on ill-breeding: they take great pains to +veil, under an affected appearance of disdain, that winning sensibility +of heart, that delicate tenderness, which renders them doubly lovely.</p> + +<p>They are even afraid to own their friendships, if not according to +the square and rule; are doubtful whether a modest woman may own she +loves even her husband; and seem to think affections were given them +for no purpose but to hide.</p> + +<p>Upon the whole, with at least as good a native right to charm as any +women on the face of the globe, the English have found the happy secret +of pleasing less.</p> + +<p>Is my Emily arrived? I can say nothing else.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Twelve o’clock.</div> + +<p>I am the happiest woman in the creation: papa has just told me, we +are to go home in six or seven weeks.</p> + +<p>Not but this is a divine country, and our farm a terrestrial +paradise; but we have lived in it almost a year, and one grows tired of +every thing in time, you know, Temple.</p> + +<p>I shall see my Emily, and flirt with Rivers; to say nothing of you +and my little Lucy.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I am grown very lazy since I married; for the future, I shall +make Fitzgerald write all my letters, except billet-doux, in which I +think I excel him.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fitzgerald.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.161">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLVII.</span><span class="let-num">161.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline">Dover, July 8.</div> + +<p>I am this moment arrived, my dear Bell, after a very agreable +passage, and am setting out immediately for London, from whence I shall +write to you the moment I have seen Mrs. Rivers; I will own to you I +tremble at the idea of this interview, yet am resolved to see her, and +open all my soul to her in regard to her son; after which, I shall +leave her the mistress of my destiny; for, ardently as I love him, I +will never marry him but with her approbation.</p> + +<p>I have a thousand anxious fears for my Rivers’s safety: may heaven +protect him from the dangers his Emily has escaped!</p> + +<p>I have but a moment to write, a ship being under way which is bound +to Quebec; a gentleman, who is just going off in a boat to the ship, +takes the care of this.</p> + +<p>May every happiness attend my dear girl. Say every thing +affectionate for me to Captain Fermor and Mr. Fitzgerald.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.162">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLVIII.</span><span class="let-num">162.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline">London, July 19.</div> + +<p>I got to town last night, my dear, and am at a friend’s, from whence +I have this morning sent to Mrs. Rivers; I every moment expect her +answer; my anxiety of mind is not to be expressed; my heart sinks; I +almost dread the return of my messenger.</p> + +<p>If the affections, my dear friend, give us the highest happiness of +which we are capable, they are also the source of our keenest misery; +what I feel at this instant, is not to be described: I have been near +resolving to go into the country without seeing or sending to Mrs. +Rivers. If she should receive me with coldness—why should I have +exposed myself to the chance of such a reception? It would have been +better to have waited for Rivers’s arrival; I have been too +precipitate; my warmth of temper has misled me: what had I to do to +seek his family? I would give the world to retract my message, though +it was only to let her know I was arrived; that her son was well, and +that she might every hour expect him in England.</p> + +<p>There is a rap at the door: I tremble I know not why; the servant +comes up, he announces Mr. and Mrs. Temple: my heart beats, they are at +the door.</p> + +<div class="dateline">One o’clock.</div> + +<p>They are gone, and return for me in an hour; they insist on my +dining with them, and tell me Mrs. Rivers is impatient to see me. +Nothing was ever so polite, so delicate, so affectionate, as the +behaviour of both; they saw my confusion, and did every thing to +remove it: they enquired after Rivers, but without the least hint of +the dear interest I take in him: they spoke of the happiness of knowing +me: they asked my friendship, in a manner the most flattering that can +be imagined. How strongly does Mrs. Temple, my dear, resemble her +amiable brother! her eyes have the same sensibility, the same pleasing +expression; I think I scarce ever saw so charming a woman; I love her +already; I feel a tenderness for her, which is inconceivable; I caught +myself two or three times looking at her, with an attention for which I +blushed.</p> + +<p>How dear to me is every friend of my Rivers!</p> + +<p>I believe, there was something very foolish in my behaviour; but +they had the good-breeding and humanity not to seem to observe it.</p> + +<p>I had almost forgot to tell you, they said every thing obliging and +affectionate of you and Captain Fermor.</p> + +<p>My mind is in a state not to be described; I feel joy, I feel +anxiety, I feel doubt, I feel a timidity I cannot conquer, at the +thought of seeing Mrs. Rivers.</p> + +<p>I have to dress; therefore must finish this when I return.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Twelve at night.</div> + +<p>I am come back, my dearest Bell; I have gone through the scene I so +much dreaded, and am astonished I should ever think of it but with +pleasure. How much did I injure this most amiable of women! Her +reception of me was that of a tender parent, who had found a long-lost +child; she kissed me, she pressed me to her bosom; her tears flowed +in abundance; she called me her daughter, her other Lucy: she asked me +a thousand questions of her son; she would know all that concerned him, +however minute: how he looked, whether he talked much of her, what were +his amusements; whether he was as handsome as when he left England.</p> + +<p>I answered her with some hesitation, but with a pleasure that +animated my whole soul; I believe, I never appeared to such advantage +as this day.</p> + +<p>You will not ascribe it to an unmeaning vanity, when I tell you, I +never took such pains to please; I even gave a particular attention to +my dress, that I might, as much as possible, justify my Rivers’s +tenderness: I never was vain for myself; but I am so for him: I am +indifferent to admiration as Emily Montague; but as the object of his +love, I would be admired by all the world; I wish to be the first of +my sex in all that is amiable and lovely, that I might make a sacrifice +worthy of my Rivers, in shewing to all his friends, that he only can +inspire me with tenderness, that I live for him alone.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rivers pressed me extremely to pass a month with her: my heart +yielded too easily to her request; but I had courage to resist my own +wishes, as well as her solicitations; and shall set out in three days +for Berkshire: I have, however, promised to go with them to-morrow, on +a party to Richmond, which Mr. Temple was so obliging as to propose on +my account.</p> + +<p>Late as the season is, there is one more ship going to Quebec, which +sails to-morrow.</p> + +<p>You shall hear from me again in a few days by the packet.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! my dearest friend!<br></span> +<span class="i6">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> +<p class="addendum">Surely it will not be long before Rivers arrives; you, my dear +Bell, will judge what must be my anxiety till that moment.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.163">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLIX.</span><span class="let-num">163.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fermor, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline">Dover, July 24, eleven o’clock.</div> + +<p>I am arrived, my dear friend, after a passage agreable in itself; +but which my fears for Emily made infinitely anxious and painful: every +wind that blew, I trembled for her; I formed to myself ideal dangers +on her account, which reason had not power to dissipate.</p> + +<p>We had a very tumultuous head-sea a great part of the voyage, though +the wind was fair; a certain sign there had been stormy weather, with a +contrary wind. I fancied my Emily exposed to those storms; there is no +expressing what I suffered from this circumstance.</p> + +<p>On entering the channel of England, we saw an empty boat, and some +pieces of a wreck floating; I fancied it part of the ship which +conveyed my lovely Emily; a sudden chillness seized my whole frame, my +heart died within me at the sight: I had scarce courage, when I landed, +to enquire whether she was arrived.</p> + +<p>I asked the question with a trembling voice, and had the transport +to find the ship had passed by, and to hear the person of my Emily +described amongst the passengers who landed; it was not easy to mistake +her.</p> + +<p>I hope to see her this evening: what do I not feel from that dear +hope!</p> + +<p>Chance gives me an opportunity of forwarding this by New York; I +write whilst my chaise is getting ready.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + +<p>I shall write to my dear little Bell as soon as I get to town. There +is no describing what I felt at first seeing the coast of England: I +saw the white cliffs with a transport mixed with veneration; a +transport, which, however, was checked by my fears for the dearer part +of myself.</p> + +<p>My chaise is at the door.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your faithful, &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.164">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLX.</span><span class="let-num">164.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline">Rochester, July 24.</div> + +<p>I am obliged to wait ten minutes for a Canadian gentleman who is +with me, and has some letters to deliver here: how painful is this +delay! But I cannot leave a stranger alone on the road, though I lose +so many minutes with my charming Emily.</p> + +<p>To soften this moment as much as possible, I will begin a letter to +my dear Bell: our sweet Emily is safe; I wrote to Captain Fermor this +morning.</p> + +<p>My heart is gay beyond words: my fellow-traveller is astonished at +the beauty and riches of England, from what he has seen of Kent: for my +part, I point out every fine prospect, and am so proud of my country, +that my whole soul seems to be dilated; for which perhaps there are +other reasons. The day is fine, the numerous herds and flocks on the +side of the hills, the neatness of the houses, of the people, the +appearance of plenty; all exhibit a scene which must strike one who has +been used only to the wild graces of nature.</p> + +<p>Canada has beauties; but they are of another kind.</p> + +<p>This unreasonable man; he has no mistress to see in London; he is +not expected by the most amiable of mothers, by a family he loves as I +do mine.</p> + +<p>I will order another chaise, and leave my servant to attend him.</p> + +<p>He comes. Adieu! my dear little Bell! at this moment a gentleman is +come into the inn, who is going to embark at Dover for New York; I will +send this by him. Once more adieu!</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.165">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXI.</span><span class="let-num">165.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline">Clarges Street, <span class="origtext">July 25</span><span class="correction">July 25.</span></div> + +<p>I am the only person here, my dear Bell, enough composed to tell you +Rivers is arrived in town. He stopped in his post chaise, at the end of +the street, and sent for me, that I might prepare my mother to see him, +and prevent a surprize which might have hurried her spirits too much.</p> + +<p>I came back, and told her I had seen a gentleman, who had left him +at Dover, and that he would soon be here; he followed me in a few +minutes.</p> + +<p>I am not painter enough to describe their meeting; though prepared, +it was with difficulty we kept my mother from fainting; she pressed +him in her arms, she attempted to speak, her voice faltered, tears +stole softly down her cheeks: nor was Rivers less affected, though in a +different manner; I never saw him look so handsome; the manly +tenderness, the filial respect, the lively joy, that were expressed in +his countenance, gave him a look to which it is impossible to do +justice: he hinted going down to Berkshire to-night; but my mother +seemed so hurt at the proposal, that he wrote to Emily, and told her +his reason for deferring it till to-morrow, when we are all to go in my +coach, and hope to bring her back with us to town.</p> + +<p>You judge rightly, my dear Bell, that they were formed for each +other; never were two minds so similar; we must contrive some method of +making them happy: nothing but a too great delicacy in Rivers prevents +their being so to-morrow; were our situations changed, I should not +hesitate a moment to let him make me so.</p> + +<p>Lucy has sent for me. Adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Believe me,<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your faithful and devoted,<br></span> +<span class="i8">J. Temple.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.166">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXII.</span><span class="let-num">166.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Fermor, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline">Pall Mall, July 29.</div> + +<p>I am the happiest of human beings: my Rivers is arrived, he is well, +he loves me; I am dear to his family; I see him <span class="origtext">withont</span><span class="correction">without</span> restraint; I +am every hour more convinced of the excess of his affection; his +attention to me is inconceivable; his eyes every moment tell me, I am +dearer to him than life.</p> + +<p>I am to be for some time on a visit to his sister; he is at Mrs. +Rivers’s, but we are always together: we go down next week to Mr. +Temple’s, in Rutland; they only stayed in town, expecting Rivers’s +arrival. His seat is within six miles of Rivers’s little paternal +estate, which he settled on his mother when he left England; she +presses him to resume it, but he peremptorily refuses: he insists on +her continuing her house in town, and being perfectly independent, and +mistress of herself.</p> + +<p>I love him a thousand times more for this tenderness to her; though +it disappoints my dear hope of being his. Did I think it possible, my +dear Bell, he could have risen higher in my esteem?</p> + +<p>If we are never united, if we always live as at present, his +tenderness will still make the delight of my life; to see him, to hear +that voice, to be his friend, the confidante of all his purposes, of +all his designs, to hear the sentiments of that generous, that exalted +soul—I would not give up this delight, to be empress of the world.</p> + +<p>My ideas of affection are perhaps uncommon; but they are not the less +just, nor the less in nature.</p> + +<p>A blind man may as well judge of colors as the mass of mankind of +the sentiments of a truly enamored heart.</p> + +<p>The sensual and the cold will equally condemn my affection as +romantic: few minds, my dear Bell, are capable of love; they feel +passion, they feel esteem; they even feel that mixture of both which is +the best counterfeit of love; but of that vivifying fire, that lively +tenderness which hurries us out of ourselves, they know nothing; that +tenderness which makes us forget ourselves, when the interest, the +happiness, the honor, of him we love is concerned; that tenderness +which renders the beloved object all that we see in the creation.</p> + +<p>Yes, my Rivers, I live, I breathe, I exist, for you alone: be happy, +and your Emily is so.</p> + +<p>My dear friend, you know love, and will therefore bear with all the +impertinence of a tender heart.</p> + +<p>I hope you have by this time made Fitzgerald happy; he deserves you, +amiable as you are, and you cannot too soon convince him of your +affection: you sometimes play cruelly with his tenderness: I have been +astonished to see you torment a heart which adores you.</p> + +<p>I am interrupted. </p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu! my dear Bell.<br></span> +<span class="i6">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.167">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXIII.</span><span class="let-num">167.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fermor, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline"><span class="origtext">Clarges-Street,</span><span class="correction">Clarges Street,</span> Aug. 1.</div> + +<p>Lord —— not being in town, I went to his villa at Richmond, to +deliver your letter.</p> + +<p>I cannot enough, my dear Sir, thank you for this introduction; I +passed part of the day at Richmond, and never was more pleasingly +entertained.</p> + +<p>His politeness, his learning, his knowledge of the world, however +amiable, are in character at his season of life; but his vivacity is +astonishing.</p> + +<p>What fire, what spirit, there is in his conversation! I hardly +thought myself a young man near him. What must he have been at five and +twenty?</p> + +<p>He desired me to tell you, all his interest should be employed for +Fitzgerald, and that he wished you to come to England as soon as +possible.</p> + +<p>We are just setting off for Temple’s house in Rutland.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.168">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXIV.</span><span class="let-num">168.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fermor, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline">Temple-house, Aug. 4.</div> + +<p>I enjoy, my dear friend, in one of the pleasantest houses, and most +agreable situations imaginable, the society of the four persons in the +world most dear to me; I am in all respects as much at home as if +master of the family, without the cares attending that station; my +wishes, my desires, are prevented by Temple’s attention and friendship, +and my mother and sister’s amiable anxiety to oblige me; I find an +unspeakable softness in seeing my lovely Emily every moment, in seeing +her adored by my family, in seeing her without restraint, in being in +the same house, in living in that easy converse which is born from +friendship alone: yet I am not happy.</p> + +<p>It is that we lose the present happiness in the pursuit of greater: +I look forward with impatience to that moment which will make Emily +mine; and the difficulties, which I see on every side arising, embitter +hours which would otherwise be exquisitely happy.</p> + +<p>The narrowness of my fortune, which I see in a much stronger light +in this land of luxury, and the apparent impossibility of placing the +most charming of women in the station my heart wishes, give me +anxieties which my reason cannot conquer.</p> + +<p>I cannot live without her, I flatter myself our union is in some +degree necessary to her happiness; yet I dread bringing her into +distresses, which I am doubly obliged to protect her from, because she +would with transport meet them all, from tenderness to me.</p> + +<p>I have nothing which I can call my own, but my half-pay, and four +thousand pounds: I have lived amongst the first company in England; all +my connexions have been rather suited to my birth than fortune. My +mother presses me to resume my estate, and let her live with us +alternately; but against this I am firmly determined; she shall have +her own house, and never change her manner of living.</p> + +<p>Temple would share his estate with me, if I would allow him; but I +am too fond of independence to accept favors of this kind even from +him.</p> + +<p>I have formed a thousand schemes, and as often found them abortive; +I go to-morrow to see our little estate, with my mother; it is a +private party of our own, and nobody is in the secret; I will there +talk over every thing with her.</p> + +<p>My mind is at present in a state of confusion not to be expressed; I +must determine on something; it is improper Emily should continue long +with my sister in her present situation; yet I cannot live without +seeing her.</p> + +<p>I have never asked about Emily’s fortune; but I know it is a small +one; perhaps two thousand pounds; I am pretty certain, not more.</p> + +<p>We can live on little, but we must live in some degree on a genteel +footing: I cannot let Emily, who refused a coach and six for me, pay +visits on foot; I will be content with a post-chaise, but cannot with +less; I have a little, a very little pride, for my Emily.</p> + +<p>I wish it were possible to prevail on my mother to return with us to +Canada: I could then reconcile my duty and happiness, which at present +seem almost incompatible.</p> + +<p>Emily appears perfectly happy, and to look no further than to the +situation in which we now are; she seems content with being my friend +only, without thinking of a nearer connexion; I am rather piqued at a +composure which has the air of indifference: why should not her +impatience equal mine?</p> + +<p>The coach is at the door, and my mother waits for me.</p> + +<p>Every happiness attend my friend, and all connected with him, in +which number I hope I may, by this time, include Fitzgerald.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.169">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXV.</span><span class="let-num">169.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fermor, at Silleri.</div> +<div class="dateline">Aug. 6.</div> + +<p>I have been taking an exact survey of the house and estate with my +mother, in order to determine on some future plan of life.</p> + +<p>’Tis inconceivable what I felt on returning to a place so dear to +me, and which I had not seen for many years; I ran hastily from one +room to another; I traversed the garden with inexpressible eagerness: +my eye devoured every object; there was not a tree, not a bush, which +did not revive some pleasing, some soft idea.</p> + +<p class="preverse">I felt, to borrow a very pathetic expression of Thomson’s,</p> +<div class="verse"> + “A thousand little tendernesses throb,”</div> +<p class="postverse">on revisiting those dear scenes of infant happiness; which were +increased by having with me that estimable, that affectionate mother, +to whose indulgence all my happiness had been owing.</p> + +<p>But to return to the purpose of our visit: the house is what most +people would think too large for the estate, even had I a right to call +it all my own; this is, however, a fault, if it is one, which I can +easily forgive.</p> + +<p>There is furniture enough in it for my family, including my mother; +it is unfashionable, but some of it very good: and I think Emily has +tenderness enough for me to live with me in a house, the furniture of +which is not perfectly in taste.</p> + +<p>In short, I know her much above having the slightest wish of vanity, +where it comes in competition with love.</p> + +<p>We can, as to the house, live here commodiously enough; and our only +present consideration is, on what we are to live: a consideration, +however, which as lovers, I believe in strictness we ought to be much +above!</p> + +<p>My mother again solicits me to resume this estate; and has proposed +my making over to her my half-pay instead of it, though of much less +value, which, with her own two hundred pounds a year, will, she says, +enable her to continue her house in town, a point I am determined never +to suffer her to give up; because she loves London; and because I +insist on her having her own house to go to, if she should ever chance +to be displeased with ours.</p> + +<p>I am inclined to like this proposal: Temple and I will make a +calculation; and, if we find it will answer every necessary purpose to +my mother, I owe it to Emily to accept of it.</p> + +<p>I endeavor to persuade myself, that I am obliging my mother, by +giving her an opportunity of shewing her generosity, and of making me +happy: I have been in spirits ever since she mentioned it.</p> + +<p>I have already projected a million of improvements; have taught new +streams to flow, planted ideal groves, and walked, fancy-led, in shades +of my own raising.</p> + +<p>The situation of the house is enchanting; and with all my passion +for the savage luxuriance of America, I begin to find my taste return +for the more mild and regular charms of my native country.</p> + +<p>We have no Chaudieres, no Montmorencis, none of those magnificent +scenes on which the Canadians have a right to pride themselves; but we +excel them in the lovely, the smiling; in enameled meadows, in waving +corn-fields, in gardens the boast of Europe; in every elegant art which +adorns and softens human life; in all the riches and beauty which +cultivation can give.</p> + +<p>I begin to think I may be blest in the possession of my Emily, +without betraying her into a state of want; we may, I begin to flatter +myself, live with decency, in retirement; and, in my opinion, there +are a thousand charms in retirement with those we love.</p> + +<p>Upon the whole, I believe we shall be able to live, taking the word +<i>live</i> in the sense of lovers, not of the <i>beau monde</i>, who will +never allow a little country squire of four hundred pounds a year to +<i>live</i>.</p> + +<p>Time may do more for us; at least, I am of an age and temper to +encourage hope.</p> + +<p>All here are perfectly yours.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu! my dear friend,<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.170">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXVI.</span><span class="let-num">170.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, Aug. 6.</div> + +<p>The leave of absence for my father and Fitzgerald being come some +weeks sooner than we expected, we propose leaving Canada in five or six +days.</p> + +<p>I am delighted with the idea of revisiting dear England, and seeing +friends whom I so tenderly love: yet I feel a regret, which I had no +idea I should have felt, at leaving the scenes of a thousand past +pleasures; the murmuring rivulets to which Emily and I have sat +listening, the sweet woods where I have walked with my little circle of +friends: I have even a strong attachment to the scenes themselves, +which are infinitely lovely, and speak the inimitable hand of nature +which formed them: I want to transport this fairy ground to England.</p> + +<p>I sigh when I pass any particularly charming spot; I feel a +tenderness beyond what inanimate objects seem to merit.</p> + +<p>I must pay one more visit to the naiads of Montmorenci.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Eleven at night.</div> + +<p>I am just come from the general’s assembly; where, I should have +told you, I was this day fortnight announced <i>Madame Fitzgerald</i>, +to the great mortification of two or three cats, who had very +sagaciously determined, that Fitzgerald had too much understanding ever +to think of such a flirting, coquetish creature as a wife.</p> + +<p>I was grave at the assembly to-night, in spite of all the pains I +took to be otherwise: I was hurt at the idea it would probably be +<i>the last</i> at which I should be; I felt a kind of concern at parting, +not only with the few I loved, but with those who had till to-night +been indifferent to me.</p> + +<p>There is something affecting in the idea of <i>the last time</i> of +seeing even those persons or places, for which we have no particular +affection.</p> + +<p>I go to-morrow to take leave of the nuns, at the Ursuline convent; I +suppose I shall carry this melancholy idea with me there, and be hurt +at seeing them too <i>for the last time</i>.</p> + +<p>I pay visits every day amongst the peasants, who are very fond of +me. I talk to them of their farms, give money to their children, and +teach their wives to be good huswives: I am the idol of the country +people five miles round, who declare me the most amiable, most generous +woman in the world, and think it a thousand pities I should be damned.</p> + +<p>Adieu! say every thing for me to my sweet friends, if arrived.</p> + +<div class="dateline">7th, Eleven o’clock.</div> + +<p>I have this moment a large packet of letters for Emily from Mrs. +Melmoth, which I intend to take the care of myself, as I hope to be in +England almost as soon as this.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Good morrow!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Yours ever, &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fitzgerald.</span> +</div> +<div class="dateline">Three o’clock.</div> + +<p>I am just come from visiting the nuns; they expressed great concern +at my leaving Canada, and promised me their prayers on my voyage; for +which proof of affection, though a good protestant, I thanked them very +sincerely.</p> + +<p>I wished exceedingly to have brought some of them away with me; my +nun, as they call the amiable girl I saw take the veil, paid me the +flattering tribute of a tear at parting; her fine eyes had a concern in +them, which affected me extremely.</p> + +<p>I was not less pleased with the affection the late superior, my good +old countrywoman, expressed for me, and her regret at seeing me <i>for +the last time</i>.</p> + +<p>Surely there is no pleasure on earth equal to that of being beloved! +I did not think I had been such a favorite in Canada: it is almost a +pity to leave it; perhaps nobody may love me in England.</p> + +<p>Yes, I believe Fitzgerald will; and I have a pretty party enough of +friends in your family.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I shall write a line the day we embark, by another ship, +which may possibly arrive before us.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.171">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXVII.</span><span class="let-num">171.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Silleri, <span class="origtext">Aug 11.</span><span class="correction">Aug. 11.</span></div> + +<p>We embark to-morrow, and hope to see you in less than a month, if +this fine wind continues.</p> + +<p>I am just come from Montmorenci, where I have been paying my +devotions to the tutelary deities of the place <i>for the last time</i>.</p> + +<p>I had only Fitzgerald with me; we visited every grotto on the lovely +banks, where we dined; kissed every flower, raised a votive altar on +the little island, poured a libation of wine to the river goddess; and, +in short, did every thing which it became good heathens to do.</p> + +<p class="preverse">We stayed till day-light began to decline, which, with the idea of +<i>the last time</i>, threw round us a certain melancholy solemnity; a +solemnity which</p> +<div class="verse"> + “Deepen’d the murmur of the falling floods,<br> + And breath’d a browner horror on the woods.”</div> + +<p>I have twenty things to do, and but a moment to do them in. Adieu!</p> + +<p>I am called down; it is to Madame Des Roches: she is very obliging +to come thus far to see me.</p> + +<div class="dateline">12th.</div> + +<p>We go on board at one; Madame Des Roches goes down with us as far as +her estate, where her boat is to fetch her on shore. She has made me a +present of a pair of extreme pretty bracelets; has sent your brother an +elegant sword-knot, and Emily a very beautiful cross of diamonds.</p> + +<p>I don’t believe she would be sorry if we were to run away with her +to England: I protest I am half inclined; it is pity such a woman +should be hid all her life in the woods of Canada: besides, one might +convert her you know; and, on a religious principle, a little +deviation from rules is allowable.</p> + +<p>Your brother is an admirable missionary amongst unbelieving ladies: +I really think I shall carry her off; if it is only for the good of her +soul.</p> + +<p>I have but one objection; if Fitzgerald should take a fancy to +prefer the tender to the lively, I should be in some danger: there is +something very seducing in her eyes, I assure you.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.172">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXVIII.</span><span class="let-num">172.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Kamaraskas, Aug. 14.</div> + +<p>By Madame Des Roches, who is going on shore, I write two or three +lines, to tell you we have got thus far, and have a fair wind; she will +send it immediately to Quebec, to be put on board any ship going, that +you may have the greater variety of chances to hear of me.</p> + +<p class="preverse">There is a French lady on board, whose superstition bids fair to +amuse us; she has thrown half her little ornaments over-board for a +wind, and has promised I know not how many votive offerings of the same +kind to St. Joseph, the patron of Canada, if we get safe to land; on +which I shall only observe, that there is nothing so like ancient +absurdity as modern: she has classical authority for this manner of +playing the fool. Horace, when afraid on a voyage, having, if my memory +quotes fair, vowed</p> +<div class="verse"> + “His dank and dropping weeds<br> + To the stern god of sea.”</div> + +<p>The boat is ready, and Madame Des Roches going; I am very unwilling +to part with her; and her present concern at leaving me would be very +flattering, if I did not think the remembrance of your brother had the +greatest share in it.</p> + +<p>She has wrote four or five letters to him, since she came on board, +very tender ones I fancy, and destroyed them; she has at last wrote a +meer complimentary kind of card, only thanking him for his offers of +service; yet I see it gives her pleasure to write even this, however +cold and formal; because addressed to him: she asked me, if I thought +there was any impropriety in her writing to him, and whether it would +not be better to address herself to Emily. I smiled at her simplicity, +and she finished her letter; she blushed and looked down when she gave +it me.</p> + +<p>She is less like a sprightly French widow, than a foolish English +girl, who loves for the first time.</p> + +<p>But I suppose, when the heart is really touched, the feelings of all +nations have a pretty near resemblance: it is only that the French +ladies are generally more coquets, and less inclined to the romantic +style of love, than the English; and we are, therefore, surprized when +we find in them this trembling sensibility.</p> + +<p>There are exceptions, however, to all rules; and your little Bell +seems, in point of love, to have changed countries with Madame Des +Roches.</p> + +<p>The gale encreases, it flutters in the sails; my fair friend is +summoned; the captain chides our delay.</p> + +<p>Adieu! <i>ma chere Madame Des Roches</i>. I embrace her; I feel the +force of its being <i>for the last time</i>. I am afraid she feels it +yet more strongly than I do: in parting with the last of his friends, +she seems to part with her Rivers for ever.</p> + +<p>One look more at the wild graces of nature I leave behind.</p> + +<p>Adieu! Canada! adieu! sweet abode of the wood-nymphs! never shall I +cease to remember with delight the place where I have passed so many +happy hours.</p> + +<p>Heaven preserve my dear Lucy, and give prosperous gales to her +friends!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i6">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fitzgerald.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.173">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXIX.</span><span class="let-num">173.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Montague.</div> +<div class="dateline">Isle of Bic, Aug. 16.</div> + +<p>You are little obliged to me, my dear, for writing to you on +ship-board; one of the greatest miseries here, being the want of +employment: I therefore write for my own amusement, not yours.</p> + +<p>We have some French ladies on board, but they do not resemble Madame +Des Roches. I am weary of them already, though we have been so few +days together.</p> + +<p>The wind is contrary, and we are at anchor under this island; +Fitzgerald has proposed going to dine on shore: it looks excessively +pretty from the ship.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Seven in the <span class="origtext">Evening.</span><span class="correction">evening.</span></div> + +<p>We are returned from Bic, after passing a very agreable day.</p> + +<p>We dined on the grass, at a little distance from the shore, under +the shelter of a very fine wood, whose form, the trees rising above +each other in the same regular confusion, brought the dear shades of +Silleri to our remembrance.</p> + +<p>We walked after dinner, and picked rasberries, in the wood; and in +our ramble came unexpectedly to the middle of a visto, which, whilst +some ships of war lay here, the sailors had cut through the island.</p> + +<p>From this situation, being a rising ground, we could see directly +through the avenue to both shores: the view of each was wildly +majestic; the river comes finely in, whichever way you turn your sight; +but to the south, which is more sheltered, the water just trembling to +the breeze, our ship which had put all her streamers out, and to which +the tide gave a gentle motion, with a few scattered houses, faintly +seen amongst the trees at a distance, terminated the prospect, in a +manner which was inchanting.</p> + +<p>I die to build a house on this island; it is pity such a sweet spot +should be uninhabited: I should like excessively to be Queen of Bic.</p> + +<p>Fitzgerald has carved my name on a maple, near the shore; a pretty +piece of gallantry in a husband, you will allow: perhaps he means it as +taking possession for me of the island.</p> + +<p>We are going to cards. Adieu! for the present.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Aug. 18.</div> + +<p>’Tis one of the loveliest days I ever saw: we are fishing under the +Magdalen islands; the weather is perfectly calm, the sea just dimpled, +the sun-beams dance on the waves, the fish are playing on the surface +of the water: the island is at a proper distance to form an agreable +point of view; and upon the whole the scene is divine.</p> + +<p>There is one house on the island, which, at a distance, seems so +beautifully situated, that I have lost all desire of fixing at Bic: I +want to land, and go to the house for milk, but there is no good +landing place on this side; the island seems here to be fenced in by a +regular wall of rock.</p> + +<p>A breeze springs up; our fishing is at an end for the present: I am +afraid we shall not pass many days so agreably as we have done this. I +feel horror at the idea of so soon losing sight of land, and launching +on the <i>vast Atlantic</i>.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fitzgerald.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.174">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXX.</span><span class="let-num">174.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Aug. 26, at Sea.</div> + +<p>We have just fallen in with a ship from New York to London, and, as +it is a calm, the master of it is come on board; whilst he is drinking +a bottle of very fine madeira, which Fitzgerald has tempted him with on +purpose to give me this opportunity, as it is possible he may arrive +first, I will write a line, to tell my dear Lucy we are all well, and +hope soon to have the happiness of telling her so in person; I also +send what I scribbled before we lost sight of land; for I have had no +spirits to write or do any thing since.</p> + +<p>There is inexpressible pleasure in meeting a ship at sea, and +renewing our commerce with the human kind, after having been so +absolutely separated from them. I feel strongly at this moment the +inconstancy of the species: we naturally grow tired of the company on +board our own ship, and fancy the people in every one we meet more +agreable.</p> + +<p>For my part, this spirit is so powerful in me, that I would gladly, +if I could have prevailed on my father and Fitzgerald, have gone on +board with this man, and pursued our voyage in the New York ship. I +have felt the same thing on land in a coach, on seeing another pass.</p> + +<p>We have had a very unpleasant passage hitherto, and weather to +fright a better sailor than your friend: it is to me astonishing, that +there are men found, and those men of fortune too, who can fix on a sea +life as a profession.</p> + +<p>How strong must be the love of gain, to tempt us to embrace a life +of danger, pain, and misery; to give up all the beauties of nature and +of art, all the charms of society, and separate ourselves from mankind, +to amass wealth, which the very profession takes away all possibility +of enjoying!</p> + +<p>Even glory is a poor reward for a life passed at sea.</p> + +<p>I had rather be a peasant on a sunny bank, with peace, safety, +obscurity, bread, and a little garden of roses, than lord high admiral +of the British fleet.</p> + +<p>Setting aside the variety of dangers at sea, the time passed there +is a total suspension of one’s existence: I speak of the best part of +our time there, for at least a third of every voyage is positive +misery.</p> + +<p>I abhor the sea, and am peevish with every creature about me.</p> + +<p>If there were no other evil attending this vile life, only think of +being cooped up weeks together in such a space, and with the same +eternal set of people.</p> + +<p>If cards had not a little relieved me, I should have died of meer +vexation before I had finished half the voyage.</p> + +<p>What would I not give to see the dear white cliffs of Albion!</p> + +<p>Adieu! I have not time to say more.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fitzgerald.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.175">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXXI.</span><span class="let-num">175.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.</div> +<div class="dateline">Dover, Sept. 8.</div> + +<p>We are this instant landed, my dear, and shall be in town to-morrow.</p> + +<p>My father stops one day on the road, to introduce Mr. Fitzgerald to +a relation of ours, who lives a few miles from Canterbury.</p> + +<p>I am wild with joy at setting foot once more on dry land.</p> + +<p>I am not less happy to have traced your brother and Emily, by my +enquiries here, for we left Quebec too soon to have advice there of +their arrival.</p> + +<p>Adieu! If in town, you shall see us the moment we get there; if in +the country, write immediately, to the care of the agent.</p> + +<p>Let me know where to find Emily, whom I die to see: is she still +Emily Montague?</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i6">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fitzgerald.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.176">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXXII.</span><span class="let-num">176.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Temple-house, Sept. 11.</div> + +<p>Your letter, my dear Bell, was sent by this post to the country.</p> + +<p>It is unnecessary to tell you the pleasure it gives us all to hear +of your safe arrival.</p> + +<p>All our argosies have now landed their treasures: you will believe +us to have been more anxious about friends so dear to us, than the +merchant for his gold and spices; we have suffered the greater +anxiety, by the circumstance of your having returned at different +times.</p> + +<p>I flatter myself, the future will pay us for the past.</p> + +<p>You may now, my dear Bell, revive your coterie, with the addition of +some friends who love you very sincerely.</p> + +<p>Emily (still Emily Montague) is with a relation in Berkshire, +settling some affairs previous to her marriage with my brother, to +which we flatter ourselves there will be no further objections.</p> + +<p>I assure you, I begin to be a little jealous of this Emily of yours; +she rivals me extremely with my mother, and indeed with every body +else.</p> + +<p>We all come to town next week, when you will make us very unhappy if +you do not become one of our family in Pall Mall, and return with us +for a few months to the country.</p> + +<p>My brother is at his little estate, six miles from hence, where he +is making some alterations, for the reception of Emily; he is fitting +up her apartment in a style equally simple and elegant, which, however, +you must not tell her, because she is to be surprized: her dressing +room, and a little adjoining closet of books, will be enchanting; yet +the expence of all he has done is a mere trifle.</p> + +<p>I am the only person in the secret; and have been with him this +morning to see it: there is a gay, smiling air in the whole apartment, +which pleases me infinitely; you will suppose he does not forget jars +of flowers, because you know how much they are Emily’s taste: he has +forgot no ornament which he knew was agreable to her.</p> + +<p>Happily for his fortune, her pleasures are not of the expensive +kind; he would ruin himself if they were.</p> + +<p>He has bespoke a very handsome post chaise, which is also a secret +to Emily, who insists on not having one.</p> + +<p>Their income will be about five hundred pounds a year: it is not +much; yet, with their dispositions, I think it will make them happy.</p> + +<p>My brother will write to Mr. Fitzgerald next post: say every thing +affectionate for us all to him and Captain Fermor.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Lucy Temple.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.177">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXXIII.</span><span class="let-num">177.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Bellfield, Sept. 13.</div> + +<p>I congratulate you, my dear friend, on your safe arrival, and on +your marriage.</p> + +<p>You have got the start of me in happiness; I love you, however, too +sincerely to envy you.</p> + +<p>Emily has promised me her hand, as soon as some little family +affairs are settled, which I flatter myself will not take above another +week.</p> + +<p>When she gave me this promise, she begged me to allow her to return +to Berkshire till our marriage took place; I felt the propriety of +this step, and therefore would not oppose it: she pleaded having some +business also to settle with her relation there.</p> + +<p>My mother has given back the deed of settlement of my estate, and +accepted of an assignment on my half pay: she is greatly a loser; but +she insisted on making me happy, with such an air of tenderness, that I +could not deny her that satisfaction.</p> + +<p>I shall keep some land in my own hands, and farm; which will enable +me to have a post chaise for Emily, and my mother, who will be a good +deal with us; and a constant decent table for a friend.</p> + +<p>Emily is to superintend the dairy and garden; she has a passion for +flowers, with which I am extremely pleased, as it will be to her a +continual source of pleasure.</p> + +<p>I feel such delight in the idea of making her happy, that I think +nothing a trifle which can be in the least degree pleasing to her.</p> + +<p>I could even wish to invent new pleasures for her gratification.</p> + +<p>I hope to be happy; and to make the loveliest of womankind so, +because my notions of the state, into which I am entering, are I hope +just, and free from that romantic turn so destructive to happiness.</p> + +<p>I have, once in my life, had an attachment nearly resembling +marriage, to a widow of rank, with whom I was acquainted abroad; and +with whom I almost secluded myself from the world near a twelvemonth, +when she died of a fever, a stroke I was long before I recovered.</p> + +<p>I loved her with tenderness; but that love, compared to what I feel +for Emily, was as a grain of sand to the globe of earth, or the weight +of a feather to the universe.</p> + +<p>A marriage where not only esteem, but passion is kept awake, is, I +am convinced, the most perfect state of sublunary happiness: but it +requires great care to keep this tender plant alive; especially, I +blush to say it, on our side.</p> + +<p>Women are naturally more constant, education improves this happy +disposition: the husband who has the politeness, the attention, and +delicacy of a lover, will always be beloved.</p> + +<p>The same is generally, but not always, true on the other side: I +have sometimes seen the most amiable, the most delicate of the sex, +fail in keeping the affection of their husbands.</p> + +<p>I am well aware, my friend, that we are not to expect here a life of +continual rapture; in the happiest marriage there is danger of some +languid moments: to avoid these, shall be my study; and I am certain +they are to be avoided.</p> + +<p>The inebriation, the tumult of passion, will undoubtedly grow less +after marriage, that is, after peaceable possession; hopes and fears +alone keep it in its first violent state: but, though it subsides, it +gives place to a tenderness still more pleasing, to a soft, and, if you +will allow the expression, a voluptuous tranquillity: the pleasure does +not cease, does not even lessen; it only changes its nature.</p> + +<p>My sister tells me, she flatters herself, you will give a few months +to hers and Mr. Temple’s friendship; I will not give up the claim I +have to the same favor.</p> + +<p>My little farm will induce only friends to visit us; and it is not +less pleasing to me for that circumstance: one of the misfortunes of a +very exalted station, is the slavery it subjects us to in regard to the +ceremonial world.</p> + +<p>Upon the whole, I believe, the most agreable, as well as most free +of all situations, to be that of a little country gentleman, who lives +upon his income, and knows enough of the world not to envy his richer +neighbours.</p> + +<p>Let me hear from you, my dear Fitzgerald, and tell me, if, little as +I am, I can be any way of the least use to you.</p> + +<p>You will see Emily before I do; she is more lovely, more enchanting, +than ever.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fitzgerald will make me happy if she can invent any commands +for me.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu! Believe me,<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your faithful, &c.<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.178">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXXIV.</span><span class="let-num">178.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland.</div> +<div class="dateline">London, Sept. 15.</div> + +<p>Every mark of your friendship, my dear Rivers, must be particularly +pleasing to one who knows your worth as I do: I have, therefore, to +thank you as well for your letter, as for those obliging offers of +service, which I shall make no scruple of accepting, if I have occasion +for them.</p> + +<p>I rejoice in the prospect of your being as happy as myself: nothing +can be more just than your ideas of marriage; I mean, of a marriage +founded on inclination: all that you describe, I am so happy as to +experience.</p> + +<p>I never loved my sweet girl so tenderly as since she has been mine; +my heart acknowledges the obligation of her having trusted the future +happiness or misery of her life in my hands. She is every hour more +dear to me; I value as I ought those thousand little attentions, by +which a new softness is every moment given to our affection.</p> + +<p>I do not indeed feel the same tumultuous emotion at seeing her; but +I feel a sensation equally delightful: a joy more tranquil, but not +less lively.</p> + +<p>I will own to you, that I had strong prejudices against marriage, +which nothing but love could have conquered; the idea of an +indissoluble union deterred me from thinking of a serious engagement: I +attached myself to the most seducing, most attractive of women, +without thinking the pleasure I found in seeing her of any consequence; +I thought her lovely, but never suspected I loved; I thought the +delight I tasted in hearing her, merely the effects of those charms +which all the world found in her conversation; my vanity was gratified +by the flattering preference she gave me to the rest of my sex; I +fancied this all, and imagined I could cease seeing the little syren +whenever I pleased.</p> + +<p>I was, however, mistaken; love stole upon me imperceptibly, and +<i>en badinant</i>; I was enslaved, when I only thought myself amused.</p> + +<p>We have not yet seen Miss Montague; we go down on Friday to +Berkshire, Bell having some letters for her, which she was desired to +deliver herself.</p> + +<p>I will write to you again the moment I have seen her.</p> + +<p>The invitation Mr. and Mrs. Temple have been so obliging as to give +us, is too pleasing to ourselves not to be accepted; we also expect +with impatience the time of visiting you at your farm.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i6">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">J. Fitzgerald.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.179">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXXV.</span><span class="let-num">179.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Stamford, Sept. 16, Evening.</div> + +<p>Being here on some business, my dear friend, I receive your letter +in time to answer it to-night.</p> + +<p>We hope to be in town this day seven-night; and I flatter myself, +my dearest Emily will not delay my happiness many days longer: I grudge +you the pleasure of seeing her on Friday.</p> + +<p>I triumph greatly in your having been seduced into matrimony, +because I never knew a man more of a turn to make an agreable husband; +it was the idea that occurred to me the first moment I saw you.</p> + +<p>Do you know, my dear Fitzgerald, that, if your little syren had not +anticipated my purpose, I had designs upon you for my sister?</p> + +<p>Through that careless, inattentive look of yours, I saw so much +right sense, and so affectionate a heart, that I wished nothing so much +as that she might have attached you; and had laid a scheme to bring you +acquainted, hoping the rest from the merit so conspicuous in you both.</p> + +<p>Both are, however, so happily disposed of elsewhere, that I have no +reason to regret my scheme did not succeed.</p> + +<p>There is something in your person, as well as manner, which I am +convinced must be particularly pleasing to women; with an extremely +agreable form, you have a certain manly, spirited air, which promises +them a protector; a look of understanding, which is the indication of a +pleasing companion; a sensibility of countenance, which speaks a friend +and a lover; to which I ought to add, an affectionate, constant +attention to women, and a polite indifference to men, which above all +things flatters the vanity of the sex.</p> + +<p>Of all men breathing, I should have been most afraid of you as a +rival; Mrs. Fitzgerald has told me, you have said the same thing of me.</p> + +<p>Happily, however, our tastes were different; the two amiable +objects of our tenderness were perhaps equally lovely; but it is not +the meer form, it is the character that strikes: the fire, the spirit, +the vivacity, the awakened manner, of Miss Fermor won you; whilst my +heart was captivated by that bewitching languor, that seducing +softness, that melting sensibility, in the air of my sweet Emily, which +is, at least to me, more touching than all the sprightliness in the +world.</p> + +<p>There is in true sensibility of soul, such a resistless charm, that +we are even affected by that of which we are not ourselves the object: +we feel a degree of emotion at being witness to the affection which +another inspires.</p> + +<p>’Tis late, and my horses are at the door.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.180">LETTER <span class="origtext">LXXVI.</span><span class="let-num">180.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Montague, Rose-hill, Berkshire.</div> +<div class="dateline">Temple-house, Sept. 16.</div> + +<p>I have but a moment, my dearest Emily, to tell you heaven favors +your tenderness: it removes every anxiety from two of the worthiest and +most gentle of human hearts.</p> + +<p>You and my brother have both lamented to me the painful necessity +you were under, of reducing my mother to a less income than that to +which she had been accustomed.</p> + +<p>An unexpected event has restored to her more than what her +tenderness for my brother had deprived her of.</p> + +<p>A relation abroad, who owed every thing to her father’s friendship, +has sent her, as an acknowledgement of that friendship, a deed of gift, +settling on her four hundred pounds a year for life.</p> + +<p>My brother is at Stamford, and is yet unacquainted with this +agreable event.</p> + +<p>You will hear from him next post.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! my dear Emily!<br></span> +<span class="i6">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">L. Temple.</span> +</div> +<div class="ender">END OF VOL. III.</div> + +<h2>THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE.</h2> +<h2 class="vol-header" id="vol.4">Vol. IV</h2> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.181">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXXVII.</span><span class="let-num">181.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland.</div> +<div class="dateline">Rose-hill, Sept. 17.</div> + +<p>Can you in earnest ask such a question? can you suppose I ever felt +the least degree of love for Sir George? No, my Rivers, never did your +Emily feel tenderness till she saw the loveliest, the most amiable of +his sex, till those eyes spoke the sentiments of a soul every idea of +which was similar to her own.</p> + +<p>Yes, my Rivers, our souls have the most perfect resemblance: I never +heard you speak without finding the feelings of my own heart developed; +your conversation conveyed your Emily’s ideas, but cloathed in the +language of angels.</p> + +<p>I thought well of Sir George; I saw him as the man destined to be my +husband; I fancied he loved me, and that gratitude obliged me to a +return; carried away by the ardor of my friends for this marriage, I +rather suffered than approved his addresses; I had not courage to +resist the torrent, I therefore gave way to it; I loved no other, I +fancied my want of affection a native coldness of temper. I felt a +languid esteem, which I endeavored to flatter myself was love; but the +moment I saw you, the delusion vanished.</p> + +<p>Your eyes, my Rivers, in one moment convinced me I had a heart; you +staid some weeks with us in the country: with what transport do I +recollect those pleasing moments! how did my heart beat whenever you +approached me! what charms did I find in your conversation! I heard you +talk with a delight of which I was not mistress. I fancied every woman +who saw you felt the same emotions: my tenderness increased +imperceptibly without my perceiving the consequences of my indulging +the dear pleasure of seeing you.</p> + +<p>I found I loved, yet was doubtful of your sentiments; my heart, +however, flattered me yours was equally affected; my situation +prevented an explanation; but love has a thousand ways of making +himself understood.</p> + +<p>How dear to me were those soft, those delicate attentions, which +told me all you felt for me, without communicating it to others!</p> + +<p>Do you remember that day, my Rivers, when, sitting in the little +hawthorn grove, near the borders of the river, the rest of the company, +of which Sir George was one, ran to look at a ship that was passing: I +would have followed; you asked me to stay, by a look which it was +impossible to mistake; nothing could be more imprudent than my stay, +yet I had not resolution to refuse what I saw gave you pleasure: I +stayed; you pressed my hand, you regarded me with a look of unutterable +love.</p> + +<p>My Rivers, from that dear moment your Emily vowed never to be +another’s: she vowed not to sacrifice all the happiness of her life to +a romantic parade of fidelity to a man whom she had been betrayed into +receiving as a lover; she resolved, if necessary, to own to him the +tenderness with which you had inspired her, to entreat from his esteem, +from his compassion, a release from engagements which made her +wretched.</p> + +<p>My heart burns with the love of virtue, I am tremblingly alive to +fame: what bitterness then must have been my portion had I first seen +you when the wife of another!</p> + +<p>Such is the powerful sympathy that unites us, that I fear, that +virtue, that strong sense of honor and fame, so powerful in minds most +turned to tenderness, would only have served to make more poignant the +pangs of hopeless, despairing love.</p> + +<p>How blest am I, that we met before my situation made it a crime to +love you! I shudder at the idea how wretched I might have been, had I +seen you a few months later.</p> + +<p>I am just returned from a visit at a few miles distance. I find a +letter from my dear Bell, that she will be here to-morrow; how do I +long to see her, to talk to her of my Rivers!</p> + +<p>I am interrupted. +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.182">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXXVIII.</span><span class="let-num">182.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Temple.</div> +<div class="dateline">Rose-hill, Sept. 18, Morning.</div> + +<p>I have this moment, my dear Mrs. Temple’s letter: she will imagine +my transport at the happy event she mentions; my dear Rivers has, in +some degree, sacrificed even filial affection to his tenderness for me; +the consciousness of this has ever cast a damp on the pleasure I should +otherwise have felt, at the prospect of spending my life with the most +excellent of mankind: I shall now be his, without the painful +reflection of having lessened the enjoyments of the best parent that +ever existed.</p> + +<p>I should be blest indeed, my amiable friend, if I did not suffer +from my too anxious tenderness; I dread the possibility of my becoming +in time less dear to your brother; I love him to such excess that I +could not survive the loss of his affection.</p> + +<p>There is no distress, no want, I could not bear with delight for +him; but if I lose his heart, I lose all for which life is worth +keeping.</p> + +<p>Could I bear to see those looks of ardent love converted into the +cold glances of indifference!</p> + +<p>You will, my dearest friend, pity a heart, whose too great +sensibility wounds itself: why should I fear? was ever tenderness equal +to that of my Rivers? can a heart like his change from caprice? It +shall be the business of my life to merit his tenderness.</p> + +<p>I will not give way to fears which injure him, and, indulged, would +destroy all my happiness.</p> + +<p>I expect Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald every moment. Adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.183">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXXIX.</span><span class="let-num">183.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Bellfield, Sept. 17.</div> + +<p>You say true, my dear Fitzgerald: friendship, like love, is more the +child of sympathy than of reason; though inspired by qualities very +opposite to those which give love, it strikes like that in a moment: +like that, it is free as air, and, when constrained, loses all its +spirit.</p> + +<p>In both, from some nameless cause, at least some cause to us +incomprehensible, the affections take fire the instant two persons, +whose minds are in unison, observe each other, which, however, they may +often meet without doing.</p> + +<p>It is therefore as impossible for others to point out objects of our +friendship as love; our choice must be uninfluenced, if we wish to find +happiness in either.</p> + +<p>Cold, lifeless esteem may grow from a long tasteless acquaintance; +but real affection makes a sudden and lively impression.</p> + +<p>This impression is improved, is strengthened by time, and a more +intimate knowledge of the merit of the person who makes it; but it is, +it must be, spontaneous, or be nothing.</p> + +<p>I felt this sympathy powerfully in regard to yourself; I had the +strongest partiality for you before I knew how very worthy you were of +my esteem.</p> + +<p>Your countenance and manner made an impression on me, which inclined +me to take your virtues upon trust.</p> + +<p>It is not always safe to depend on these preventive feelings; but in +general the face is a pretty faithful index of the mind.</p> + +<p>I propose being in town in four or five days.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Twelve o’clock.</div> + +<p>My mother has this moment a second letter from her relation, who is +coming home, and proposes a marriage between me and his daughter, to +whom he will give twenty thousand pounds now, and the rest of his +fortune at his death.</p> + +<p>As Emily’s fault, if love can allow her one, is an excess of +romantic generosity, the fault of most uncorrupted female minds, I am +very anxious to marry her before she knows of this proposal, lest she +should think it a proof of tenderness to aim at making me wretched, in +order to make me rich.</p> + +<p>I therefore entreat you and Mrs. Fitzgerald to stay at Rose-hill, +and prevent her coming to town, till she is mine past the power of +retreat.</p> + +<p>Our relation may have mentioned his design to persons less prudent +than our little party; and she may hear of it, if she is in London.</p> + +<p>But, independently of my fear of her spirit of romance, I feel that +it would be an indelicacy to let her know of this proposal at present, +and look like attempting to make a merit of my refusal.</p> + +<p>It is not to you, my dear friend, I need say the gifts of fortune +are nothing to me without her for whose sake alone I wish to possess +them: you know my heart, and you also know this is the sentiment of +every man who loves.</p> + +<p>But I can with truth say much more; I do not even wish an increase +of fortune, considering it abstractedly from its being incompatible +with my marriage with the loveliest of women; I am indifferent to all +but independence; wealth would not make me happier; on the contrary, it +might break in on my present little plan of enjoyment, by forcing me to +give to common acquaintance, of whom wealth will always attract a +crowd, those precious hours devoted to friendship and domestic +pleasure.</p> + +<p>I think my present income just what a wise man would wish, and very +sincerely join in the philosophical prayer of the royal prophet, “Give +me neither poverty nor riches.”</p> + +<p>I love the vale, and had always an aversion to very extensive +prospects.</p> + +<p>I will hasten my coming as much as possible, and hope to be at +Rose-hill on Monday next: I shall be a prey to anxiety till Emily is +irrevocably mine.</p> + +<p>Tell Mrs. Fitzgerald, I am all impatience to kiss her hand.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.184">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXXX.</span><span class="let-num">184.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fermor.</div> +<div class="dateline">Richmond, Sept. 18.</div> + +<p>I am this moment returned to Richmond from a journey: I am rejoiced +at your arrival, and impatient to see you; for I am so happy as not to +have out-lived my impatience.</p> + +<p>How is my little Bell? I am as much in love with her as ever; this +you will conceal from Captain Fitzgerald, lest he should be alarmed, +for I am as formidable a rival as a man of fourscore can be supposed to +be.</p> + +<p>I am extremely obliged to you, my dear Fermor, for having introduced +me to a very amiable man, in your friend Colonel Rivers.</p> + +<p>I begin to be so sensible I am an old fellow, that I feel a very +lively degree of gratitude to the young ones who visit me; and look on +every agreable new acquaintance under thirty as an acquisition I had no +right to expect.</p> + +<p>You know I have always thought personal advantages of much more real +value than accidental ones; and that those who possessed the former had +much the greatest right to be proud.</p> + +<p>Youth, health, beauty, understanding, are substantial goods; wealth +and title comparatively ideal ones; I therefore think a young man who +condescends to visit an old one, the healthy who visit the sick, the +man of sense who spends his time with a fool, and even a handsome +fellow with an ugly one, are the persons who confer the favor, +whatever difference there may be in rank or fortune.</p> + +<p>Colonel Rivers did me the honor to spend a day with me here, and I +have not often lately passed a pleasanter one: the desire I had not to +discredit your partial recommendation, and my very strong inclinations +to seduce him to come again, made me intirely discard the old man; and +I believe your friend will tell you the hours did not pass on leaden +wings.</p> + +<p>I expect you, with Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald, to pass some time with +me at Richmond.</p> + +<p>I have the best claret in the universe, and as lively a relish for +it as at five and twenty.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">H——</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.185">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXXXI.</span><span class="let-num">185.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland.</div> +<div class="dateline">Rose-hill, Sept. 18.</div> + +<p>Since I sent away my letter, I have your last.</p> + +<p>You tell me, my dear Rivers, the strong emotion I betrayed at seeing +Sir George, when you came together to Montreal, made you fear I loved +him; that you were jealous of the blush which glowed on my cheek, when +he entered the room: that you still remember it with regret; that you +still fancy I had once some degree of tenderness for him, and beg me to +account for the apparent confusion I betrayed at his sight.</p> + +<p>I own that emotion; my confusion was indeed too great to be +concealed: but was he alone, my Rivers? can you forget that he had with +him the most lovely of mankind?</p> + +<p>Sir George was handsome; I have often regarded his person with +admiration, but it was the admiration we give to a statue.</p> + +<p>I listened coldly to his love, I felt no emotion at his sight; but +when you appeared, my heart beat, I blushed, I turned pale by turns, my +eyes assumed a new softness, I trembled, and every pulse confessed the +master of my soul.</p> + +<p>My friends are come: I am called down. Adieu! Be assured your Emily +never breathed a sigh but for her Rivers!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.186">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXXXII.</span><span class="let-num">186.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland.</div> +<div class="dateline">London, Sept. 18.</div> + +<p>I have this moment your letter; we are setting out in ten minutes +for Rose-hill, where I will finish this, and hope to give you a +pleasing account of your Emily.</p> + +<p>You are certainly right in keeping this proposal secret at present; +depend on our silence; I could, however, wish you the fortune, were it +possible to have it without the lady.</p> + +<p>Were I to praise your delicacy on this occasion, I should injure +you; it was not in your power to act differently; you are only +consistent with yourself.</p> + +<p>I am pleased with your idea of a situation: a house embosomed in the +grove, where all the view is what the eye can take in, speaks a happy +master, content at home; a wide-extended prospect, one who is looking +abroad for happiness.</p> + +<p>I love the country: the taste for rural scenes is the taste born +with us. After seeking pleasure in vain amongst the works of art, we +are forced to come back to the point from whence we set out, and find +our enjoyment in the lovely simplicity of nature.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Rose-hill, Evening.</div> + +<p>I am afraid Emily knows your secret; she has been in tears almost +ever since we came; the servant is going to the post-office, and I have +but a moment to tell you we will stay here till your arrival, which +you will hasten as much as possible.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i6">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">J. Fitzgerald.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.187">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXXXIII.</span><span class="let-num">187.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland.</div> +<div class="dateline">Rose-hill, Sept. 18.</div> + +<p>If I was not certain of your esteem and friendship, my dear Rivers, +I should tremble at the request I am going to make you.</p> + +<p>It is to suspend our marriage for some time, and not ask me the +reason of this delay.</p> + +<p>Be assured of my tenderness; be assured my whole soul is yours, that +you are dearer to me than life, that I love you as never woman loved; +that I live, I breathe but for you; that I would die to make you happy.</p> + +<p>In what words shall I convey to the most beloved of his sex, the +ardent tenderness of my soul? how convince him of what I suffer from +being forced to make a request so contrary to the dictates of my heart?</p> + +<p>He cannot, will not doubt his Emily’s affection: I cannot support +the idea that it is possible he should for one instant. What I suffer +at this moment is inexpressible.</p> + +<p>My heart is too much agitated to say more.</p> + +<p>I will write again in a few days.</p> + +<p>I know not what I would say; but indeed, my Rivers, I love you; you +yourself can scarce form an idea to what excess!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.188">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXXXIV.</span><span class="let-num">188.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Montague, Rose-hill, Berkshire.</div> +<div class="dateline">Bellfield, Sept. 20.</div> + +<p>No, Emily, you never loved; I have been long hurt by your +tranquillity in regard to our marriage; your too scrupulous attention +to decorum in leaving my sister’s house might have alarmed me, if love +had not placed a bandage before my eyes.</p> + +<p>Cruel girl! I repeat it; you never loved; I have your friendship, +but you know nothing of that ardent passion, that dear enthusiasm, +which makes us indifferent to all but itself: your love is from the +<span class="origtext">imagigination</span><span class="correction">imagination</span>, not the heart.</p> + +<p>The very professions of tenderness in your last, are a proof of your +consciousness of indifference; you repeat too often that you love me; +you say too much; that anxiety to persuade me of your affection, shews +too plainly you are sensible I have reason to doubt it.</p> + +<p>You have placed me on the rack; a thousand fears, a thousand doubts, +succeed each other in my soul. Has some happier man—</p> + +<p>No, my Emily, distracted as I am, I will not be unjust: I do not +suspect you of inconstancy; ’tis of your coldness only I complain: you +never felt the lively impatience of love; or you would not condemn a +man, whom you at least esteem, to suffer longer its unutterable +tortures.</p> + +<p>If there is a real cause for this delay, why conceal it from me? +have I not a right to know what so nearly interests me? but what cause? +are you not mistress of yourself?</p> + +<p>My Emily, you blush to own to me the insensibility of your heart: +you once fancied you loved; you are ashamed to say you were mistaken.</p> + +<p>You cannot surely have been influenced by any motive relative to our +fortune; no idle tale can have made you retract a promise, which +rendered me the happiest of mankind: if I have your heart, I am richer +than an oriental monarch.</p> + +<p>Short as life is, my dearest girl, is it of consequence what part we +play in it? is wealth at all essential to happiness?</p> + +<p>The tender affections are the only sources of true pleasure; the +highest, the most respectable titles, in the eye of reason, are the +tender ones of friend, of husband, and of father: it is from the dear +soft ties of social love your Rivers expects his felicity.</p> + +<p>You have but one way, my dear Emily, to convince me of your +tenderness: I shall set off for Rose-hill in twelve hours; you must +give me your hand the moment I arrive, or confess your Rivers was never +dear to you.</p> + +<p>Write, and send a servant instantly to meet me at my mother’s house +in town: I cannot support the torment of suspense.</p> + +<p>There is not on earth so wretched a being as I am at this moment; I +never knew till now to what excess I loved: you must be mine, my Emily, +or I must cease to live.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.189">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXXXV.</span><span class="let-num">189.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fitzgerald, Rose-hill, Berkshire.</div> +<div class="dateline">Bellfield, Sept. 20.</div> + +<p>All I feared has certainly happened; Emily has undoubtedly heard of +this proposal, and, from a parade of generosity, a generosity however +inconsistent with love, wishes to postpone our marriage till my +relation arrives.</p> + +<p>I am hurt beyond words, at the manner in which she has wrote to me +on this subject; I have, in regard to Sir George, experienced that +these are not the sentiments of a heart truly enamored.</p> + +<p>I therefore fear this romantic step is the effect of a coldness of +which I thought her incapable; and that her affection is only a more +lively degree of friendship, with which, I will own to you, my heart +will not be satisfied.</p> + +<p>I would engross, I would employ, I would absorb, every faculty of +that lovely mind.</p> + +<p>I have too long suffered prudence to delay my happiness: I cannot +longer live without her: if she loves me, I shall on Tuesday call her +mine.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I shall be with you almost as soon as this letter.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.190">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXXXVI.</span><span class="let-num">190.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers, <span class="origtext">Clarges-street.</span><span class="correction">Clarges Street.</span></div> +<div class="dateline">Rose-hill, Sept. 21.</div> + +<p>Is it then possible? can my Rivers doubt his Emily’s tenderness?</p> + +<p>Do I only esteem you, my Rivers? can my eyes have so ill explained +the feelings of my heart?</p> + +<p>You accuse me of not sharing your impatience: do you then allow +nothing to the modesty, the blushing delicacy, of my sex?</p> + +<p>Could you see into my soul, you would cease to call me cold and +insensible.</p> + +<p>Can you forget, my Rivers, those moments, when, doubtful of the +sentiments of your heart, mine every instant betrayed its weakness? +when every look spoke the resistless fondness of my soul! when, lost in +the delight of seeing you, I forgot I was almost the wife of another?</p> + +<p>But I will say no more; my Rivers tells me I have already said too +much: he is displeased with his Emily’s tenderness; he complains, that +I tell him too often I love him.</p> + +<p>You say I can give but one certain proof of my affection.</p> + +<p>I will give you that proof: I will be yours whenever you please, +though ruin should be the consequence to both; I despise every other +consideration, when my Rivers’s happiness is at stake: is there any +request he is capable of making, which his Emily will refuse?</p> + +<p>You are the arbiter of my fate: I have no will but yours; yet I +entreat you to believe no common cause could have made me hazard giving +a moment’s pain to that dear bosom: you will one time know to what +excess I have loved you.</p> + +<p>Were the empire of the world or your affection offered me, I should +not hesitate one moment on the choice, even were I certain never to see +you more.</p> + +<p>I cannot form an idea of happiness equal to that of being beloved by +the most amiable of mankind.</p> + +<p>Judge then, if I would lightly wish to defer an event, which is to +give me the transport of passing my life in the dear employment of +making him happy.</p> + +<p>I only entreat that you will decline asking me, till I judge proper +to tell you, why I first begged our marriage might be deferred: let it +be till then forgot I ever made such a request.</p> + +<p>You will not, my dear Rivers, refuse this proof of complaisance to +her who too plainly shews she can refuse you nothing.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Montague.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.191">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXXXVII.</span><span class="let-num">191.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Miss Montague, Rose-hill, Berkshire.</div> +<div class="dateline"><span class="origtext">Clarges-street,</span><span class="correction">Clarges Street,</span> Sept. 21, Two o’clock.</div> + +<p>Can you, my angel, forgive my insolent impatience, and attribute it +to the true cause, excess of love?</p> + +<p>Could I be such a monster as to blame my sweet Emily’s dear +expressions of tenderness? I hate myself for being capable of writing +such a letter.</p> + +<p>Be assured, I will strictly comply with all she desires: what +condition is there on which I would not make the loveliest of women +mine?</p> + +<p>I will follow the servant in two hours; I shall be at Rose-hill by +eight o’clock.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu! my dearest Emily!<br></span> +<span class="i6">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.192">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXXXVIII.</span><span class="let-num">192.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To John Temple, Esq; Temple-house, Rutland.</div> +<div class="dateline">Sept. 21, Nine at night.</div> + +<p>The loveliest of women has consented to make me happy: she +remonstrated, she doubted; but her tenderness conquered all her +reluctance. To-morrow I shall call her mine.</p> + +<p>We shall set out immediately for your house, where we hope to be the +next day to dinner: you will therefore postpone your journey to town a +week, at the end of which we intend going to Bellfield. Captain Fermor +and Mrs. Fitzgerald accompany us down. Emily’s relation, Mrs. H——, has +business which prevents her; and Fitzgerald is obliged to stay another +month in town, to transact the affair of his majority.</p> + +<p>Never did Emily look so lovely as this evening: there is a sweet +confusion, mixed with tenderness, in her whole look and manner, which +is charming beyond all expression.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I have not a moment to spare: even this absence from her is +treason to love. Say every thing for me to my mother and Lucy.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.193">LETTER <span class="origtext">CLXXXIX.</span><span class="let-num">193.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To John Temple, Esq. Temple-house, Rutland.</div> +<div class="dateline">Rose-hill, Sept. 22, Ten o’clock.</div> + +<p>She is mine, my dear Temple; and I am happy almost above mortality.</p> + +<p>I cannot paint to you her loveliness; the grace, the dignity, the +mild majesty of her air, is softened by a smile like that of angels: +her eyes have a tender sweetness, her cheeks a blush of refined +affection, which must be seen to be imagined.</p> + +<p>I envy Captain Fermor the happiness of being in the same chaise with +her; I shall be very bad company to Bell, who insists on my being her +cecisbeo for the journey.</p> + +<p>Adieu! The chaises are at the door.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.194">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXC.</span><span class="let-num">194.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Temple-house, Sept. 29.</div> + +<p>I regret your not being with us, more than I can express.</p> + +<p>I would have every friend I love a witness of my happiness.</p> + +<p>I thought my tenderness for Emily as great as man could feel, yet +find it every moment increase; every moment she is more dear to my +soul.</p> + +<p>The angel delicacy of that lovely mind is inconceivable; had she no +other charm, I should adore her: what a lustre does modesty throw round +beauty!</p> + +<p>We remove to-morrow to Bellfield: I am impatient to see my sweet +girl in her little empire: I am tired of the continual crowd in which +we live at Temple’s: I would not pass the life he does for all his +fortune; I sigh for the power of spending my time as I please, for the +dear shades of retirement and friendship.</p> + +<p>How little do mankind know their own happiness! every pleasure worth +a wish is in the power of almost all mankind.</p> + +<p>Blind to true joy, ever engaged in a wild pursuit of what is always +in our power, anxious for that wealth which we falsely imagine +necessary to our enjoyments, we suffer our best hours to pass +tastelessly away; we neglect the pleasures which are suited to our +natures; and, intent on ideal schemes of establishments at which we +never arrive, let the dear hours of social delight escape us.</p> + +<p>Hasten to us, my dear Fitzgerald: we want only you, to fill our +little circle of friends.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.195">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXCI.</span><span class="let-num">195.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Bellfield, Oct. 3.</div> + +<p>What delight is there in obliging those we love!</p> + +<p>My heart dilated with joy at seeing Emily pleased with the little +embellishments of her apartment, which I had made as gay and smiling +as the morn; it looked, indeed, as if the hand of love had adorned it: +she has a dressing room and closet of books, into which I shall never +intrude: there is a pleasure in having some place which we can say is +peculiarly our own, some <i>sanctum sanctorum</i>, whither we can +retire even from those most dear to us.</p> + +<p>This is a pleasure in which I have been indulged almost from +infancy, and therefore one of the first I thought of procuring for my +sweet Emily.</p> + +<p>I told her I should, however, sometimes expect to be amongst her +guests in this little retirement.</p> + +<p>Her look, her tender smile, the speaking glance of grateful love, +gave me a transport, which only minds turned to affection can conceive. +I never, my dear Fitzgerald, was happy before: the attachment I once +mentioned was pleasing; but I felt a regret, at knowing the object of +my tenderness had forfeited the good opinion of the world, which +embittered all my happiness.</p> + +<p>She possessed my esteem, because I knew her heart; but I wanted to +see her esteemed by others.</p> + +<p>With Emily I enjoy this pleasure in its utmost extent: she is the +adoration of all who see her; she is equally admired, esteemed, +respected.</p> + +<p>She seems to value the admiration she excites, only as it appears to +gratify the pride of her lover; what transport, when all eyes are fixed +on her, to see her searching around for mine, and attentive to no other +object, as if insensible to all other approbation!</p> + +<p>I enjoy the pleasures of friendship as well as those of love: were +you here, my dear Fitzgerald, we should be the happiest groupe on the +globe; but all Bell’s sprightliness cannot preserve her from an air of +chagrin in your absence.</p> + +<p>Come as soon as possible, my dear friend, and leave us nothing to +wish for.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.196">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXCII.</span><span class="let-num">196.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland.</div> +<div class="dateline">London, Oct. 8.</div> + +<p>You are very cruel, my dear Rivers, to tantalize me with your +pictures of happiness.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding this spite, I am sorry I must break in on your +groupe of friends; but it is absolutely necessary for Bell and my +father to return immediately to town, in order to settle some family +business, previous to my purchase of the majority.</p> + +<p>Indeed, I am not very fond of letting Bell stay long amongst you; +for she gives me such an account of your attention and complaisance to +Mrs. Rivers, that I am afraid she will think me a careless fellow when +we meet again.</p> + +<p>You seem in the high road, not only to spoil your own wife, but mine +too; which it is certainly my affair to prevent.</p> + +<p>Say every thing for me to the ladies of your family.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">J. Fitzgerald.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.197">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXCIII.</span><span class="let-num">197.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Bellfield, <span class="origtext">Sept.</span><span class="correction">Oct.</span> 10.</div> + +<p>You are a malicious fellow, Fitzgerald, and I am half inclined to +keep the sweet Bell by force; take all the men away if you please, but +I cannot bear the loss of a woman, especially of such a woman.</p> + +<p>If I was not more a lover than a husband, I am not sure I should not +wish to take my revenge.</p> + +<p>To make me happy, you must place me in a circle of females, all as +pleasing as those now with me, and turn every male creature out of the +house.</p> + +<p>I am a most intolerable monopolizer of the sex; in short, I have +very little relish for any conversation but theirs: I love their sweet +prattle beyond all the sense and learning in the world.</p> + +<p>Not that I would insinuate they have less understanding than we, or +are less capable of learning, or even that it less becomes them.</p> + +<p>On the contrary, all such knowledge as tends to adorn and soften +human life and manners, is, in my opinion, peculiarly becoming in +women.</p> + +<p>You don’t deserve a longer letter.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.198">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXCIV.</span><span class="let-num">198.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Bellfield, Oct. 12.</div> + +<p>I am very conscious, my dear Bell, of not meriting the praises my +Rivers lavishes on me, yet the pleasure I receive from them is not the +less lively for that consideration; on the contrary, the less I deserve +these praises, the more flattering they are to me, as the stronger +proofs of his love; of that love which gives ideal charms, which +adorns, which embellishes its object.</p> + +<p>I had rather be lovely in his eyes, than in those of all mankind; +or, to speak more exactly, if I continue to please him, the admiration +of all the world is indifferent to me: it is for his sake alone I wish +for beauty, to justify the dear preference he has given me.</p> + +<p>How pleasing are these sweet shades! were they less so, my Rivers’s +presence would give them every charm: every object has appeared to me +more lovely since the dear moment when I first saw him; I seem to have +acquired a new existence from his tenderness.</p> + +<p>You say true, my dear Bell: heaven doubtless formed us to be happy, +even in this world; and we obey its dictates in being so, when we can +without encroaching on the happiness of others.</p> + +<p>This lesson is, I think, plain from the book providence has spread +before us: the whole universe smiles, the earth is clothed in lively +colors, the animals are playful, the birds sing: in being chearful with +innocence, we seem to conform to the order of nature, and the will of +that beneficent Power to whom we owe our being.</p> + +<p>If the Supreme Creator had meant us to be gloomy, he would, it seems +to me, have clothed the earth in black, not in that lively green, which +is the livery of chearfulness and joy.</p> + +<p>I am called away.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu! my dearest Bell.<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.199">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXCV.</span><span class="let-num">199.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Bellfield, Oct. 14.</div> + +<p>You flatter me most agreably, my dear Fitzgerald, by praising Emily; +I want you to see her again; she is every hour more charming: I am +astonished any man can behold her without love.</p> + +<p>Yet, lovely as she is, her beauty is her least merit; the finest +understanding, the most pleasing kind of knowledge; tenderness, +sensibility, modesty, and truth, adorn her almost with rays of +divinity.</p> + +<p>She has, beyond all I ever saw in either sex, the polish of the +world, without having lost that sweet simplicity of manner, that +unaffected innocence, and integrity of heart, which are so very apt to +evaporate in a crowd.</p> + +<p>I ride out often alone, in order to have the pleasure of returning +to her: these little absences give new spirit to our tenderness. Every +care forsakes me at the sight of this temple of real love; my sweet +Emily meets me with smiles; her eyes brighten when I approach; she +receives my friends with the most lively pleasure, because they are my +friends; I almost envy them her attention, though given for my sake.</p> + +<p>Elegant in her dress and house, she is all transport when any little +ornament of either pleases me; but what charms me most, is her +tenderness for my mother, in whose heart she rivals both me and Lucy.</p> + +<p>My happiness, my friend, is beyond every idea I had formed; were I a +little richer, I should not have a wish remaining. Do not, however, +imagine this wish takes from my felicity.</p> + +<p>I have enough for myself, I have even enough for Emily; love makes +us indifferent to the parade of life.</p> + +<p>But I have not enough to entertain my friends as I wish, nor to +enjoy the god-like pleasure of beneficence.</p> + +<p>We shall be obliged, in order to support the little appearance +necessary to our connexions, to give an attention rather too strict to +our affairs; even this, however, our affection for each other will make +easy to us.</p> + +<p>My whole soul is so taken up with this charming woman, I am afraid I +shall become tedious even to you; I must learn to restrain my +tenderness, and write on common subjects.</p> + +<p>I am more and more pleased with the way of life I have chose; and, +were my fortune ever so large, would pass the greatest part of the year +in the country: I would only enlarge my house, and fill it with +friends.</p> + +<p>My situation is a very fine one, though not like the magnificent +scenes to which we have been accustomed in Canada: the house stands on +the sunny side of a hill, at the foot of which, the garden intervening, +runs a little trout stream, which to the right seems to be lost in an +island of oziers, and over which is a rustic bridge into a very +beautiful meadow, where at present graze a numerous flock of sheep.</p> + +<p>Emily is planning a thousand embellishments for the garden, and will +next year make it a wilderness of sweets, a paradise worthy its lovely +inhabitant: she is already forming walks and flowery arbors in the +wood, and giving the whole scene every charm which taste, at little +expence, can bestow.</p> + +<p>I, on my side, am selecting spots for plantations of trees; and +mean, like a good citizen, to serve at once myself and the public, by +raising oaks, which may hereafter bear the British thunder to distant +lands.</p> + +<p>I believe we country gentlemen, whilst we have spirit to keep +ourselves independent, are the best citizens, as well as subjects, in +the world.</p> + +<p>Happy ourselves, we wish not to destroy the tranquillity of others; +intent on cares equally useful and pleasing, with no views but to +improve our fortunes by means equally profitable to ourselves and to +our country, we form no schemes of dishonest ambition; and therefore +disturb no government to serve our private designs.</p> + +<p>It is the profuse, the vicious, the profligate, the needy, who are +the Clodios and Catilines of this world.</p> + +<p>That love of order, of moral harmony, so natural to virtuous minds, +to minds at ease, is the strongest tie of rational obedience.</p> + +<p>The man who feels himself prosperous and happy, will not easily be +perswaded by factious declamation that he is undone.</p> + +<p>Convinced of the excellency of our constitution, in which liberty +and prerogative are balanced with the steadiest hand, he will not +endeavor to remove the boundaries which secure both: he will not +endeavor to root it up, whilst he is pretending to give it +nourishment: he will not strive to cut down the lovely and venerable +tree under whose shade he enjoys security and peace.</p> + +<p>In short, and I am sure you will here be of my opinion, the man who +has competence, virtue, true liberty, and the woman he loves, will +chearfully obey the laws which secure him these blessings, and the +prince under whose mild sway he enjoys them.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.200">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXCVI.</span><span class="let-num">200.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Oct. 17.</div> + +<p>I every hour see more strongly, my dear Fitzgerald, the wisdom, as +to our own happiness, of not letting our hearts be worn out by a +multitude of intrigues before marriage.</p> + +<p>Temple loves my sister, he is happy with her; but his happiness is +by no means of the same kind with yours and mine; she is beautiful, and +he thinks her so; she is amiable, and he esteems her; he prefers her to +all other women, but he feels nothing of that trembling delicacy of +sentiment, that quick sensibility, which gives to love its most +exquisite pleasures, and which I would not give up for the wealth of +worlds.</p> + +<p>His affection is meer passion, and therefore subject to change; ours +is that heartfelt tenderness, which time renders every moment more +pleasing.</p> + +<p>The tumult of desire is the fever of the soul; its health, that +delicious tranquillity where the heart is gently moved, not violently +agitated; that tranquillity which is only to be found where friendship +is the basis of love, and where we are happy without injuring the +object beloved: in other words, in a marriage of choice.</p> + +<p>In the voyage of life, passion is the tempest, love the gentle gale.</p> + +<p>Dissipation, and a continued round of amusements at home, will +probably secure my sister all of Temple’s heart which remains; but his +love would grow languid in that state of retirement, which would have a +thousand charms for minds like ours.</p> + +<p>I will own to you, I have fears for Lucy’s happiness.</p> + +<p>But let us drop so painful a subject.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.201">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXCVII.</span><span class="let-num">201.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland.</div> +<div class="dateline">Oct. 19.</div> + +<p>Nothing, my dear Rivers, shews the value of friendship more than the +envy it excites.</p> + +<p>The world will sooner pardon us any advantage, even wealth, genius, +or beauty, than that of having a faithful friend; every selfish bosom +swells with envy at the sight of those social connexions, which are the +cordials of life, and of which our narrow prejudices alone prevent our +enjoyment.</p> + +<p>Those who have neither hearts to feel this generous affection, nor +merit to deserve it, hate all who are in this respect happier than +themselves; they look on a friend as an invaluable blessing, and a +blessing out of their reach; and abhor all who possess the treasure for +which they sigh in vain.</p> + +<p>For my own part, I had rather be the dupe of a thousand false +professions of friendship, than, for fear of being deceived, give up +the pursuit.</p> + +<p>Dupes are happy at least for a time; but the cold, narrow, +suspicious heart never knows the glow of social pleasure.</p> + +<p>In the same proportion as we lose our confidence in the virtues of +others, we lose our proper happiness.</p> + +<p>The observation of this mean jealousy, so humiliating to human +nature, has influenced Lord Halifax, in his Advice to a Daughter, the +school of art, prudery, and selfish morals, to caution her against all +friendships, or, as he calls them, <i>dearnesses</i>, as what will make +the world envy and hate her.</p> + +<p>After my sweet Bell’s tenderness, I know no pleasure equal to your +friendship; nor would I give it up for the revenue of an eastern +monarch.</p> + +<p>I esteem Temple, I love his conversation; he is gay and amusing; +but I shall never have for him the affection I feel for you.</p> + +<p>I think you are too apprehensive in regard to your sister’s +happiness: he loves her, and there is a certain variety in her manner, +a kind of agreable caprice, that I think will secure the heart of a man +of his turn, much more than her merit, or even the loveliness of her +person.</p> + +<p>She is handsome, exquisitely so; handsomer than Bell, and, if you +will allow me to say so, than Emily.</p> + +<p>I mean, that she is so in the eye of a painter; for in that of a +lover his mistress is the only beautiful object on earth.</p> + +<p>I allow your sister to be very lovely, but I think Bell more +desirable a thousand times; and, rationally speaking, she who has, +<i>as to me</i>, the art of inspiring the most tenderness is, <i>as to me</i>, +to all intents and purposes the most beautiful woman.</p> + +<p>In which faith I chuse to live and die.</p> + +<p>I have an idea, Rivers, that you and I shall continue to be happy: a +real sympathy, a lively taste, mixed with esteem, led us to marry; the +delicacy, tenderness, and virtue, of the two most charming of women, +promise to keep our love alive.</p> + +<p>We have both strong affections: both love the conversation of women; +and neither of our hearts are depraved by ill-chosen connexions with the +sex.</p> + +<p>I am broke in upon, and must bid you adieu!</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">J. Fitzgerald.</span> +</div> +<p class="addendum">Bell is writing to you. I shall be jealous.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.202">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXCVIII.</span><span class="let-num">202.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland.</div> +<div class="dateline">London, Oct. 19.</div> + +<p>I die to come to Bellfield again, my dear Rivers; I have a passion +for your little wood; it is a mighty pretty wood for an English wood, +but nothing to your Montmorencis; the dear little Silleri too—</p> + +<p>But to return to the shades of Bellfield: your little wood is +charming indeed; not to particularize detached pieces of your scenery, +the <i>tout ensemble</i> is very inviting; observe, however, I have no +notion of paradise without an Adam, and therefore shall bring +Fitzgerald with me next time.</p> + +<p>What could induce you, with this sweet little retreat, to cross that +vile ocean to Canada? I am astonished at the madness of mankind, who +can expose themselves to pain, misery, and danger; and range the world +from motives of avarice and ambition, when the rural cot, the fanning +gale, the clear stream, and flowery bank, offer such delicious +enjoyments at home.</p> + +<p>You men are horrid, rapacious animals, with your spirit of +enterprize, and your nonsense: ever wanting more land than you can +cultivate, and more money than you can spend.</p> + +<p>That eternal pursuit of gain, that rage of accumulation, in which +you are educated, corrupts your hearts, and robs you of half the +pleasures of life.</p> + +<p>I should not, however, make so free with the sex, if you and my +<i>caro sposo</i> were not exceptions.</p> + +<p>You two have really something of the sensibility and generosity of +women.</p> + +<p>Do you know, Rivers, I have a fancy you and Fitzgerald will always +be happy husbands? this is something owing to yourselves, and something +to us; you have both that manly tenderness, and true generosity, which +inclines you to love creatures who have paid you the compliment of +making their happiness or misery depend entirely on you, and partly to +the little circumstance of your being married to two of the most +agreable women breathing.</p> + +<p>To speak <i>en philosophe</i>, my dear Rivers, you are not to be +told, that the fire of love, like any other fire, is equally put out +by too much or too little fuel.</p> + +<p>Now Emily and I, without vanity, besides our being handsome and +amazingly sensible, to say nothing of our pleasing kind of sensibility, +have a certain just idea of causes and effects, with a natural blushing +reserve, and bridal delicacy, which I am apt to flatter myself—</p> + +<p>Do you understand me, Rivers? I am not quite clear I understand +myself.</p> + +<p>All that I would insinuate is, that Emily and I are, take us for all +in all, the two most charming women in the world, and that, whoever +leaves us, must change immensely for the worse.</p> + +<p>I believe Lucy equally pleasing, but I think her charms have not so +good a subject to work upon.</p> + +<p>Temple is a handsome fellow, and loves her; but he has not the +tenderness of heart that I so much admire in two certain youths of my +acquaintance.</p> + +<p>He is rich indeed; but who cares?</p> + +<p>Certainly, my dear Rivers, nothing can be more absurd, or more +destructive to happiness, than the very wrong turn we give our +<span class="origtext">childrens</span><span class="correction">children’s</span> imaginations about marriage.</p> + +<p>If miss and master are good, she is promised a rich husband, and a +coach and six, and he a wife with a monstrous great fortune.</p> + +<p>Most of these fine promises must fail; and where they do not, the +poor things have only the consolation of finding, when too late to +retreat, that the objects to which all their wishes were pointed have +really nothing to do with happiness.</p> + +<p>Is there a nabobess on earth half as happy as the two foolish little +girls about whom I have been writing, though married to such poor +devils as you and Fitzgerald? <i>Certainement</i> no.</p> + +<p>And so ends my sermon.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i6">Your most obedient,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fitzgerald.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.203">LETTER <span class="origtext">CXCI.</span><span class="let-num">203.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To John Temple, Esq; Temple-house, Rutland.</div> +<div class="dateline">Bellfield, Oct. 21.</div> + +<p>You ridicule my enthusiasm, my dear Temple, without considering +there is no exertion of the human mind, no effort of the understanding, +imagination, or heart, without a spark of this divine fire.</p> + +<p>Without enthusiasm, genius, virtue, pleasure, even love itself, +languishes; all that refines, adorns, softens, exalts, ennobles life, +has its source in this animating principle.</p> + +<p>I glory in being an enthusiast in every thing; but in nothing so +much as in my tenderness for this charming woman.</p> + +<p>I am a perfect Quixote in love, and would storm enchanted castles, +and fight giants, for my Emily.</p> + +<p>Coldness of temper damps every spring that moves the human heart; it +is equally an enemy to pleasure, riches, fame, to all which is worth +living for.</p> + +<p>I thank you for your wishes that I was rich, but am by no means +anxious myself on the subject.</p> + +<p>You sons of fortune, who possess your thousands a year, and find +them too little for your desires, desires which grow from that very +abundance, imagine every man miserable who wants them; in which you are +greatly mistaken.</p> + +<p>Every real pleasure is within the reach of my little fortune, and I +am very indifferent about those which borrow their charms, not from +nature, but from fashion and caprice.</p> + +<p>My house is indeed less than yours; but it is finely situated, and +large enough for my fortune: that part of it which belongs peculiarly +to my Emily is elegant.</p> + +<p>I have an equipage, not for parade but use; and the loveliest of +women prefers it with me to all that luxury and magnificence could +bestow with another.</p> + +<p>The flowers in my garden bloom as fair, the peach glows as deep, as +in yours: does a flower blush more lovely, or smell more sweet; a peach +look more tempting than its fellows, I select it for my Emily, who +receives it with delight, as the tender tribute of love.</p> + +<p>In some respects, we are the more happy for being less rich: the +little avocations, which our mediocrity of fortune makes necessary to +both, are the best preventives of that languor, from being too +constantly together, which is all that love founded on taste and +friendship has to fear.</p> + +<p>Had I my choice, I should wish for a very small addition only to my +income, and that for the sake of others, not myself.</p> + +<p>I love pleasure, and think it our duty to make life as agreable as +is consistent with what we owe to others; but a true pleasurable +philosopher seeks his enjoyments where they are really to be found; not +in the gratifications of a childish pride, but of those affections +which are born with us, and which are the only rational sources of +enjoyment.</p> + +<p>When I am walking in these delicious shades with Emily; when I see +those lovely eyes, softened with artless fondness, and hear the music +of that voice; when a thousand trifles, unobserved but by the prying +sight of love, betray all the dear sensations of that bosom, where +truth and delicate tenderness have fixed their seat, I know not the +Epicurean of whom I do not deserve to be the envy.</p> + +<p>Does your fortune, my dear Temple, make you more than happy? if not, +why so very earnestly wish an addition to mine? believe me, there is +nothing about which I am more indifferent. I am ten times more anxious +to get the finest collection of flowers in the world for my Emily.</p> + +<p>You observe justly, that there is nothing so insipid as women who +have conversed with women only; let me add, nor so brutal as men who +have lived only amongst men.</p> + +<p>The desire of pleasing on each side, in an intercourse enlivened by +taste, and governed by delicacy and honor, calls forth all the graces +of the person and understanding, all the amiable sentiments of the +heart: it also gives good-breeding, ease, and a certain awakened +manner, which is not to be acquired but in mixed conversation.</p> + +<p>Remember, you and my dear Lucy dine with us to-morrow; it is to be a +little family party, to indulge my mother in the delight of seeing her +children about her, without interruption: I have saved all my best +fruit for this day; we are to drink tea and sup in Emily’s apartment.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + +<p>I will to-morrow shew you better grapes than any you have at +Temple-house: you rich men fancy nobody has any thing good but +yourselves; but I hope next year to shew you that you are mistaken in a +thousand instances. I will have such roses and jessamines, such bowers +of intermingled sweets—you shall see what astonishing things Emily’s +taste and my industry can do.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.204">LETTER <span class="origtext">CC.</span><span class="let-num">204.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Bellfield, Oct. 22.</div> + +<p>Finish your business, my dear girl, and let us see you again at +Bellfield. I need not tell you the pleasure Mr. Fitzgerald’s +accompanying you will give us.</p> + +<p>I die to see you, my dear Bell; it is not enough to be happy, unless +I have somebody to tell every moment that I am so: I want a confidante +of my tenderness, a friend like my Bell, indulgent to all my follies, +to talk to of the loveliest and most beloved of mankind. I want to tell +you a thousand little instances of that ardent, that refined affection, +which makes all the happiness of my life! I want to paint the +flattering attention, the delicate fondness of that dear lover, who is +only the more so for being a husband.</p> + +<p>You are the only woman on earth to whom I can, without the +appearance of insult, talk of my Rivers, because you are the only one I +ever knew as happy as myself.</p> + +<p>Fitzgerald, in the tenderness and delicacy of his mind, resembles +strongly—</p> + +<p>I am interrupted: adieu! for a moment.</p> + +<p>It was my Rivers, he brought me a bouquet; I opened the door, +supposing it was my mother; conscious of what I had been writing, I was +confused at seeing him; he smiled, and guessing the reason of my +embarrassment, “I must leave you, Emily; you are writing, and, by your +blushes, I know you have been talking of your lover.”</p> + +<p>I should have told you, he insists on never seeing the letters I +write, and gives this reason for it, That he should be a great loser by +seeing them, as it would restrain my pen when I talk of him.</p> + +<p>I believe, I am very foolish in my tenderness; but you will forgive +me.</p> + +<p>Rivers yesterday was throwing flowers at me and Lucy, in play, as we +were walking in the garden; I catched a wallflower, and, by an +involuntary impulse, kissed it, and placed it in my bosom.</p> + +<p>He observed me, and his look of pleasure and affection is impossible +to be described. What exquisite pleasure there is in these agreable +follies!</p> + +<p>He is the sweetest trifler in the world, my dear Bell: but in what +does he not excel all mankind!</p> + +<p>As the season of autumnal flowers is almost over, he is sending for +all those which blow early in the spring: he prevents every wish his +Emily can form.</p> + +<p>Did you ever, my dear, see so fine an autumn as this? you will, +perhaps, smile when I say, I never saw one so pleasing; such a season +is more lovely than even the spring: I want you down before this +agreable weather is all over.</p> + +<p>I am going to air with my mother; my Rivers attends us on horseback; +you cannot think how amiable his <span class="origtext">atttention</span><span class="correction">attention</span> is to both.</p> + +<p>Adieu! my dear; my mother has sent to let me know she is ready.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.205">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCI.</span><span class="let-num">205.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Bellfield, Oct. 24.</div> + +<p>Some author has said, “The happiness of the next world, to the +virtuous, will consist in enjoying the society of minds like their +own.”</p> + +<p>Why then should we not do our best to possess as much as possible of +this happiness here?</p> + +<p>You will see this is a preface to a very earnest request to see +Captain <span class="origtext">Fermor</span><span class="correction">Fitzgerald</span> and the lovely Bell immediately at our farm: take +notice, I will not admit even business as an excuse much longer.</p> + +<p>I am just come from a walk in the wood behind the house, with my +mother and Emily; I want you to see it before it loses all its charms; +in another fortnight, its present variegated foliage will be literally +<i>humbled in the dust</i>.</p> + +<p>There is something very pleasing in this season, if it did not give +us the idea of the winter, which is approaching too fast.</p> + +<p>The dryness of the air, the soft western breeze, the tremulous +motion of the falling leaves, the rustling of those already fallen +under our feet, their variety of lively colors, give a certain spirit +and agreable fluctuation to the scene, which is unspeakably pleasing.</p> + +<p>By the way, we people of warm imaginations have vast advantages over +others; we scorn to be confined to present scenes, or to give +attention to such trifling objects as times and seasons.</p> + +<p>I already anticipate the spring; see the woodbines and wild roses +bloom in my grove, and almost catch the gale of perfume.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Twelve o’clock.</div> + +<p>I have this moment received your letter.</p> + +<p>I am sorry for what you tell me of Miss H——; whose want of art has +led her into indiscretions.</p> + +<p>’Tis too common to see the most innocent, nay, even the most +laudable actions censured by the world; as we cannot, however, +eradicate the prejudices of others, it is wisdom to yield to them in +things which are indifferent.</p> + +<p>One ought to conform to, and respect the customs, as well as the +laws and religion of our country, where they are not contrary to +virtue, and to that moral sense which heaven has imprinted on our +souls; where they are contrary, every generous mind will despise them.</p> + +<p>I agree with you, my dear friend, that two persons who love, not +only <i>seem</i>, but really are, handsomer to each other than to the +rest of the world.</p> + +<p>When we look at those we ardently love, a new softness steals +unperceived into the eyes, the countenance is more animated, and the +whole form has that air of tender languor which has such charms for +sensible minds.</p> + +<p>To prove the truth of this, my Emily approaches, fair as the rising +morn, led by the hand of the Graces; she sees her lover, and every +charm is redoubled; an involuntary smile, a blush of pleasure, speak a +passion, which is the pride of my soul.</p> + +<p>Even her voice, melodious as it is by nature, is softened when she +addresses her happy Rivers.</p> + +<p>She comes to ask my attendance on her and my mother; they are going +to pay a morning visit a few miles off.</p> + +<p>Adieu! tell the little Bell I kiss her hand.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.206">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCII.</span><span class="let-num">206.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Three o’clock.</div> + +<p>We are returned, and have met with an adventure, which I must tell +you.</p> + +<p>About six miles from home, at the entrance of a small village, as I +was riding very fast, a little before the chaise, a boy about four +years old, beautiful as a Cupid, came out of a cottage on the +right-hand, and, running cross the road, fell almost under my horse’s +feet.</p> + +<p>I threw myself off in a moment; and snatching up the child, who was, +however, unhurt, carried him to the house.</p> + +<p>I was met at the door by a young woman, plainly drest; but of a form +uncommonly elegant: she had seen the child fall, and her terror for him +was plainly marked in her countenance; she received him from me, +pressed him to her bosom, and, without speaking, melted into tears.</p> + +<p>My mother and Emily had by this time reached the cottage; the +humanity of both was too much interested to let them pass: they +alighted, came into the house, and enquired about the child, with an +air of tenderness which was not lost on the young person, whom we +supposed his mother.</p> + +<p>She appeared about two and twenty, was handsome, with an air of the +world, which the plainness of her dress could not hide; her countenance +was pensive, with a mixture of sensibility which instantly prejudiced +us all in her favor; her look seemed to say, she was unhappy, and that +she deserved to be otherwise.</p> + +<p>Her manner was respectful, but easy and unconstrained; polite, +without being servile; and she acknowledged the interest we all seemed +to take in what related to her, in a manner that convinced us she +deserved it.</p> + +<p>Though every thing about us, the extreme neatness, the elegant +simplicity of her house and little garden, her own person, that of the +child, both perfectly genteel, her politeness, her air of the world, in +a cottage like that of the meanest laborer, tended to excite the most +lively curiosity; neither good-breeding, humanity, nor the respect due +to those who appear unfortunate, would allow us to make any enquiries: +we left the place full of this adventure, convinced of the merit, as +well as unhappiness, of its fair inhabitant, and resolved to find out, +if possible, whether her misfortunes were of a kind to be alleviated, +and within our little power to alleviate.</p> + +<p>I will own to you, my dear Fitzgerald, I at that moment felt the +smallness of my fortune: and I believe Emily had the same sensations, +though her delicacy prevented her naming them to me, who have made her +poor.</p> + +<p>We can talk of nothing but the stranger; and Emily is determined to +call on her again to-morrow, on pretence of enquiring after the health +of the child.</p> + +<p>I tremble lest her story, for she certainly has one, should be such +as, however it may entitle her to compassion, may make it impossible +for Emily to shew it in the manner she seems to wish.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.207">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCIII.</span><span class="let-num">207.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Bellfield, Oct. 24.</div> + +<p>We have been again at the cottage; and are more convinced than +ever, that this amiable girl is not in the station in which she was +born; we staid two hours, and varied the conversation in a manner +which, in spite of her extreme modesty, made it impossible for her to +avoid shewing she had been educated with uncommon care: <span class="origtext">ster</span><span class="correction">her</span> style is +correct and elegant; her sentiments noble, yet unaffected; we talked +of books, she said little on the subject; but that little shewed a +taste which astonished us.</p> + +<p>Anxious as we are to know her true situation, in order, if she +merits it, to endeavor to serve her, yet delicacy made it impossible +for us to give the least hint of a curiosity which might make her +suppose we entertained ideas to her prejudice.</p> + +<p>She seemed greatly affected with the humane concern Emily expressed +for the child’s danger yesterday, as well as with the polite and even +affectionate manner in which she appeared to interest herself in all +which related to her; Emily made her general offers of service with a +timid kind of softness in her air, which seemed to speak rather a +person asking a favor than wishing to confer an obligation.</p> + +<p>She thanked my sweet Emily with a look of surprize and gratitude to +which it is not easy to do justice; there was, however, an +embarrassment in her countenance at those offers, which a little alarms +me; she absolutely declined coming to Bellfield: I know not what to +think.</p> + +<p>Emily, who has taken a strong prejudice in her favor, will answer +for her conduct with her life; but I will own to you, I am not without +my doubts.</p> + +<p>When I consider the inhuman arts of the abandoned part of one sex, +and the romantic generosity and too unguarded confidence, of the most +amiable of the other; when I reflect that where women love, they love +without reserve; that they fondly imagine the man who is dear to them +possessed of every virtue; that their very integrity of mind prevents +their suspicions; when I think of her present retirement, so +apparently ill suited to her education; when I see her beauty, her +elegance of person, with that tender and melancholy air, so strongly +expressive of the most exquisite sensibility; when, in short, I see the +child, and observe her fondness for him, I have fears for her, which I +cannot conquer.</p> + +<p>I am as firmly convinced as Emily of the goodness of her heart; but +I am not so certain that even that very goodness may not have been, +from an unhappy concurrence of circumstances, her misfortune.</p> + +<p>We have company to dine.</p> + +<p>Adieu! till the evening.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Ten at night.</div> + +<p>About three hours ago, Emily received the inclosed, from our fair +cottager.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> +<div class="toline">“To Mrs. Rivers.</div> +<div class="salutation">“Madam,</div> + +<p>“Though I have every reason to wish the melancholy event which +brought me here, might continue unknown; yet your generous concern for +a stranger, who had no recommendation to your notice but her appearing +unhappy, and whose suspicious situation would have injured her in a +mind less noble than yours, has determined me to lay before you a +story, which it was my resolution to conceal for ever.</p> + +<p>“I saw, Madam, in your countenance, when you honored me by calling +at my house this morning, and I saw with an admiration no words can +speak, the amiable struggle between the desire of knowing the nature of +my distress in order to soften it, and the delicacy which forbad your +enquiries, lest they should wound my sensibility and self-love.</p> + +<p>“To such a heart I run no hazard in relating what in the world +would, perhaps, draw on me a thousand reproaches; reproaches, however, +I flatter myself, undeserved.</p> + +<p>“You have had the politeness to say, there is something in my +appearance which speaks my birth above my present situation: in this, +Madam, I am so happy as not to deceive your generous partiality.</p> + +<p>“My father, who was an officer of family and merit, had the +misfortune to lose my mother whilst I was an infant.</p> + +<p>“He had the goodness to take on himself the care of directing my +education, and to have me taught whatever he thought becoming my sex, +though at an expence much too great for his income.</p> + +<p>“As he had little more than his commission, his parental tenderness +got so far the better of his love for his profession, that, when I was +about fifteen, he determined on quitting the army, in order to provide +better for me; but, whilst he was in treaty for this purpose, a fever +carried him off in a few days, and left me to the world, with little +more than five hundred pounds, which, however, was, by his will, +immediately in my power.</p> + +<p>“I felt too strongly the loss of this excellent parent to attend to +any other consideration; and, before I was enough myself to think what +I was to do for a subsistence, a friend of my own age, whom I tenderly +loved, who was just returning from school to her father’s, in the north +of England, insisted on my accompanying her, and spending some time +with her in the country.</p> + +<p>“I found in my dear Sophia, all the consolation my grief could +receive; and, at her pressing solicitation, and that of her father, who +saw his daughter’s happiness depended on having me with her, I +continued there three years, blest in the calm delights of friendship, +and those blameless pleasures, with which we should be too happy, if +the heart could content itself, when a young baronet, whose form was +as lovely as his soul was dark, came to interrupt our felicity.</p> + +<p>“My Sophia, at a ball, had the misfortune to attract his notice; she +was rather handsome, though without regular features; her form was +elegant and feminine, and she had an air of youth, of softness, of +sensibility, of blushing innocence, which seemed intended to inspire +delicate passions alone, and which would have disarmed any mind less +depraved than that of the man, who only admired to destroy.</p> + +<p>“She was the rose-bud yet impervious to the sun.</p> + +<p>“Her heart was tender, but had never met an object which seemed +worthy of it; her sentiments were disinterested, and romantic to +excess.</p> + +<p>“Her father was, at that time, in Holland, whither the death of a +relation, who had left him a small estate, had called him: we were +alone, unprotected, delivered up to the unhappy inexperience of youth, +mistresses of our own conduct; myself, the eldest of the two, but just +eighteen, when my Sophia’s ill-fate conducted Sir Charles Verville to +the ball where she first saw him.</p> + +<p>“He danced with her, and endeavored to recommend himself by all +those little unmeaning, but flattering attentions, by which our +credulous sex are so often misled; his manner was tender, yet timid, +modest, respectful; his eyes were continually fixed on her, but when he +met hers, artfully cast down, as if afraid of offending.</p> + +<p>“He asked permission to enquire after her health the next day; he +came, he was enchanting; polite, lively, soft, insinuating, adorned +with every outward grace which could embellish virtue, or hide vice +from view, to see and to love him was almost the same thing.</p> + +<p>“He entreated leave to continue his visits, which he found no +difficulty in obtaining: during two months, not a day passed without +our seeing him; his behaviour was such as would scarce have alarmed the +most suspicious heart; what then could be expected of us, young, +sincere, totally ignorant of the world, and strongly prejudiced in +favor of a man, whose conversation spoke his soul the abode of every +virtue?</p> + +<p>“Blushing I must own, nothing but the apparent preference he gave to +my lovely friend, could have saved my heart from being a prey to the +same tenderness which ruined her.</p> + +<p>“He addressed her with all the specious arts which vice could invent +to seduce innocence; his respect, his esteem, seemed equal to his +passion; he talked of honor, of the delight of an union where the +tender affections alone were consulted; wished for her father’s +return, to ask her of him in marriage; pretended to count impatiently +the hours of his absence, which delayed his happiness: he even +prevailed on her to write her father an account of his addresses.</p> + +<p>“New to love, my Sophia’s young heart too easily gave way to the +soft impression; she loved, she idolized this most base of mankind; +she would have thought it a kind of sacrilege to have had any will in +opposition to his.</p> + +<p>“After some months of unremitted assiduity, her father being +expected in a few days, he dropped a hint, as if by accident, that he +wished his fortune less, that he might be the more certain he was loved +for himself alone; he blamed himself for this delicacy, but charged it +on excess of love; vowed he would rather die than injure her, yet +wished to be convinced her fondness was without reserve.</p> + +<p>“Generous, disinterested, eager to prove the excess and sincerity of +her passion, she fell into the snare; she agreed to go off with him, +and live some time in a retirement where she was to see only himself, +after which he engaged to marry her publicly.</p> + +<p>“He pretended extasies at this proof of affection, yet hesitated to +accept it; and, by piquing the generosity of her soul, which knew no +guile, and therefore suspected none, led her to insist on devoting +herself to wretchedness.</p> + +<p>“In order, however, that this step might be as little known as +possible, as he pretended the utmost concern for that honor he was +contriving to destroy, it was agreed between them, that he should go +immediately to London, and that she should follow him, under pretence +of a visit to a relation at some distance; the greatest difficulty was, +how to hide this design from me.</p> + +<p>“She had never before concealed a thought from her beloved Fanny; +nor could he now have prevailed on her to deceive me, had he not +artfully perswaded her I was myself in love with him; and that, +therefore, it would be cruel, as well as imprudent, to trust me with +the secret.</p> + +<p>“Nothing shews so strongly the power of love, in absorbing every +faculty of the soul, as my dear Sophia’s being prevailed on to use art +with the friend most dear to her on earth.</p> + +<p>“By an unworthy piece of deceit, I was sent to a relation for some +weeks; and the next day Sophia followed her infamous lover, leaving +letters for me and her father, calculated to perswade us, they were +privately married.</p> + +<p>“My distress, and that of the unhappy parent, may more easily be +conceived than described; severe by nature, he cast her from his heart +and fortune for ever, and settled his estate on a nephew, then at the +university.</p> + +<p>“As to me, grief and tenderness were the only sensations I felt: I +went to town, and took every private method to discover her retreat, +but in vain; till near a year after, when, being in London, with a +friend of my mother’s, a servant, who had lived with my Sophia, saw me +in the street, and knew me: by her means, I discovered that she was in +distress, abandoned by her lover, in that moment when his tenderness +was most necessary.</p> + +<p>“I flew to her, and found her in a miserable apartment, in which +nothing but an extreme neatness would have made me suppose she had ever +seen happier days: the servant who brought me to her attended her.</p> + +<p>“She was in bed, pale, emaciated; the lovely babe you saw with me in +her arms.</p> + +<p>“Though prepared for my visit, she was unable to bear the shock of +seeing me; I ran to her, she raised herself in the bed, and, throwing +her feeble arms round my neck, could only say, ‘My Fanny! is this +possible!’ and fainted away.</p> + +<p>“Our cares having recovered her, she endeavored to compose herself; +her eyes were fixed tenderly on me, she pressed my hand between hers, +the tears stole silently down her cheeks; she looked at her child, then +at me; she would have spoke, but the feelings of her heart were too +strong for expression.</p> + +<p>“I begged her to be calm, and promised to spend the day with her; +I did not yet dare, lest the emotion should be too much for her weak +state, to tell her we would part no more.</p> + +<p>“I took a room in the house, and determined to give all my attention +to the restoration of her health; after which, I hoped to contrive to +make my little fortune, with industry, support us both.</p> + +<p>“I sat up with her that night; she got a little rest, she seemed +better in the morning; she told me the particulars I have already +related; she, however, endeavored to soften the cruel behaviour of the +wretch, whose name I could not hear without horror.</p> + +<p>“She had in the afternoon a little fever; I sent for a physician, +he thought her in danger; what did not my heart feel from this +information? she grew worse, I never left her one moment.</p> + +<p>“The next morning she called me to her; she took my hand, and +looking at me with a tenderness no language can describe,</p> + +<p>“‘My dear, my only friend,’ said she, ‘I am dying; you are come to +receive the last breath of your unhappy Sophia: I wish with ardor for +my father’s blessing and forgiveness, but dare not ask them.</p> + +<p>“‘The weakness of my heart has undone me; I am lost, abandoned by him +on whom my soul doated; by him, for whom I would have sacrificed a +thousand lives; he has left me with my babe to perish, yet I still love +him with unabated fondness: the pang of losing him sinks me to the +grave!’</p> + +<p>“Her speech here failed her for a time; but recovering, she +proceeded,</p> + +<p>“‘Hard as this request may seem, and to whatever miseries it may +expose my angel friend, I adjure you not to desert my child; save him +from the wretchedness that threatens him; let him find in you a mother +not less tender, but more virtuous, than his own.</p> + +<p>“‘I know, my Fanny, I undo you by this cruel confidence; but who else +will have mercy on this innocent?’</p> + +<p>“Unable to answer, my heart torn with unutterable anguish, I +snatched the lovely babe to my bosom, I kissed him, I bathed him with +my tears.</p> + +<p>“She understood me, a gleam of pleasure brightened her dying eyes, +the child was still pressed to my heart, she gazed on us both with a +look of wild affection; then, clasping her hands together, and +breathing a fervent prayer to heaven, sunk down, and expired without a +groan—</p> + +<p>“To you, Madam, I need not say the rest.</p> + +<p>“The eloquence of angels could not paint my distress; I saw the +friend of my soul, the best and most gentle of her sex, a breathless +corse before me; her heart broke by the ingratitude of the man she +loved, her honor the sport of fools, her guiltless child a sharer in +her shame.</p> + +<p>“And all this ruin brought on by a sensibility of which the best +minds alone are susceptible, by that noble integrity of soul which made +it impossible for her to suspect another.</p> + +<p>“Distracted with grief, I kissed my Sophia’s pale lips, talked to +her lifeless form; I promised to protect the sweet babe, who smiled on +me, and with his little hand pressed mine, as if sensible of what I +said.</p> + +<p>“As soon as my grief was enough calmed to render me capable of any +thing, I wrote an account of Sophia’s death to her father, who had the +inhumanity to refuse to see her child.</p> + +<p>“I disdained an application to her murderer; and retiring to this +place, where I was, and resolved to continue, unknown, determined to +devote my life to the sweet infant, and to support him by an industry +which I did not doubt heaven would prosper.</p> + +<p>“The faithful girl who had attended Sophia, begged to continue with +me; we work for the milleners in the neighbouring towns, and, with the +little pittance I have, keep above want.</p> + +<p>“I know the consequence of what I have undertaken; I know I give up +the world and all hopes of happiness to myself: yet will I not desert +this friendless little innocent, nor betray the confidence of my +expiring friend, whose last moments were soothed with the hope of his +finding a parent’s care in me.</p> + +<p>“You have had the goodness to wish to serve me. Sir Charles Verville +is dead: a fever, the consequence of his ungoverned intemperance, +carried him off suddenly: his brother Sir William has a worthy +character; if Colonel Rivers, by his general acquaintance with the +great world, can represent this story to him, it possibly may procure +my little Charles happier prospects than my poverty can give him.</p> + +<p>“Your goodness, Madam, makes it unnecessary to be more explicit: to +be unhappy, and not to have merited it, is a sufficient claim to your +protection.</p> + +<p>“You are above the low prejudices of common minds; you will pity the +wretched victim of her own unsuspecting heart, you will abhor the +memory of her savage undoer, you will approve my complying with her +dying request, though in contradiction to the selfish maxims of the +world: you will, if in your power, endeavor to serve my little +prattler.</p> + +<p>“’Till I had explained my situation, I could not think of accepting +the honor you allowed me to hope for, of enquiring after your health at +Bellfield; if the step I have taken meets with your approbation, I +shall be most happy to thank you and Colonel Rivers for your attention +to one, whom you would before have been justified in supposing +unworthy of it.</p> + +<p>“I am, Madam, with the most perfect respect and gratitude,</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">“Your obliged<br></span> +<span class="i4">and obedient servant,<br></span> +<span class="i8">F. Williams.<span class="origtext">’</span><span class="correction">”</span></span> +</div> + +<p>Your own heart, my dear Fitzgerald, will tell you what were our +reflections on reading the inclosed: Emily, whose gentle heart feels +for the weaknesses as well as misfortunes of others, will to-morrow +fetch this heroic girl and her little ward, to spend a week at +Bellfield; and we will then consider what is to be done for them.</p> + +<p>You know Sir William Verville; go to him from me with the inclosed +letter, he is a man of honor, and will, I am certain, provide for the +poor babe, who, had not his father been a monster of unfeeling +inhumanity, would have inherited the estate and title Sir William now +enjoys.</p> + +<p>Is not the midnight murderer, my dear friend, white as snow to this +vile seducer? this betrayer of unsuspecting, trusting, innocence? what +transport is it to me to reflect, that not one bosom ever heaved a sigh +of remorse of which I was the cause!</p> + +<p>I grieve for the poor victim of a tenderness, amiable in itself, +though productive of such dreadful consequences when not under the +guidance of reason.</p> + +<p>It ought to be a double tie on the honor of men, that the woman who +truely loves gives up her will without reserve to the object of her +affection.</p> + +<p>Virtuous less from reasoning and fixed principle, than from +elegance, and a lovely delicacy of mind; naturally tender, even to +excess; carried away by a romance of sentiment; the helpless sex are +too easily seduced, by engaging their confidence, and piquing their +generosity.</p> + +<p>I cannot write; my heart is softened to a degree which makes me +incapable of any thing.</p> + +<p>Do not neglect one moment going to Sir William Verville.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.208">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCIV.</span><span class="let-num">208.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers.</div> +<div class="dateline">Oct. 28.</div> + +<p>The story you have told me has equally shocked and astonished me: my +sweet Bell has dropped a pitying tear on poor Sophia’s grave.</p> + +<p>Thank heaven! we meet with few minds like that of Sir Charles +Verville; such a degree of savage insensibility is unnatural.</p> + +<p>The human heart is created weak, not wicked: avid of pleasure and of +gain; but with a mixture of benevolence which prevents our seeking +either to the destruction of others.</p> + +<p>Nothing can be more false than that we are naturally inclined to +evil: we are indeed naturally inclined to gratify the selfish passions +of every kind; but those passions are not evil in themselves, they only +become so from excess.</p> + +<p>The malevolent passions are not inherent in our nature. They are +only to be acquired by degrees, and generally are born from chagrin and +disappointment; a wicked character is a depraved one.</p> + +<p>What must this unhappy girl have suffered! no misery can equal the +struggles of a virtuous mind wishing to act in a manner becoming its +own dignity, yet carried by passions to do otherwise.</p> + +<div class="dateline">One o’clock.</div> + +<p>I have been at Sir William Verville’s, who is at Bath; I will write, +and inclose the letter to him this evening; you shall have his answer +the moment I receive it.</p> + +<p>We are going to dine at Richmond with Lord H——.</p> + +<p>Adieu! my dear Rivers; Bell complains you have never answered her +letter: I own, I thought you a man of more gallantry than to neglect a +lady.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">J. Fitzgerald.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.209">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCV.</span><span class="let-num">209.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Bellfield, Oct. 30.</div> + +<p>I am very impatient, my dear friend, till you hear from Sir William, +though I have no doubt of his acting as he ought: our cottagers shall +not leave us till their fate is determined; I have not told Miss +Williams the step I have taken.</p> + +<p>Emily is more and more pleased with this amiable girl: I wish +extremely to be able to keep her here; as an agreable companion of her +own age and sex, whose ideas are similar, and who, from being in the +same season of life, sees things in the same point <span class="origtext">in</span><span class="correction">of</span> view, is all that +is wanting to Emily’s happiness.</p> + +<p>’Tis impossible to mention similarity of ideas, without observing +how exactly ours coincide; in all my acquaintance with mankind, I +never yet met a mind so nearly resembling my own; a tie of affection +much stronger than all your merit would be without that similarity.</p> + +<p>I agree with you, that mankind are born virtuous, and that it is +education and example which make them otherwise.</p> + +<p>The believing other men knaves is not only the way to make them so, +but is also an infallible method of becoming such ourselves.</p> + +<p>A false and ill-judged method of instruction, by which we imbibe +prejudices instead of truths, makes us regard the human race as beasts +of prey; not as brothers, united by one common bond, and promoting the +general interest by pursuing our own particular one.</p> + +<p class="preverse">There is nothing of which I am more convinced than that,</p> +<div class="verse"> + “True self-love and social are the same:”</div> + +<p>That those passions which make the happiness of individuals tend +directly to the general good of the species.</p> + +<p>The beneficent Author of nature has made public and private +happiness the same; man has in vain endeavored to divide them; but in +the endeavor he has almost destroyed both.</p> + +<p>’Tis with pain I say, that the business of legislation in most +countries seems to have been to counter-work this wise order of +providence, which has ordained, that we shall make others happy in +being so ourselves.</p> + +<p>This is in nothing so glaring as in the point on which not only the +happiness, but the virtue of almost the whole human race is concerned: +I mean marriage; the restraints on which, in almost every country, not +only tend to encourage celibacy, and a destructive libertinism the +consequence of it, to give fresh strength to domestic tyranny, and +subject the generous affections of uncorrupted youth to the guidance of +those in whom every motive to action but avarice is dead; to condemn +the blameless victims of duty to a life of indifference, of disgust, +and possibly of guilt; but, by opposing the very spirit of our +constitution, throwing property into a few hands, and favoring that +excessive inequality, which renders one part of the species wretched, +without adding to the happiness of the other; to destroy at once the +domestic felicity of individuals, contradict the will of the Supreme +Being, as clearly wrote in the book of nature, and sap the very +foundations of the most perfect form of government on earth.</p> + +<p class="preverse">A pretty long-winded period this: Bell would call it true +Ciceronian, and quote</p> +<div class="verse"> + “—Rivers for a period of a mile.”</div> + +<p>But to proceed. The only equality to which parents in general +attend, is that of fortune; whereas a resemblance in age, in temper, in +personal attractions, in birth, in education, understanding, and +sentiment, are the only foundations of that lively taste, that tender +friendship, without which no union deserves the sacred name of +marriage.</p> + +<p>Timid, compliant youth may be forced into the arms of age and +disease; a lord may invite a citizen’s daughter he despises to his bed, +to repair a shattered fortune; and she may accept him, allured by the +rays of a coronet: but such conjunctions are only a more shameful +species of prostitution.</p> + +<p>Men who marry from interested motives are inexcusable; but the very +modesty of women makes against their happiness in this point, by giving +them a kind of bashful fear of objecting to such persons as their +parents recommend as proper objects of their tenderness.</p> + +<p>I am prevented by company from saying all I intended.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.210">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCVI.</span><span class="let-num">210.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers.</div> +<div class="dateline">Temple-house, Nov. 1.</div> + +<p>You wrong me excessively, my dear Rivers, in accusing me of a +natural levity in love and friendship.</p> + +<p>As to the latter, my frequent changes, which I freely acknowledge, +have not been owing to any inconstancy, but to precipitation and want +of caution in contracting them.</p> + +<p>My general fault has been the folly of chusing my friends for some +striking and agreable accomplishment, instead of giving to solid merit +the preference which most certainly is its due.</p> + +<p>My inconstancy in love has been meerly from vanity.</p> + +<p>There is something so flattering in the general favor of women, that +it requires great firmness of mind to resist that kind of gallantry +which indulges it, though absolutely destructive to real happiness.</p> + +<p>I blush to say, that when I first married I have more than once been +in danger, from the mere boyish desire of conquest, notwithstanding my +adoration for your lovely sister: such is the force of habit, for I +must have been infinitely a loser by changing.</p> + +<p>I am now perfectly safe; my vanity has taken another turn: I pique +myself <span class="origtext">in</span><span class="errata">on</span> keeping the heart of the loveliest woman that ever existed, +as a nobler conquest than attracting the notice of a hundred coquets, +who would be equally flattered by the attention of any other man, at +least any other man who had the good fortune to be as fashionable.</p> + +<p>Every thing conspires to keep me in the road of domestic happiness: +the manner of life I am engaged in, your friendship, your example, and +society; and the very fear I am in of losing your esteem.</p> + +<p>That I have the seeds of constancy in my nature, I call on you and +your lovely sister to witness; I have been <i>your</i> friend from +almost infancy, and am every hour more <i>her</i> lover.</p> + +<p>She is my friend, my companion, as well as mistress; her wit, her +sprightliness, her pleasing kind of knowledge, fill with delight those +hours which are so tedious with a fool, however lovely.</p> + +<p>With my Lucy, possession can never cure the wounded heart.</p> + +<p class="preverse">Her modesty, her angel purity of mind and person, render her +literally,</p> +<div class="verse"> + “My ever-new delight.”</div> + +<p>She has convinced me, that if beauty is the mother, delicacy is the +nurse of love.</p> + +<p>Venus has lent her her cestus, and shares with her the attendance of +the Graces.</p> + +<p>My vagrant passions, like the rays of the sun collected in a burning +glass, are now united in one point.</p> + +<p>Lucy is here. Adieu! I must not let her know her power.</p> + +<p>You spend to-morrow with us; we have a little ball, and are to have +a masquerade next week.</p> + +<p>Lucy wants to consult Emily on her dress; you and I are not to be in +the secret: we have wrote to ask the Fitzgeralds to the masquerade; I +will send Lucy’s post coach for them the day before, or perhaps fetch +them myself.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">J. Temple.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.211">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCVII.</span><span class="let-num">211.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Bellfield, Nov. 1.</div> + +<p>I have this moment a letter from Temple which has set my heart at +rest: he writes like a lover, yet owns his past danger, with a +frankness which speaks more strongly than any professions could do, the +real present state of his heart.</p> + +<p>My anxiety for my sister has a little broke in on my own happiness; +in England, where the married women are in general the most virtuous in +the world, it is of infinite consequence they should love their +husbands, and be beloved by them; in countries where gallantry is more +permitted, it is less necessary.</p> + +<p>Temple will make her happy whilst she preserves his heart; but, if +she loses it, every thing is to be feared from the vivacity of his +nature, which can never support one moment a life of indifference.</p> + +<p>He has that warmth of temper which is the natural soil of the +virtues; but which is unhappily, at the same time, most apt to produce +indiscretions.</p> + +<p>Tame, cold, dispassionate minds resemble barren lands; warm, +animated ones, rich ground, which, if properly cultivated, yields the +noblest fruit; but, if neglected, from its luxuriance is most +productive of weeds.</p> + +<p>His misfortune has been losing both his parents when almost an +infant; and having been master of himself and a noble fortune, at an +age when the passions hurry us beyond the bounds of reason.</p> + +<p>I am the only person on earth by whom he would ever bear to be +controlled in any thing; happily for Lucy, I preserve the influence +over him which friendship first gave me.</p> + +<p>That influence, and her extreme attention to study his taste in +every thing; with those uncommon graces both of mind and person she has +received from nature, will, I hope, effectually fix this wandering +star.</p> + +<p>She tells me, she has asked you to a masquerade at Temple-house, to +which you will extremely oblige us all by coming.</p> + +<p>You do not tell us, whether the affair of your majority is settled: +if obliged to return immediately, Temple will send you back.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + +<p>I have this moment your last letter: you are right, we American +travellers are under great disadvantages; our imaginations are +restrained; we have not the pomp of the orient to describe, but the +simple and unadorned charms of nature.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.212">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCVIII.</span><span class="let-num">212.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland.</div> +<div class="dateline">Nov. 4.</div> + +<p>Sir William Verville is come back to town; I was with him this +morning; he desires to see the child; he tells me, his brother, in his +last moments, mentioned this story in all the agony of remorse, and +begged him to provide for the little innocent, if to be found; that he +had made many enquiries, but hitherto in vain; and that he thought +himself happy in the discovery.</p> + +<p>He talks of settling three thousand pounds on the child, and taking +the care of educating him into his own hands.</p> + +<p>I hinted at some little provision for the amiable girl who had saved +him from perishing, and had the pleasure to find Sir William listen to +me with attention.</p> + +<p>I am sorry it is not possible for me to be at your masquerade; but +my affair is just at the crisis: Bell expects a particular account of +it from Mrs. Rivers, and desires to be immediately in the secret of the +ladies dresses, though you are not: she begs you will send your fair +cottager and little charge to us, and we will take care to introduce +them properly to Sir William.</p> + +<p>I am too much hurried to say more.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu! my dear Rivers!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">J. Fitzgerald.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.213">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCIX.</span><span class="let-num">213.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Nov. 8.</div> + +<p>Yes, my dear Bell, politeness is undoubtedly a moral virtue.</p> + +<p>As we are beings formed for, and not capable of being happy without, +society, it is the duty of every one to endeavor to make it as easy and +agreable as they can; which is only to be done by such an attention to +others as is consistent with what we owe to ourselves; all we give them +in civility will be re-paid us in respect: insolence and ill-breeding +are detestable to all mankind.</p> + +<p>I long to see you, my dear Bell; the delight I have had in your +society has spoiled my relish for that of meer acquaintance, however +agreable.</p> + +<p>’Tis dangerous to indulge in the pleasures of friendship; they +weaken one’s taste too much for common conversation.</p> + +<p>Yet what other pleasures are worth the name? what others have spirit +and delicacy too?</p> + +<p>I am preparing for the masquerade, which is to be the 18th; I am +extremely disappointed you will not be with us.</p> + +<p>My dress is simple and unornamented, but I think becoming and +prettily fancied; it is that of a French <i>paisanne</i>: Lucy is to +be a sultana, blazing with diamonds: my mother a Roman matron.</p> + +<p>I chuse this dress because I have heard my dear Rivers admire it; to +be one moment more pleasing in his eyes, is an object worthy all my +attention.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.214">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCX.</span><span class="let-num">214.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland.</div> +<div class="dateline">London, Nov. 10.</div> + +<p>Certainly, my dear, friendship is a mighty pretty invention, and, +next to love, gives of all things the greatest spirit to society.</p> + +<p>And yet the prudery of the age will hardly allow us poor women even +this pleasure, innocent as it is.</p> + +<p>I remember my aunt Cecily, who died at sixty-six, without ever +having felt the least spark of affection for any human being, used to +tell me, a prudent modest woman never loved any thing but herself.</p> + +<p>For my part, I think all the kind propensities of the heart ought +rather to be cherished than checked; that one is allowed to esteem +merit even in the naughty creature, man.</p> + +<p>I love you very sincerely, Emily: but I like friendships for the men +best; and think prudery, by forbidding them, robs us of some of the +most lively as well as innocent pleasures of the heart.</p> + +<p>That desire of pleasing; which one feels much the most strongly for +a <i>male</i> friend, is in itself a very agreable emotion.</p> + +<p>You will say, I am a coquet even in friendship; and I am not quite +sure you are not in the right.</p> + +<p>I am extremely in love with my husband; yet chuse other men should +regard me with complacency, am as fond of attracting the attention of +the dear creatures as ever, and, though I do justice to your wit, +understanding, sentiment, and all that, prefer Rivers’s conversation +infinitely to yours.</p> + +<p>Women cannot say civil things to each other; and if they could, they +would be something insipid; whereas a male friend—</p> + +<p>’Tis absolutely another thing, my dear; and the first system of +ethics I write, I will have a hundred pages on the subject.</p> + +<p>Observe, my dear, I have not the least objection to your having a +friendship for Fitzgerald. I am the best-natured creature in the world, +and the fondest of increasing the circle of my husband’s innocent +amusements.</p> + +<p><i>A propos</i> to innocent amusements, I think your fair +sister-in-law an exquisite politician; calling the pleasures to Temple +at home, is the best method in the world to prevent his going abroad +in pursuit of them.</p> + +<p>I am mortified I cannot be at your masquerade; it is my passion, +and I have the prettiest dress in the world by me. I am half inclined +to elope for a day or two.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu! Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i4">A. Fitzgerald.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.215">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCXI.</span><span class="let-num">215.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Bellfield, Nov. 12.</div> + +<p>Please to inform the little Bell, I won’t allow her to spoil my +Emily.</p> + +<p>I enter a caveat against male friendships, which are only fit for +ladies of the <i>salamandrine</i> order.</p> + +<p>I desire to engross all Emily’s <i>kind propensities</i> to myself; +and should grudge the least share in her heart, or, if you please in +her <i>friendship</i>, to an archangel.</p> + +<p>However, not to be too severe, since prudery expects women to have +no propensities at all, I allow single ladies, of all ranks, sizes, +ages, and complexions, to spread the veil of friendship between their +hearts and the world.</p> + +<p>’Tis the finest day I ever saw, though the middle of November; a dry +soft west wind, the air as mild as in April, and an almost Canadian +sunshine.</p> + +<p>I have been bathing in the clear stream, at the end of my garden; +the same stream in which I laved my careless bosom at thirteen; an +idea which gave me inconceivable delight; and the more, as my bosom is +as gay and tranquil at this moment as in those dear hours of +chearfulness and innocence.</p> + +<p>Of all local prejudices, that is the strongest as well as most +pleasing, which attaches us to the place of our birth.</p> + +<p>Sweet home! only seat of true and genuine happiness.</p> + +<p>I am extremely in the humor to write a poem to the houshold gods.</p> + +<p>We neglect these amiable deities, but they are revenged; true +pleasure is only to be found under their auspices.</p> + +<p>I know not how it is, my dear Fitzgerald; but I don’t find my +passion for the country abate.</p> + +<p>I still find the scenes around me lovely; though, from the change +of season, less smiling than when I first fixed at Bellfield; we have +rural business enough to amuse, not embarrass us; we have a small but +excellent library of books, given us by my mother; she and Emily are +two of the most pleasing companions on earth; the neighbourhood is full +of agreable people, and, what should always be attended to in fixing in +the country, of fortunes not superior to our own.</p> + +<p>The evenings grow long, but they are only the more jovial; I love +the pleasures of the table, not for their own sakes, for no man is more +indifferent on this subject; but because they promote social, +convivial joy, and bring people together in good humor with themselves +and each other.</p> + +<p>My Emily’s suppers are enchanting; but our little income obliges us +to have few: if I was rich, this would be my principal extravagance.</p> + +<p>To fill up my measure of content, Emily is pleased with my +retirement, and finds all her happiness in my affection.</p> + +<p>We are so little alone, that I find our moments of unreserved +conversation too short; whenever I leave her, I recollect a thousand +things I had to say, a thousand new ideas to communicate, and am +impatient for the hour of seeing again, without restraint, the most +amiable and pleasing of woman-kind.</p> + +<p>My happiness would be complete, if I did not sometimes see a cloud +of anxiety on that dear countenance, which, however, is dissipated the +moment my eyes meet hers.</p> + +<p>I am going to Temple’s, and the chaise is at the door.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu! my dear friend!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.216">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCXII.</span><span class="let-num">216.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers.</div> +<div class="dateline">Nov. 14.</div> + +<p>So you disapprove male friendships, my sweet Colonel! I thought you +had better ideas of things in general.</p> + +<p>Fitzgerald and I have been disputing on French and English manners, +in regard to gallantry.</p> + +<p>The great question is, Whether a man is more hurt by the imprudent +conduct of his daughter or his wife?</p> + +<p>Much may be said on both sides.</p> + +<p>There is some hazard in suffering coquetry in either; both +contribute to give charms to conversation, and introduce ease and +politeness into society; but both are dangerous to manners.</p> + +<p>Our customs, however, are most likely to produce good effects, as +they give opportunity for love marriages, the only ones which can make +worthy minds happy.</p> + +<p>The coquetry of single women has a point of view consistent with +honor; that of married women has generally no point of view at all; it +is, however of use <i>pour passer le tems</i>.</p> + +<p>As to real gallantry, the French style depraves the minds of men +least, ours is most favorable to the peace of families.</p> + +<p>I think I preserve the balance of argument admirably.</p> + +<p>My opinion, however, is, that if people married from affection, +there would be no such thing as gallantry at all.</p> + +<p>Pride, and the parade of life, destroy all happiness: our whole +felicity depends on our choice in marriage, yet we chuse from motives +more trifling than would determine us in the common affairs of life.</p> + +<p>I knew a gentleman who fancied himself in love, yet delayed marrying +his mistress till he could afford a set of plate.</p> + +<p>Modern manners are very unfavorable to the tender affections.</p> + +<p>Ancient lovers had only dragons to combat; ours have the worse +monsters of avarice and ambition.</p> + +<p>All I shall say further on the subject is, that the two happiest +people I ever knew were a country clergyman and his wife, whose whole +income did not exceed one hundred pounds a year.</p> + +<p>A pretty philosophical, sentimental, dull kind of an epistle this!</p> + +<p>But you deserve it, for not answering my last, which was divine.</p> + +<p>I am pleased with Emily’s ideas about her dress at the masquerade; +it is a proof you are still lovers.</p> + +<p>I remember, the first symptoms I discovered of my <i>tendresse</i> +for Fitzgerald was my excessive attention to this article: I have +tried on twenty different caps when I expected him at Silleri.</p> + +<p>Before we drop the subject of gallantries, I must tell you I am +charmed with you and my <i>sposo</i>, for never giving the least hint +before Emily and me that you have had any; it is a piece of delicacy +which convinces me of your tenderness more than all the vows that ever +lovers broke would do.</p> + +<p>I have been hurt at the contrary behaviour in Temple; and have +observed Lucy to be so too, though her excessive attention not to give +him pain prevented her shewing it: I have on such an occasion seen a +smile on her countenance, and a tear of tender regret starting into her +eyes.</p> + +<p>A woman who has vanity without affection will be pleased to hear of +your past conquests, and regard them as victims immolated to her +superior charms: to her, therefore, it is right to talk of them; but +to flatter the <i>heart</i>, and give delight to a woman who truly +loves, you should appear too much taken up with the present passion to +look back to the past: you should not even present to her imagination +the thought that you have had other engagements: we know such things +are, but had rather the idea should not be awakened: I may be wrong, +but I speak from my own feelings.</p> + +<p>I am excessively pleased with a thought I met with in a little +French novel:</p> + +<p>“Un homme qui ne peut plus compter ses bonnes fortunes, est de tous, +celui qui connoît le moins les <i>faveurs</i>. C’est le coeur qui les +accorde, & ce n’est pas le coeur qu’un homme à la mode interesse. Plus +on est <i>prôné</i> par les femmes, plus il est facile de les avoir, +mais moins il est possible de les enflammer.”</p> + +<p>To which truth I most heartily set my hand.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Twelve o’clock.</div> + +<p>I have just heard from your sister, who tells me, Emily is turned a +little natural philosopher, reads Ray, Derham, and fifty other strange +old fellows that one never heard of, and is eternally poring through a +microscope to discover the wonders of creation.</p> + +<p>How amazingly learned matrimony makes young ladies! I suppose we +shall have a volume of her discoveries bye and bye.</p> + +<p>She says too, you have little pets like sweethearts, quarrel and +make it up again in the most engaging manner in the world.</p> + +<p>This is just what I want to bring Fitzgerald to; but the perverse +monkey won’t quarrel with me, do all I can: I am sure this is not my +fault, for I give him reason every day of his life.</p> + +<p>Shenstone says admirably, “That reconciliation is the tenderest part +of love and friendship: the soul here discovers a kind of elasticity, +and, being forced back, returns with an additional violence.”</p> + +<p>Who would not quarrel for the pleasure of reconciliation! I shall be +very angry with Fitzgerald if he goes on in this mild way.</p> + +<p>Tell your sister, she cannot be more mortified than I am, that it is +impossible for me to be at her masquerade.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fitzgerald.</span> +</div> + +<p>Don’t you think, my dear Rivers, that marriage, on prudent +principles, is a horrid sort of an affair? It is really cruel of papas +and mammas to shut up two poor innocent creatures in a house together, +to plague and torment one another, who might have been very happy +separate.</p> + +<p>Where people take their own time, and chuse for themselves, it is +another affair, and I begin to think it possible affection may last +through life.</p> + +<p>I sometimes fancy to myself Fitzgerald and I loving on, from the +impassioned hour when I first honored him with my hand, to that +tranquil one, when we shall take our afternoon’s nap <i>vis a vis</i> +in two arm chairs, by the fire-side, he a grave country justice, and I +his worship’s good sort of a wife, the Lady Bountiful of the parish.</p> + +<p>I have a notion there is nothing so very shocking in being an oldish +gentlewoman; what one loses in charms, is made up in the happy liberty +of doing and saying whatever one pleases. Adieu!</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.217">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCXIII.</span><span class="let-num">217.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Bellfield, Nov. 16.</div> + +<p>My relation, Colonel Willmott, is just arrived from the East Indies, +rich, and full of the project of marrying his daughter to me.</p> + +<p>My mother has this morning received a letter from him, pressing the +affair with an earnestness which rather makes me feel for his +disappointment, and wish to break it to him as gently as possible.</p> + +<p>He talks of being at Bellfield on Wednesday evening, which is +Temple’s masquerade; I shall stay behind at Bellfield, to receive him, +have a domino ready, and take him to Temple-house.</p> + +<p>He seems to know nothing of my marriage or my sister’s, and I wish +him not to know of the former till he has seen Emily.</p> + +<p>The best apology I can make for declining his offer, is to shew him +the lovely cause.</p> + +<p>I will contrive they shall converse together at the masquerade, and +that he shall sit next her at supper, without their knowing any thing +of each other.</p> + +<p>If he sees her, if he talks with her, without that prejudice which +the knowledge of her being the cause of his disappointment might give, +he cannot fail of having for her that admiration which I never yet met +with a mind savage enough to refuse her.</p> + +<p>His daughter has been educated abroad, which is a circumstance I am +pleased with, as it gives me the power of refusing her without wounding +either her vanity, or her father’s, which, had we been acquainted, +might have been piqued at my giving the preference to another.</p> + +<p>She is not in England, but is hourly expected: the moment she +arrives, Lucy and I will fetch her to Temple-house: I shall be anxious +to see her married to a man who deserves her. Colonel Willmott tells +me, she is very amiable; at least as he is told, for he has never seen +her.</p> + +<p>I could wish it were possible to conceal this offer for ever from +Emily; my delicacy is hurt at the idea of her knowing it, at least from +me or my family.</p> + +<p>My mother behaves like an angel on this occasion; expresses herself +perfectly happy in my having consulted my heart alone in marrying, and +speaks of Emily’s tenderness as a treasure above all price.</p> + +<p>She does not even hint a wish to see me richer than I am.</p> + +<p>Had I never seen Emily, I would not have married this lady unless +love had united us.</p> + +<p>Do not, however, suppose I have that romantic contempt for fortune, +which is so pardonable, I had almost said so becoming, at nineteen.</p> + +<p>I have seen more of the world than most men of my age, and I have +seen the advantages of affluence in their strongest light.</p> + +<p>I think a worthy man not only may have, but ought to have, an +attention to making his way in the world, and improving his situation +in it, by every means consistent with probity and honor, and with his +own real happiness.</p> + +<p>I have ever had this attention, and ever will, but not by base +means: and, in my opinion, the very basest is that of selling one’s +hand in marriage.</p> + +<p>With what horror do we regard a man who is kept! and a man who +marries from interested views alone, is kept in the strongest sense of +the word.</p> + +<p>He is equally a purchased slave, with no distinction but that his +bondage is of longer continuance.</p> + +<p>Adieu! I may possibly write again on Wednesday.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.218"><span class="origtext">ETTER</span><span class="correction">LETTER</span> <span class="origtext">CCXIV.</span><span class="let-num">218.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland.</div> +<div class="dateline">London, Nov. 18.</div> + +<p>Fitzgerald is busy, and begs me to write to you.</p> + +<p>Your cottagers are arrived; there is something very interesting in +Miss Williams, and the little boy is an infant Adonis.</p> + +<p>Heaven send he may be an honester man than his father, or I foresee +terrible devastations amongst the sex.</p> + +<p class="preverse">We have this moment your letter; I am angry with you for blaspheming +the sweet season of nineteen:</p> +<div class="verse lineind"> + “O lovely source<br> + Of generous foibles, youth! when opening minds<br> + Are honest as the light, lucid as air,<br> + As fostering breezes kind, as linnets gay,<br> + Tender as buds, and lavish as the spring.”</div> + +<p>You will find out I am in a course of Shenstone, which I prescribe +to all minds tinctured with the uncomfortable selfishness of the +present age.</p> + +<p>The only way to be good, is to retain the generous mistakes, if they +are such, of nineteen through life.</p> + +<p>As to you, my dear Rivers, with all your airs of prudence and +knowing the world, you are, in this respect, as much a boy as ever.</p> + +<p>Witness your extreme joy at having married a woman with two thousand +pounds, when you might have had one with twenty times the sum.</p> + +<p>You are a boy, Rivers, I am a girl; and I hope we shall remain so as +long as we live.</p> + +<p>Do you know, my dear friend, that I am a daughter of the Muses, and +that I wrote pastorals at seven years old?</p> + +<p>I am charmed with this, because an old physician once told me it was +a symptom, not only of long life, but of long youth, which is much +better.</p> + +<p>He explained this, by saying something about animal spirits, which I +do not at all understand, but which perhaps you may.</p> + +<p>I should have been a pretty enough kind of a poetess, if papa had +not attempted to teach me how to be one, and insisted on seeing my +scribbles as I went on: these same Muses are such bashful misses, they +won’t bear to be looked at.</p> + +<p>Genius is like the sensitive plant; it shrinks from the touch.</p> + +<p>So your nabob cousin is arrived: I hope he will fall in love with +Emily; and remember, if he had obligations to Mrs. Rivers’s father, he +had exactly the same to your grandfather.</p> + +<p>He might spare ten thousand pounds very well, which would improve +your <i>petits soupers</i>.</p> + +<p>Adieu! Sir William Verville dines here, and I have but just time to +dress.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fitzgerald.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.219">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCXV.</span><span class="let-num">219.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Bellfield, Nov. 17, Morning.</div> + +<p>I have had a letter from Colonel Willmott myself to-day; he is still +quite unacquainted with the state of our domestic affairs; supposes me +a batchelor, and talks of my being his son-in-law as a certainty, not +attending to the probability of my having other engagements.</p> + +<p>His history, which he tells me in this letter, is a very romantic +one. He was a younger brother, and provided for accordingly: he loved, +when about twenty, a lady who was as little a favorite of fortune as +himself: their families, who on both sides had other views, joined +their interest to get him sent to the East Indies; and the young lady +was removed to the house of a friend in London, where she was to +continue till he had left England.</p> + +<p>Before he went, however, they contrived to meet, and were privately +married; the marriage was known only to her brother, who was +Willmott’s friend.</p> + +<p>He left her in the care of her brother, who, under pretence of +diverting her melancholy, and endeavoring to cure her passion, obtained +leave of his father to take her with him to France.</p> + +<p>She was there delivered of this child, and expired a few days after.</p> + +<p>Her brother, without letting her family know the secret, educated +the infant, as the daughter of a younger brother who had been just +before killed in a duel in France; her parents, who died in a few +years, were, almost in their last moments, informed of these +circumstances, and made a small provision for the child.</p> + +<p>In the mean time, Colonel Willmott, after experiencing a great +variety of misfortunes for many years, during which he maintained a +constant correspondence with his brother-in-law, and with no other +person in Europe, by a train of lucky accidents, acquired very rapidly +a considerable fortune, with which he resolved to return to England, +and marry his daughter to me, as the only method to discharge fully +his obligations to my grandfather, who alone, of all his family, had +given him the least assistance when he left England. He wrote to his +daughter, letting her know his design, and directing her to meet him in +London; but she is not yet arrived.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Six in the <span class="origtext">Evening.</span><span class="correction">evening.</span></div> + +<p>My mother and Emily went to Temple’s to dinner; they are to dress +there, and I am to be surprized.</p> + +<div class="dateline">Seven.</div> + +<p>Colonel Willmott is come: he is an extreme handsome man; tall, +well-made, with an air of dignity which one seldom sees; he is very +brown, and, what will please Bell, has an aquiline nose: he looks about +fifty, but is not so much; change of climate has almost always the +disagreable effect of adding some years to the look.</p> + +<p>He is dressing, to accompany me to the masquerade; I must attend +him: I have only time to say,</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">I am yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.220">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCXVI.</span><span class="let-num">220.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland.</div> +<div class="dateline">London, Nov. 18, twelve at night.</div> + +<p>Who should I dine and sup with to-day, at a merchant’s in the city, +but your old love, Sir George Clayton, as gay and amusing as ever!</p> + +<p>What an entertaining companion have you lost, my dear Emily!</p> + +<p>He was a little disconcerted at seeing me, and blushed extremely; +but soon recovered his amiable, uniform insipidity of countenance, and +smiled and simpered as usual.</p> + +<p>He never enquired after you, nor even mentioned your name; being +asked for a toast, I had the malice to give Rivers; he drank him, +without seeming ever to have heard of him before.</p> + +<p>The city misses admire him prodigiously, and he them; they are +charmed with his beauty, and he with their wit.</p> + +<p>His mother, poor woman! could not bring the match she wrote about to +bear: the family approved him; but the fair one made a better choice, +and gave herself last week, at St. George’s, Hanover-square, to a very +agreable fellow of our acquaintance, Mr. Palmer; a man of sense and +honor, who deserves her had she been ten times richer: he has a small +estate in Lincolnshire, and his house is not above twenty miles from +you: I must bring you and Mrs. Palmer acquainted.</p> + +<p>I suppose you are now the happiest of beings; Rivers finding a +thousand new beauties in his <i>belle paisanne</i>, and you exulting in +your charms, or, in other words, glorying in your strength.</p> + +<p>So the maiden aunts in your neighbourhood think Miss Williams no +better than she should be?</p> + +<p>Either somebody has said, or the idea is my own; after all, I +believe it Shenstone’s, That those are generally the best people, whose +characters have been most injured by slanderers, as we usually find +that the best fruit which the birds have been pecking at.</p> + +<p>I will, however, allow appearances were a little against your +cottager; and I would forgive the good old virgins, if they had always +as suspicious circumstances to determine from.</p> + +<p>But they generally condemn from trifling indiscretions, and settle +the characters of their own sex from their conduct at a time of life +when they are themselves no judges of its propriety; they pass sentence +on them for small errors, when it is an amazing proof of prudence not +to commit great ones.</p> + +<p>For my own part, I think those who never have been guilty of any +indiscretion, are generally people who have very little active virtue.</p> + +<p>The waving line holds in moral as well as in corporeal beauty.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Yours ever,<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fitzgerald.</span> +</div> + +<p>All I can say is, that if imprudence is a sin, heaven help your poor +little Bell!</p> + +<p>On those principles, Sir George is the most virtuous man in the +world; to which assertion, I believe, you will enter a caveat.</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.221">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCXVII.</span><span class="let-num">221.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland.</div> +<div class="dateline">London, Nov. 19.</div> + +<p>You are right, my little Rivers: I like your friend, Colonel +Willmott vastly better for his aquiline nose; I never yet saw one on +the face of a fool.</p> + +<p>He is a fortunate man to be introduced to such a party of fine women +at his arrival; it is literally <i>to feed among the lilies</i>.</p> + +<p>Fitzgerald says, he should be jealous of him in your esteem, if he +was fifteen years younger; but that the strongest friendships are, +where there is an equality in age; because people of the same age have +the same train of thinking, and see things in the same light.</p> + +<p>Every season of life has its peculiar set of ideas; and we are +greatly inclined to think nobody in the right, but those who are of the +same opinion with ourselves.</p> + +<p>Don’t you think it a strong proof of my passion for my <i>sposo</i>, +that I repeat his sentiments?</p> + +<p>But to business: Sir William is charmed with his little nephew; has +promised to settle on him what he before mentioned, to allow Miss +Williams an hundred pounds a year, which is to go to the child after +her death, and to be at the expence of his education himself.</p> + +<p>I die to hear whether your oriental Colonel is in love with Emily.</p> + +<p>Pray tell us every thing.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your affectionate<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fitzgerald.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.222">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCXVIII.</span><span class="let-num">222.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Temple-house, Thursday morning, 11 o’clock.</div> + +<p>Our masquerade last night was really charming; I never saw any thing +equal to it out of London.</p> + +<p>Temple has taste, and had spared no expence to make it agreable; the +decorations of the grand saloon were magnificent.</p> + +<p>Emily was the loveliest <i>paisanne</i> that ever was beheld; her +dress, without losing sight of the character, was infinitely becoming: +her beauty never appeared to such advantage.</p> + +<p>There was a noble simplicity in her air, which it is impossible to +describe.</p> + +<p>The easy turn of her shape, the lovely roundness of her arm, the +natural elegance of her whole form, the waving ringlets of her +beautiful dark hair, carelessly fastened with a ribbon, the unaffected +grace of her every motion, all together conveyed more strongly than +imagination can paint, the pleasing idea of a wood nymph, deigning to +visit some favored mortal.</p> + +<p>Colonel Willmott gazed on her with rapture; and asked me, if the +rural deities had left their verdant abodes to visit Temple-house.</p> + +<p>I introduced him to her, and left her to improve the impression: +’tis well I was married in time; a nabob is a dangerous rival.</p> + +<p>Lucy looked lovely, but in another style; she was a sultana in all +the pride of imperial beauty: her charms awed, but Emily’s invited; her +look spoke resistless command, Emily’s soft persuasion.</p> + +<p>There were many fine women; but I will own to you, I had, as to +beauty, no eyes but for Emily.</p> + +<p>We are going this morning to see Burleigh: when we return, I shall +announce Colonel Willmott to Emily, and introduce them properly to each +other; they are to go in the same chaise; she at present only knows him +as a friend of mine, and he her as his <i>belle paisanne</i>.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu! I am summoned.<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + +<p>I should have told you, I acquainted Colonel Willmott with my +sister’s marriage before I took him to Temple-house, and found an +opportunity of introducing him to Temple unobserved.</p> + +<p>Emily is the only one here to whom he is a stranger: I will caution +him not to mention to her his past generous design in my favor. Adieu!</p> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.223">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCXIX.</span><span class="let-num">223.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Temple-house, Thursday morning.</div> + +<p>Your Emily was happy beyond words last night: amongst a crowd of +beauties, her Rivers’s eyes continually followed her; he seemed to see +no other object: he would scarce let me wait till supper to unmask.</p> + +<p>But you will call me a foolish romantic girl; therefore I will only +say, I had the delight to see him pleased with my dress, and charmed +with the complaisance which was shewed me by others.</p> + +<p>There was a gentleman who came with Rivers, who was particularly +attentive to me; he is not young, but extremely amiable: has a very +fine person, with a commanding air; great politeness, and, as far as +one can judge by a few hours conversation, an excellent understanding.</p> + +<p>I never in my life met with a man for whom I felt such a partiality +at first sight, except Rivers, who tells me, I have made a conquest of +his friend.</p> + +<p>He is to be my cavalier this morning to Burleigh.</p> + +<p>It has this moment struck me, that Rivers never introduced his +friend and me to each other, but as masks; I never thought of this +before: I suppose he forgot it in the hurry of the masquerade.</p> + +<p>I do not even know this agreable stranger’s name; I only found out +by his conversation he had served in the army.</p> + +<p>There is no saying how beautiful Lucy looked last night; her dress +was rich, elegantly fancied, and particularly becoming to her graceful +form, which I never saw look so graceful before.</p> + +<p>All who attempted to be fine figures, shrunk into nothing before her.</p> + +<p>Lucy carries her head, you know, remarkably well; which, with the +advantage of her height, the perfect standard of women, her fine +proportion, the native dignity of her air, the majestic flow of her +robe, and the blaze of her diamonds, gave her a look of infinite +superiority; a superiority which some of the company seemed to feel in +a manner, which rather, I will own, gave me pain.</p> + +<p>In a place consecrated to joy, I hate to see any thing like an +uneasy sensation; yet, whilst human passions are what they are, it is +difficult to avoid them.</p> + +<p>There were four or five other sultanas, who seemed only the slaves +of her train.</p> + +<p class="preverse">In short,</p> +<div class="verse"> + “She look’d a goddess, and she mov’d a queen.”</div> + +<p>I was happy the unassuming simplicity of the character in which I +appeared, prevented comparisons which must have been extremely to my +disadvantage.</p> + +<p>I was safe in my littleness, like a modest shrub by the side of a +cedar; and, being in so different a style, had the better chance to be +taken notice of, even where Lucy was.</p> + +<p>She was radiant as the morning star, and even dazzlingly lovely.</p> + +<p>Her complexion, for Temple would not suffer her to wear a mask at +all, had the vivid glow of youth and health, heightened by pleasure, +and the consciousness of universal admiration.</p> + +<p>Her eyes had a fire which one could scarce look at.</p> + +<p>Temple’s vanity and tenderness were gratified to the utmost: he +drank eagerly the praises which envy itself could not have refused her.</p> + +<p>My mother extremely became her character; and, when talking to +Rivers, gave me the idea of the Roman Aurelia, whose virtues she has +equalled.</p> + +<p>He looked at her with a delight which rendered him a thousand times +more dear to me: she is really one of the most pleasing women that +ever existed.</p> + +<p>I am called: we are just setting out for Burleigh, which I have not +yet seen.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Yours<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.224">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCXX.</span><span class="let-num">224.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Bellfield, Thursday, two o’clock.</div> + +<p>We are returned: Colonel Willmott is charmed with Burleigh, and more +in love with Emily than ever.</p> + +<p>He is gone to his apartment, whither I shall follow him, and +acquaint him with my marriage; he is exactly in the disposition I +could wish.</p> + +<p>He will, I am sure, pardon any offence of which his <i>belle paisanne</i> +is the cause.</p> + +<p>I am returned.</p> + +<p>He is disappointed, but not surprized; owns no human heart could +have resisted Emily; begs she will allow his daughter a place in her +friendship.</p> + +<p>He insists on making her a present of diamonds; the only condition, +he tells me, on which he will forgive my marriage.</p> + +<p>I am going to introduce him to her in her apartment.</p> + +<p>Adieu! for a moment.</p> + +<p>Fitzgerald!—I scarce respire—the tumult of my joy—this +daughter whom I have refused—my Emily—could you have believed—my +Emily is the daughter of Colonel Willmott.</p> + +<p>When I announced him to her by that name, her color changed; but +when I added that he was just returned from the East Indies, she +trembled, her cheeks had a dying paleness, her voice faltered, she +pronounced faintly, “My father!” and sunk breathless on a sofa.</p> + +<p>He ran to her, he pressed her wildly to his bosom, he kissed her +pale cheek, he demanded if she was indeed his child? his Emily? the +dear pledge of his Emily Montague’s tenderness?</p> + +<p>Her senses returned, she fixed her eyes eagerly on him, she kissed +his hand, she would have spoke, but tears stopped her voice.</p> + +<p>The scene that followed is beyond my powers of description.</p> + +<p>I have left them a moment, to share my joy with you: the time is too +precious to say more. To-morrow you shall hear from me.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Yours,<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.225">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCXXI.</span><span class="let-num">225.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Captain Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Temple-house, Friday.</div> + +<p>Your friend is the happiest of mankind.</p> + +<p>Every anxiety is removed from my Emily’s dear bosom: a father’s +sanction leaves her nothing to desire.</p> + +<p>You may remember, she wished to delay our marriage: her motive was, +to wait Colonel Willmott’s return.</p> + +<p>Though promised by him to another, she hoped to bring him to leave +her heart free; little did she think the man destined for her by her +father, was the happy Rivers her heart had chosen.</p> + +<p>Bound by a solemn vow, she concealed the circumstances of her birth +even from me.</p> + +<p>She resolved never to marry another, yet thought duty obliged her to +wait her father’s arrival.</p> + +<p>She kindly supposed he would see me with her eyes, and, when he knew +me, change his design in my favor: she fancied he would crown her love +as the reward of her obedience in delaying her marriage.</p> + +<p>My importunity, and the fear of giving me room to doubt her +tenderness, as her vow prevented such an explanation as would have +satisfied me, bore down her duty to a father whom she had never seen, +and whom she had supposed dead, till the arrival of Mrs. Melmoth’s +letters; having been two years without hearing any thing of him.</p> + +<p>She married me, determined to give up her right to half his fortune +in favor of the person for whom he designed her; and hoped, by that +means, to discharge her father’s obligations, which she could not pay +at the expence of sacrificing her heart.</p> + +<p>But she writes to Mrs. Fitzgerald, and will tell you all.</p> + +<p>Come and share the happiness of your friends.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i2">Adieu!<br></span> +<span class="i4">Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.226">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCXXI.</span><span class="let-num">226.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Temple-house, Friday.</div> + +<p>My Rivers has told you—my sweet friend, in what words shall I +convey to you an adequate idea of your Emily’s transport, at a +discovery which has reconciled all her duties!</p> + +<p>Those anxieties, that sense of having failed in filial obedience, +which cast a damp on the joy of being wife to the most beloved of +mankind, are at an end.</p> + +<p>This husband whom I so dreaded, whom I determined never to accept, +was my Rivers.</p> + +<p>My father forgives me; he pardons the crime of love: he blesses that +kind providence which conducted us to happiness.</p> + +<p>How many has this event made happy!</p> + +<p>The most amiable of mothers shares my joy; she bends in grateful +thanks to that indulgent power who has rewarded her son for all his +goodness to her.</p> + +<p>Rivers hears her, and turns away to hide his tears: her tenderness +melts him to the softness of a woman.</p> + +<p>What gratitude do we not owe to heaven! may the sense of it be for +ever engraven on our hearts!</p> + +<p>My Lucy too; all, all are happy.</p> + +<p>But I will tell you. Rivers has already acquainted you with part of +my story.</p> + +<p>My uncle placed me, with a servant, in whom he could confide, in a +convent in France, till I was seven years old; he then sent for me to +England, and left me at school eight years longer; after which, he took +me with him to his regiment in Kent, where, you know, our friendship +began, and continued till he changed into another, then in America, +whither I attended him.</p> + +<p>My father’s affairs were, at that time, in a situation, which +determined my uncle to take the first opportunity of marrying me to +advantage.</p> + +<p>I regarded him as a father; he had always been more than a parent to +me; I had the most implicit deference to his will.</p> + +<p>He engaged me to Sir George Clayton; and, when dying, told me the +story of my birth, to which I had till then been a stranger, exacting +from me, however, an oath of secresy till I saw my father.</p> + +<p>He died, leaving me, with a trifle left in trust to him for my use +from my grandfather, about two thousand pounds, which was all I, at +that time, ever expected to possess.</p> + +<p>My father was then thought ruined; there was even a report of his +death, and I imagined myself absolute mistress of my own actions.</p> + +<p>I was near two years without hearing any thing of him; nor did I +know I had still a father, till the letters you brought me from Mrs. +Melmoth.</p> + +<p>A variety of accidents, and our being both abroad, and in such +distant parts of the world, prevented his letters arriving.</p> + +<p>In this situation, the kind hand of heaven conducted my Rivers to +Montreal.</p> + +<p>I saw him; and, from that moment, my whole soul was his.</p> + +<p>Formed for each other, our love was sudden and resistless as the +bolt of heaven: the first glance of those dear speaking eyes gave me a +new being, and awaked in me ideas never known before.</p> + +<p>The strongest sympathy attached me to him in spite of myself: I +thought it friendship, but felt that friendship more lively than what I +called my <i>love</i> for Sir George; all conversation but his became +insupportable to me; every moment that he passed from me, I counted as +lost in my existence.</p> + +<p>I loved him; that tenderness hourly increased: I hated Sir George, I +fancied him changed; I studied to find errors in a man who had, a few +weeks before, appeared to me amiable, and whom I had consented to +marry; I broke with him, and felt a weight removed from my soul.</p> + +<p>I trembled when Rivers appeared; I died to tell him my whole soul +was his; I watched his looks, to find there the same sentiments with +which he had inspired me: that transporting moment at length arrived; +I had the delight to find our tenderness was mutual, and to devote my +life to making happy the lord of my desires.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Melmoth’s letter brought me my father’s commands, if unmarried, +to continue so till his return.</p> + +<p>He added, that he intended me for a relation, to whose family he had +obligations; that, his affairs having suffered such a happy +revolution, he had it in his power, and, therefore, thought it his +duty, to pay this debt of gratitude; and, at the same time, hoping to +make me happy by connecting me with an amiable family, allied to him by +blood and friendship; and uniting me to a man whom report spoke worthy +of all my tenderness.</p> + +<p>You may remember, my dearest Bell, how strongly I was affected on +reading those letters: I wrote to Rivers, to beg him to defer our +marriage; but the manner in which he took that request, and the fear of +appearing indifferent to him, conquered all sense of what I owed to my +father, and I married him; making it, however, a condition that he +should ask no explanation of my conduct till I chose to give it.</p> + +<p>I knew not the character of my father; he might be a tyrant, and +divide us from each other: Rivers doubted my tenderness; would not my +waiting, if my father had afterwards refused his consent to our union, +have added to those cruel suspicions? might he not have supposed I had +ceased to love him, and waited for the excuse of paternal authority to +justify a change of sentiment?</p> + +<p>In short, love bore down every other consideration; if I persisted +in this delay, I might hazard losing all my soul held dear, the only +object for which life was worth my care.</p> + +<p>I determined, if I married, to give up all claim to my father’s +fortune, which I should justly forfeit by my disobedience to his +commands: I hoped, however, Rivers’s merit, and my father’s paternal +affection, when he knew us both, would influence him to make some +provision for me as his daughter.</p> + +<p>Half his fortune was all I ever hoped for, or even would have chose +to accept: the rest I determined to give up to the man whom I refused +to marry.</p> + +<p>I gave my hand to Rivers, and was happy; yet the idea of my +father’s return, and the consciousness of having disobeyed him, cast +sometimes a damp on my felicity, and threw a gloom over my soul, which +all my endeavors could scarce hide from Rivers, though his delicacy +prevented his asking the cause.</p> + +<p>I now know, what was then a secret to me, that my father had offered +his daughter to Rivers, with a fortune which could, however, have been +no temptation to a mind like his, had he not been attached to me: he +declined the offer, and, lest I should hear of it, and, from a romantic +disinterestedness, want him to accept it, pressed our marriage with +more importunity than ever; yet had the generosity to conceal this +sacrifice from me, and to wish it should be concealed for ever.</p> + +<p>These sentiments, so noble, so peculiar to my Rivers, prevented an +explanation, and hid from us, for some time, the circumstances which +now make our happiness so perfect.</p> + +<p>How infinitely worthy is Rivers of all my tenderness!</p> + +<p>My father has sent to speak with me in his apartment: I should have +told you, I this morning went to Bellfield, and brought from thence my +mother’s picture, which I have just sent him.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">Emily Rivers.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.227">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCXXIII.</span><span class="let-num">227.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland.</div> +<div class="dateline">London, Sunday.</div> + +<p>No words, my dear Emily, can speak our joy at the receipt of your +two last letters.</p> + +<p>You are then as happy as you deserve to be; we hope, in a few days, +to be witnesses of your felicity.</p> + +<p>We knew from the first of your father’s proposal to Rivers; but he +extorted a promise from us, never on any account to communicate it to +you: he also desired us to detain you in Berkshire, by lengthening our +visit, till your marriage, lest any friend of your father’s in London +should know his design, and chance acquaint you with it.</p> + +<p>Fitzgerald is <i>Monsieur le Majeur</i>, at your ladyship’s service: +he received his commission this morning.</p> + +<p>I once again congratulate you, my dear, on this triumph of +tenderness: you see love, like virtue, is not only its own reward, but +sometimes intitles us to other rewards too.</p> + +<p>It should always be considered, that those who marry from love, +<i>may</i> grow rich; but those who marry to be rich, will <i>never</i> +love.</p> + +<p>The very idea that love will come after marriage, is shocking to +minds which have the least spark of delicacy: to such minds, a marriage +which begins with indifference will certainly end in disgust and +aversion.</p> + +<p>I bespeak your papa for my <i>cecisbeo</i>; mine is extremely at +your service in return.</p> + +<p>But I am piqued, my dear. “Sentiments so noble, so peculiar to your +Rivers—”</p> + +<p>I am apt to believe there are men in the world—that nobleness of +mind is not so very <i>peculiar</i>—and that some people’s sentiments +may be as noble as other people’s.</p> + +<p>In short, I am inclined to fancy Fitzgerald would have acted just +the same part in the same situation.</p> + +<p>But it is your great fault, my dear Emily, to suppose your love a +phoenix, whereas he is only an agreable, worthy, handsome fellow, +<i>comme un autre</i>.</p> + +<p>I suppose you will be very angry; but who cares? I will be angry +too.</p> + +<p>Surely, my Fitzgerald—I allow Rivers all his merit; but +comparisons, my dear—</p> + +<p>Both our fellows, to be sure, are charming creatures; and I would +not change them for a couple of Adonis’s: yet I don’t insist upon it, +that there is nothing agreable in the world but them.</p> + +<p>You should remember, my dear, that beauty is in the lover’s eye; and +that, however highly you may think of Rivers, every woman breathing has +the same idea of <i>the dear man</i>.</p> + +<p>O heaven! I must tell you, because it will flatter your vanity about +your charmer.</p> + +<p>I have had a letter from an old lover of mine at Quebec, who tells +me, Madame Des Roches has just refused one of the best matches in the +country, and vows she will live and die a batchelor.</p> + +<p>’Tis a mighty foolish resolution, and yet I cannot help liking her +the better for making it.</p> + +<p>My dear papa talks of taking a house near you, and of having a +garden to rival yours: we shall spend a good deal of time with him, and +I shall make love to Rivers, which you know will be vastly pretty.</p> + +<p>One must do something to give a little variety to life; and nothing +is so amusing, or keeps the mind so pleasingly awake, especially in the +country, as the flattery of an agreable fellow.</p> + +<p>I am not, however, quite sure I shall not look abroad for a flirt, +for one’s friend’s husband is almost as insipid as one’s own.</p> + +<p>Our romantic adventures being at an end, my dear; and we being all +degenerated into sober people, who marry and <i>settle</i>; we seem in +great danger of sinking into vegetation: on which subject I desire +Rivers’s opinion, being, I know, a most exquisite enquirer into the +laws of nature.</p> + +<p>Love is a pretty invention, but, I am told, is apt to mellow into +friendship; a degree of perfection at which I by no means desire +Fitzgerald’s attachment for me to arrive on this side seventy.</p> + +<p>What must we do, my dear, to vary our days?</p> + +<p>Cards, you will own, are an agreable relief, and the least subject +to pall of any pleasures under the sun: and really, philosophically +speaking, what is life but an intermitted pool at quadrille?</p> + +<p>I am interrupted by a divine colonel in the guards.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">A. Fitzgerald.</span> +</div> + + +<h3 class="let-header" id="let.228">LETTER <span class="origtext">CCXXIV.</span><span class="let-num">228.</span></h3> +<div class="toline">To Mrs. Fitzgerald.</div> +<div class="dateline">Bellfield, Tuesday.</div> + +<p>I accept your challenge, Bell; and am greatly mistaken if you find +me so very insipid as you are pleased to suppose.</p> + +<p>Have no fear of falling into vegetation; not one amongst us has the +least vegetative quality.</p> + +<p>I have a thousand ideas of little amusements, to keep the mind +awake.</p> + +<p>None of our party are of that sleepy order of beings, who want +perpetual events to make them feel their existence: this is the defect +of the cold and inanimate, who have not spirit and vivacity enough to +taste the natural pleasures of life.</p> + +<p>Our adventures of one kind are at an end; but we shall see others, +as entertaining, springing up every moment.</p> + +<p>I dare say, our whole lives will be Pindaric: my only plan of life +is to have none at all, which, I think, my little Bell will approve.</p> + +<p>Please to observe, my sweet Bell, to make life pleasant, we must not +only have great pleasures but little ones, like the smaller auxiliary +parts of a building; we must have our trifling amusements, as well as +our sublime transports.</p> + +<p>My first <i>second</i> pleasure (if you will allow the expression) +is gardening; and for this reason, that it is my divine Emily’s: I must +teach you to love rural pleasures.</p> + +<p>Colonel Willmott has made me just as rich as I wish to be.</p> + +<p>You must know, my fair friend, that whilst I thought a fortune and +Emily incompatible, I had infinite contempt for the former, and fancied +that it would rather take from, than add to, my happiness; but, now I +can possess it with her, I allow it all its value.</p> + +<p>My father (with what delight do I call the father of Emily by that +name!) hinted at my taking a larger house; but I would not leave my +native Dryads for an imperial palace: I have, however, agreed to let +him build a wing to Bellfield, which it wants, to compleat the original +plan, and to furnish it in whatever manner he thinks fit.</p> + +<p>He is to have a house in London; and we are to ramble from one to +the other as fancy leads us.</p> + +<p>He insists on our having no rule but inclination: do you think we +are in any danger of vegetating, my dear Bell?</p> + +<p>The great science of life is, to keep in constant employment that +restless active principle within us, which, if not directed right, will +be eternally drawing us from real to imaginary happiness.</p> + +<p>Love, all charming as it is, requires to be kept alive by such a +variety of amusements, or avocations, as may prevent the languor to +which all human pleasures are subject.</p> + +<p>Emily’s tenderness and delicacy make me ever an expecting lover: she +contrives little parties of pleasure, and by surprize, of which she is +always the ornament and the soul: her whole attention is given to make +her Rivers happy.</p> + +<p>I envy the man who attends her on these little excursions.</p> + +<p>Love with us is ever led by the Sports and the Smiles.</p> + +<p>Upon the whole, people who have the spirit to act as we have done, +to dare to chuse their own companions for life, will generally be +happy.</p> + +<p>The affections are the true sources of enjoyment: love, friendship, +and, if you will allow me to anticipate, paternal tenderness, all the +domestic attachments, are sweet beyond words.</p> + +<p>The beneficent Author of nature, who gave us these affections for +the wisest purposes—</p> + +<p>“Cela est bien dit, mon cher Rivers; mais il faut cultiver notre +jardin.”</p> + +<p>You are right, my dear Bell, and I am a prating coxcomb.</p> + +<p>Lucy’s post-coach is just setting off, to wait your commands.</p> + +<p>I send this by Temple’s servant. On Thursday I hope to see our dear +groupe of friends re-united, and to have nothing to wish, but a +continuance of our present happiness.</p> +<div class="closer"> +<span class="i4">Adieu! Your faithful<br></span> +<span class="i8">Ed. Rivers.</span> +</div> +<div class="ender">THE END.</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The History of Emily Montague, by Frances Brooke + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE *** + +***** This file should be named 16300-h.htm or 16300-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/3/0/16300/ + +Produced by Andrew Sly + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The History of Emily Montague + +Author: Frances Brooke + +Release Date: July 15, 2005 [EBook #16300] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE *** + + + + +Produced by Andrew Sly + + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: This text retains many old and inconsistent +spellings as found in the Dodsley 1769 edition. Differences from that +edition are as follows: As is usually done in modern editions of Emily +Montague, the letters have been renumbered to run consecutively from 1 +to 228. This avoids irregularities in numbering in the original. Normal +case has been used for the initial words of each letter. Long s has been +replaced with a regular short s. The Errata which appeared at the end of +volume four of the original has been applied to the text. Various other +corrections have been made, and in each case, the original form has been +recorded in the html markup. Usage of quote marks has been modernized. + + + + + THE + HISTORY + OF + EMILY MONTAGUE. + In FOUR VOLUMES. + + + By the AUTHOR of + Lady JULIA MANDEVILLE. + + + --"A kind indulgent sleep + O'er works of length allowably may creep." + Horace. + + Vol. 1 + + + LONDON, + Printed for J. DODSLEY, in Pall Mall. + MDCCLXIX. + + + + +TO HIS EXCELLENCY GUY CARLETON, Esq. GOVERNOR AND COMMANDER IN +CHIEF OF His Majesty's Province of QUEBEC, &c. &c. &c. + +SIR, + +As the scene of so great a part of the following work is laid in +Canada, I flatter myself there is a peculiar propriety in addressing it +to your excellency, to whose probity and enlightened attention the +colony owes its happiness, and individuals that tranquillity of mind, +without which there can be no exertion of the powers of either the +understanding or imagination. + +Were I to say all your excellency has done to diffuse, through this +province, so happy under your command, a spirit of loyalty and +attachment to our excellent Sovereign, of chearful obedience to the +laws, and of that union which makes the strength of government, I +should hazard your esteem by doing you justice. + +I will, therefore, only beg leave to add mine to the general voice +of Canada; and to assure your excellency, that + + I am, + With the utmost esteem + and respect, + Your most obedient servant, + Frances Brooke. + London, + March 22, 1769. + + + +THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE. + + +LETTER 1. + + +To John Temple, Esq; at Paris. + +Cowes, April 10, 1766. + +After spending two or three very agreeable days here, with a party +of friends, in exploring the beauties of the Island, and dropping a +tender tear at Carisbrook Castle on the memory of the unfortunate +Charles the First, I am just setting out for America, on a scheme I +once hinted to you, of settling the lands to which I have a right as a +lieutenant-colonel on half pay. On enquiry and mature deliberation, I +prefer Canada to New-York for two reasons, that it is wilder, and that +the women are handsomer: the first, perhaps, every body will not +approve; the latter, I am sure, _you_ will. + +You may perhaps call my project romantic, but my active temper is +ill suited to the lazy character of a reduc'd officer: besides that I +am too proud to narrow my circle of life, and not quite unfeeling +enough to break in on the little estate which is scarce sufficient to +support my mother and sister in the manner to which they have been +accustom'd. + +What you call a sacrifice, is none at all; I love England, but am +not obstinately chain'd down to any spot of earth; nature has charms +every where for a man willing to be pleased: at my time of life, the +very change of place is amusing; love of variety, and the natural +restlessness of man, would give me a relish for this voyage, even if I +did not expect, what I really do, to become lord of a principality +which will put our large-acred men in England out of countenance. My +subjects indeed at present will be only bears and elks, but in time I +hope to see the _human face divine_ multiplying around me; and, in +thus cultivating what is in the rudest state of nature, I shall taste +one of the greatest of all pleasures, that of creation, and see order +and beauty gradually rise from chaos. + +The vessel is unmoor'd; the winds are fair; a gentle breeze agitates +the bosom of the deep; all nature smiles: I go with all the eager hopes +of a warm imagination; yet friendship casts a lingering look behind. + +Our mutual loss, my dear Temple, will be great. I shall never cease +to regret you, nor will you find it easy to replace the friend of your +youth. You may find friends of equal merit; you may esteem them +equally; but few connexions form'd after five and twenty strike root +like that early sympathy, which united us almost from infancy, and has +increas'd to the very hour of our separation. + +What pleasure is there in the friendships of the spring of life, +before the world, the mean unfeeling selfish world, breaks in on the +gay mistakes of the just-expanding heart, which sees nothing but truth, +and has nothing but happiness in prospect! + +I am not surpriz'd the heathens rais'd altars to friendship: 'twas +natural for untaught superstition to deify the source of every good; +they worship'd friendship, which animates the moral world, on the same +principle as they paid adoration to the sun, which gives life to the +world of nature. + +I am summon'd on board. Adieu! + + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 2. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, June 27. + +I have this moment your letter, my dear; I am happy to hear my +mother has been amus'd at Bath, and not at all surpriz'd to find she +rivals you in your conquests. By the way, I am not sure she is not +handsomer, notwithstanding you tell me you are handsomer than ever: I +am astonish'd she will lead a tall daughter about with her thus, to let +people into a secret they would never suspect, that she is past five +and twenty. + +You are a foolish girl, Lucy: do you think I have not more pleasure +in continuing to my mother, by coming hither, the little indulgencies +of life, than I could have had by enjoying them myself? pray reconcile +her to my absence, and assure her she will make me happier by jovially +enjoying the trifle I have assign'd to her use, than by procuring me +the wealth of a Nabob, in which she was to have no share. + +But to return; you really, Lucy, ask me such a million of questions, +'tis impossible to know which to answer first; the country, the +convents, the balls, the ladies, the beaux--'tis a history, not a +letter, you demand, and it will take me a twelvemonth to satisfy your +curiosity. + +Where shall I begin? certainly with what must first strike a +soldier: I have seen then the spot where the amiable hero expir'd in +the arms of victory; have traced him step by step with equal +astonishment and admiration: 'tis here alone it is possible to form an +adequate idea of an enterprize, the difficulties of which must have +destroy'd hope itself had they been foreseen. + +The country is a very fine one: you see here not only the +_beautiful_ which it has in common with Europe, but the _great +sublime_ to an amazing degree; every object here is magnificent: the +very people seem almost another species, if we compare them with the +French from whom they are descended. + +On approaching the coast of America, I felt a kind of religious +veneration, on seeing rocks which almost touch'd the clouds, cover'd +with tall groves of pines that seemed coeval with the world itself: to +which veneration the solemn silence not a little contributed; from Cape +Rosieres, up the river St. Lawrence, during a course of more than two +hundred miles, there is not the least appearance of a human footstep; +no objects meet the eye but mountains, woods, and numerous rivers, +which seem to roll their waters in vain. + +It is impossible to behold a scene like this without lamenting the +madness of mankind, who, more merciless than the fierce inhabitants of +the howling wilderness, destroy millions of their own species in the +wild contention for a little portion of that earth, the far greater +part of which remains yet unpossest, and courts the hand of labour for +cultivation. + +The river itself is one of the noblest in the world; its breadth is +ninety miles at its entrance, gradually, and almost imperceptibly, +decreasing; interspers'd with islands which give it a variety +infinitely pleasing, and navigable near five hundred miles from the +sea. + +Nothing can be more striking than the view of Quebec as you +approach; it stands on the summit of a boldly-rising hill, at the +confluence of two very beautiful rivers, the St. Lawrence and St. +Charles, and, as the convents and other public buildings first meet the +eye, appears to great advantage from the port. The island of Orleans, +the distant view of the cascade of Montmorenci, and the opposite +village of Beauport, scattered with a pleasing irregularity along the +banks of the river St. Charles, add greatly to the charms of the +prospect. + +I have just had time to observe, that the Canadian ladies have the +vivacity of the French, with a superior share of beauty: as to balls +and assemblies, we have none at present, it being a kind of interregnum +of government: if I chose to give you the political state of the +country, I could fill volumes with the _pours_ and the _contres_; +but I am not one of those sagacious observers, who, by staying a week +in a place, think themselves qualified to give, not only its natural, +but its moral and political history: besides which, you and I are +rather too young to be very profound politicians. We are in +expectation of a successor from whom we hope a new golden age; I shall +then have better subjects for a letter to a lady. + +Adieu! my dear girl! say every thing for me to my mother. Yours, + + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 3. + + +To Col. Rivers, at Quebec. + +London, April 30. + +Indeed! gone to people the wilds of America, Ned, and multiply the +_human face divine?_ 'tis a project worthy a tall handsome colonel of +twenty seven: let me see; five feet, eleven inches, well made, with +fine teeth, speaking eyes, a military air, and the look of a man of +fashion: spirit, generosity, a good understanding, some knowledge, an +easy address, a compassionate heart, a strong inclination for the +ladies, and in short every quality a gentleman should have: excellent +all these for colonization: _prenez garde, mes cheres dames_. You +have nothing against you, Ned, but your modesty; a very useless virtue +on French ground, or indeed on any ground: I wish you had a little more +consciousness of your own merits: remember that _to know one's self_ +the oracle of Apollo has pronounced to be the perfection of human +wisdom. Our fair friend Mrs. H---- says, "Colonel Rivers wants nothing +to make him the most agreeable man breathing but a little dash of the +coxcomb." + +For my part, I hate humility in a man of the world; 'tis worse than +even the hypocrisy of the saints: I am not ignorant, and therefore +never deny, that I am a very handsome fellow; and I have the pleasure +to find all the women of the same opinion. + +I am just arriv'd from Paris: the divine Madame De ---- is as lovely +and as constant as ever; 'twas cruel to leave her, but who can account +for the caprices of the heart? mine was the prey of a young +unexperienc'd English charmer, just come out of a convent, + + "The bloom of opening flowers--" + +Ha, Ned? But I forget; you are for the full-blown rose: 'tis a +happiness, as we are friends, that 'tis impossible we can ever be +rivals; a woman is grown out of my taste some years before she comes up +to yours: absolutely, Ned, you are too nice; for my part, I am not so +delicate; youth and beauty are sufficient for me; give me blooming +seventeen, and I cede to you the whole empire of sentiment. + +This, I suppose, will find you trying the force of your destructive +charms on the savage dames of America; chasing females wild as the +winds thro' woods as wild as themselves: I see you pursuing the stately +relict of some renown'd Indian chief, some plump squaw arriv'd at the +age of sentiment, some warlike queen dowager of the Ottawas or +Tuscaroras. + +And pray, _comment trouvez vous les dames sauvages?_ all pure +and genuine nature, I suppose; none of the affected coyness of Europe: +your attention there will be the more obliging, as the Indian heroes, I +am told, are not very attentive to the charms of the _beau sexe_. + +You are very sentimental on the subject of friendship; no one has +more exalted notions of this species of affection than myself, yet I +deny that it gives life to the moral world; a gallant man, like you, +might have found a more animating principle: + + _O Venus! O Mere de l'Amour!_ + +I am most gloriously indolent this morning, and would not write +another line if the empire of the world (observe I do not mean the +female world) depended on it. + + Adieu! + J. Temple. + + + +LETTER 4. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Quebec, July 1. + +'Tis very true, Jack; I have no relish for _the Misses_; for +puling girls in hanging sleeves, who feel no passion but vanity, and, +without any distinguishing taste, are dying for the first man who tells +them they are handsome. Take your boarding-school girls; but give me +_a woman_; one, in short, who has a soul; not a cold inanimate form, +insensible to the lively impressions of real love, and unfeeling as the +wax baby she has just thrown away. + +You will allow Prior to be no bad judge of female merit; and you may +remember his Egyptian maid, the favorite of the luxurious King +Solomon, is painted in full bloom. + +By the way, Jack, there is generally a certain hoity-toity +inelegance of form and manner at seventeen, which in my opinion is not +balanc'd by freshness of complexion, the only advantage girls have to +boast of. + +I have another objection to girls, which is, that they will +eternally fancy every man they converse with has designs; a coquet and +a prude _in the bud_ are equally disagreeable; the former expects +universal adoration, the latter is alarm'd even at that general +civility which is the right of all their sex; of the two however the +last is, I think, much the most troublesome; I wish these very +apprehensive young ladies knew, their _virtue_ is not half so +often in danger as they imagine, and that there are many male creatures +to whom they may safely shew politeness without being drawn into any +concessions inconsistent with the strictest honor. We are not half such +terrible animals as mammas, nurses, and novels represent us; and, if my +opinion is of any weight, I am inclin'd to believe those tremendous +men, who have designs on the whole sex, are, and ever were, characters +as fabulous as the giants of romance. + +Women after twenty begin to know this, and therefore converse with +us on the footing of rational creatures, without either fearing or +expecting to find every man a lover. + +To do the ladies justice however, I have seen the same absurdity in +my own sex, and have observed many a very good sort of man turn pale at +the politeness of an agreeable woman. + +I lament this mistake, in both sexes, because it takes greatly from +the pleasure of mix'd society, the only society for which I have any +relish. + +Don't, however, fancy that, because I dislike _the Misses_, I +have a taste for their grandmothers; there is a golden mean, Jack, of +which you seem to have no idea. + +You are very ill inform'd as to the manners of the Indian ladies; +'tis in the bud alone these wild roses are accessible; liberal to +profusion of their charms before marriage, they are chastity itself +after: the moment they commence wives, they give up the very idea of +pleasing, and turn all their thoughts to the cares, and those not the +most delicate cares, of domestic life: laborious, hardy, active, they +plough the ground, they sow, they reap; whilst the haughty husband +amuses himself with hunting, shooting, fishing, and such exercises only +as are the image of war; all other employments being, according to his +idea, unworthy the dignity of man. + +I have told you the labors of savage life, but I should observe that +they are only temporary, and when urg'd by the sharp tooth of +necessity: their lives are, upon the whole, idle beyond any thing we +can conceive. If the Epicurean definition of happiness is just, that it +consists in indolence of body, and tranquillity of mind, the Indians of +both sexes are the happiest people on earth; free from all care, they +enjoy the present moment, forget the past, and are without solicitude +for the future: in summer, stretch'd on the verdant turf, they sing, +they laugh, they play, they relate stories of their ancient heroes to +warm the youth to war; in winter, wrap'd in the furs which bounteous +nature provides them, they dance, they feast, and despise the rigors of +the season, at which the more effeminate Europeans tremble. + +War being however the business of their lives, and the first passion +of their souls, their very pleasures take their colors from it: every +one must have heard of the war dance, and their songs are almost all on +the same subject: on the most diligent enquiry, I find but one love +song in their language, which is short and simple, tho' perhaps not +inexpressive: + + "I love you, + I love you dearly, + I love you all day long." + +An old Indian told me, they had also songs of friendship, but I +could never procure a translation of one of them: on my pressing this +Indian to translate one into French for me, he told me with a haughty +air, the Indians were not us'd to make translations, and that if I +chose to understand their songs I must learn their language. By the +way, their language is extremely harmonious, especially as pronounced +by their women, and as well adapted to music as Italian itself. I must +not here omit an instance of their independent spirit, which is, that +they never would submit to have the service of the church, tho' they +profess the Romish religion, in any language but their own; the women, +who have in general fine voices, sing in the choir with a taste and +manner that would surprize you, and with a devotion that might edify +more polish'd nations. + +The Indian women are tall and well shaped; have good eyes, and +before marriage are, except their color, and their coarse greasy black +hair, very far from being disagreeable; but the laborious life they +afterwards lead is extremely unfavorable to beauty; they become coarse +and masculine, and lose in a year or two the power as well as the +desire of pleasing. To compensate however for the loss of their charms, +they acquire a new empire in marrying; are consulted in all affairs of +state, chuse a chief on every vacancy of the throne, are sovereign +arbiters of peace and war, as well as of the fate of those unhappy +captives that have the misfortune to fall into their hands, who are +adopted as children, or put to the most cruel death, as the wives of +the conquerors smile or frown. + +A Jesuit missionary told me a story on this subject, which one +cannot hear without horror: an Indian woman with whom he liv'd on his +mission was feeding her children, when her husband brought in an +English prisoner; she immediately cut off his arm, and gave her +children the streaming blood to drink: the Jesuit remonstrated on the +cruelty of the action, on which, looking sternly at him, "I would have +them warriors," said she, "and therefore feed them with the food of +men." + +This anecdote may perhaps disgust you with the Indian ladies, who +certainly do not excel in female softness. I will therefore turn to the +Canadian, who have every charm except that without which all other +charms are to me insipid, I mean sensibility: they are gay, coquet, and +sprightly; more gallant than sensible; more flatter'd by the vanity of +inspiring passion, than capable of feeling it themselves; and, like +their European countrywomen, prefer the outward attentions of unmeaning +admiration to the real devotion of the heart. There is not perhaps on +earth a race of females, who talk so much, or feel so little, of love +as the French; the very reverse is in general true of the English: my +fair countrywomen seem ashamed of the charming sentiment to which they +are indebted for all their power. + +Adieu! I am going to attend a very handsome French lady, who allows +me the honor to drive her _en calache_ to our Canadian Hyde Park, +the road to St. Foix, where you will see forty or fifty calashes, with +pretty women in them, parading every evening: you will allow the +apology to be admissible. + + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 5. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, July 4. + +What an inconstant animal is man! do you know, Lucy, I begin to be +tir'd of the lovely landscape round me? I have enjoy'd from it all the +pleasure meer inanimate objects can give, and find 'tis a pleasure that +soon satiates, if not relieved by others which are more lively. The +scenery is to be sure divine, but one grows weary of meer scenery: the +most enchanting prospect soon loses its power of pleasing, when the eye +is accustom'd to it: we gaze at first transported on the charms of +nature, and fancy they will please for ever; but, alas! it will not +do; we sigh for society, the conversation of those dear to us; the +more animated pleasures of the heart. There are fine women, and men of +merit here; but, as the affections are not in our power, I have not +yet felt my heart gravitate towards any of them. I must absolutely set +in earnest about my settlement, in order to emerge from the state of +vegetation into which I seem falling. + +But to your last: you ask me a particular account of the convents +here. Have you an inclination, my dear, to turn nun? if you have, you +could not have applied to a properer person; my extreme modesty and +reserve, and my speaking French, having made me already a great +favourite with the older part of all the three communities, who +unanimously declare colonel Rivers to be _un tres aimable homme_, +and have given me an unlimited liberty of visiting them whenever I +please: they now and then treat _me_ with a sight of some of the +young ones, but this is a favor not allow'd to all the world. + +There are three religious houses at Quebec, so you have choice; the +Ursulines, the Hotel Dieu, and the General Hospital. The first is the +severest order in the Romish church, except that very cruel one which +denies its fair votaries the inestimable liberty of speech. The house +is large and handsome, but has an air of gloominess, with which the +black habit, and the livid paleness of the nuns, extremely corresponds. +The church is, contrary to the style of the rest of the convent, +ornamented and lively to the last degree. The superior is an +English-woman of good family, who was taken prisoner by the savages +when a child, and plac'd here by the generosity of a French officer. +She is one of the most amiable women I ever knew, with a benevolence in +her countenance which inspires all who see her with affection: I am +very fond of her conversation, tho' sixty and a nun. + +The Hotel Dieu is very pleasantly situated, with a view of the two +rivers, and the entrance of the port: the house is chearful, airy, and +agreeable; the habit extremely becoming, a circumstance a handsome +woman ought by no means to overlook; 'tis white with a black gauze +veil, which would shew your complexion to great advantage. The order is +much less severe than the Ursulines, and I might add, much more useful, +their province being the care of the sick: the nuns of this house are +sprightly, and have a look of health which is wanting at the Ursulines. + +The General Hospital, situated about a mile out of town, on the +borders of the river St. Charles, is much the most agreeable of the +three. The order and the habit are the same with the Hotel Dieu, except +that to the habit is added the cross, generally worn in Europe by +canonesses only: a distinction procur'd for them by their founder, St. +Vallier, the second bishop of Quebec. The house is, without, a very +noble building; and neatness, elegance and propriety reign within. The +nuns, who are all of the noblesse, are many of them handsome, and all +genteel, lively, and well bred; they have an air of the world, their +conversation is easy, spirited, and polite: with them you almost forget +the recluse in the woman of condition. In short, you have the best +nuns at the Ursulines, the most agreeable women at the General +Hospital: all however have an air of chagrin, which they in vain +endeavour to conceal; and the general eagerness with which they tell +you unask'd they are happy, is a strong proof of the contrary. + +Tho' the most indulgent of all men to the follies of others, +especially such as have their source in mistaken devotion; tho' willing +to allow all the world to play the fool their own way, yet I cannot +help being fir'd with a degree of zeal against an institution equally +incompatible with public good, and private happiness; an institution +which cruelly devotes beauty and innocence to slavery, regret, and +wretchedness; to a more irksome imprisonment than the severest laws +inflict on the worst of criminals. + +Could any thing but experience, my dear Lucy, make it be believ'd +possible that there should be rational beings, who think they are +serving the God of mercy by inflicting on themselves voluntary +tortures, and cutting themselves off from that state of society in +which he has plac'd them, and for which they were form'd? by renouncing +the best affections of the human heart, the tender names of friend, of +wife, of mother? and, as far as in them lies, counter-working creation? +by spurning from them every amusement however innocent, by refusing the +gifts of that beneficent power who made us to be happy, and destroying +his most precious gifts, health, beauty, sensibility, chearfulness, and +peace! + +My indignation is yet awake, from having seen a few days since at +the Ursulines, an extreme lovely young girl, whose countenance spoke a +soul form'd for the most lively, yet delicate, ties of love and +friendship, led by a momentary enthusiasm, or perhaps by a childish +vanity artfully excited, to the foot of those altars, which she will +probably too soon bathe with the bitter tears of repentance and +remorse. + +The ceremony, form'd to strike the imagination, and seduce the heart +of unguarded youth, is extremely solemn and affecting; the procession +of the nuns, the sweetness of their voices in the choir, the dignified +devotion with which the charming enthusiast received the veil, and took +the cruel vow which shut her from the world for ever, struck my heart +in spite of my reason, and I felt myself touch'd even to tears by a +superstition I equally pity and despise. + +I am not however certain it was the ceremony which affected me thus +strongly; it was impossible not to feel for this amiable victim; never +was there an object more interesting; her form was elegance itself; +her air and motion animated and graceful; the glow of pleasure was on +her cheek, the fire of enthusiasm in her eyes, which are the finest I +ever saw: never did I see joy so livelily painted on the countenance of +the happiest bride; she seem'd to walk in air; her whole person look'd +more than human. + +An enemy to every species of superstition, I must however allow it +to be least destructive to true virtue in your gentle sex, and +therefore to be indulg'd with least danger: the superstition of men is +gloomy and ferocious; it lights the fire, and points the dagger of the +assassin; whilst that of women takes its color from the sex; is soft, +mild, and benevolent; exerts itself in acts of kindness and charity, +and seems only substituting the love of God to that of man. + +Who can help admiring, whilst they pity, the foundress of the +Ursuline convent, Madame de la Peltrie, to whom the very colony in some +measure owes its existence? young, rich and lovely; a widow in the +bloom of life, mistress of her own actions, the world was gay before +her, yet she left all the pleasures that world could give, to devote +her days to the severities of a religion she thought the only true one: +she dar'd the dangers of the sea, and the greater dangers of a savage +people; she landed on an unknown shore, submitted to the extremities of +cold and heat, of thirst and hunger, to perform a service she thought +acceptable to the Deity. To an action like this, however mistaken the +motive, bigotry alone will deny praise: the man of candor will only +lament that minds capable of such heroic virtue are not directed to +views more conducive to their own and the general happiness. + +I am unexpectedly call'd this moment, my dear Lucy, on some business +to Montreal, from whence you shall hear from me. + + Adieu! + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 6. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Montreal, July 9. + +I am arriv'd, my dear, and have brought my heart safe thro' such a +continued fire as never poor knight errant was exposed to; waited on at +every stage by blooming country girls, full of spirit and coquetry, +without any of the village bashfulness of England, and dressed like +the shepherdesses of romance. A man of adventure might make a pleasant +journey to Montreal. + +The peasants are ignorant, lazy, dirty, and stupid beyond all +belief; but hospitable, courteous, civil; and, what is particularly +agreeable, they leave their wives and daughters to do the honors of the +house: in which obliging office they acquit themselves with an +attention, which, amidst every inconvenience apparent (tho' I am told +not real) poverty can cause, must please every guest who has a soul +inclin'd to be pleas'd: for my part, I was charm'd with them, and eat +my homely fare with as much pleasure as if I had been feasting on +ortolans in a palace. Their conversation is lively and amusing; all +the little knowledge of Canada is confined to the sex; very few, even +of the seigneurs, being able to write their own names. + +The road from Quebec to Montreal is almost a continued street, the +villages being numerous, and so extended along the banks of the river +St. Lawrence as to leave scarce a space without houses in view; except +where here or there a river, a wood, or mountain intervenes, as if to +give a more pleasing variety to the scene. I don't remember ever having +had a more agreeable journey; the fine prospects of the day so +enliven'd by the gay chat of the evening, that I was really sorry when +I approach'd Montreal. + +The island of Montreal, on which the town stands, is a very lovely +spot; highly cultivated, and tho' less wild and magnificent, more +smiling than the country round Quebec: the ladies, who seem to make +pleasure their only business, and most of whom I have seen this morning +driving about the town in calashes, and making what they call, the +_tour de la ville_, attended by English officers, seem generally +handsome, and have an air of sprightliness with which I am charm'd; I +must be acquainted with them all, for tho' my stay is to be short, I +see no reason why it should be dull. I am told they are fond of little +rural balls in the country, and intend to give one as soon as I have +paid my respects in form. + +Six in the evening. + +I am just come from dining with the ---- regiment, and find I have a +visit to pay I was not aware of, to two English ladies who are a few +miles out of town: one of them is wife to the major of the regiment, +and the other just going to be married to a captain in it, Sir George +Clayton, a young handsome baronet, just come to his title and a very +fine estate, by the death of a distant relation: he is at present at +New York, and I am told they are to be married as soon as he comes +back. + +Eight o'clock. + +I have been making some flying visits to the French ladies; tho' I +have not seen many beauties, yet in general the women are handsome; +their manner is easy and obliging, they make the most of their charms +by their vivacity, and I certainly cannot be displeas'd with their +extreme partiality for the English officers; their own men, who indeed +are not very attractive, have not the least chance for any share in +their good graces. + +Thursday morning. + +I am just setting out with a friend for Major Melmoth's, to pay my +compliments to the two ladies: I have no relish for this visit; I hate +misses that are going to be married; they are always so full of the +dear man, that they have not common civility to other people. I am told +however both the ladies are agreeable. + +14th. Eight in the evening. + +Agreeable, Lucy! she is an angel: 'tis happy for me she is engag'd; +nothing else could secure my heart, of which you know I am very +tenacious: only think of finding beauty, delicacy, sensibility, all +that can charm in woman, hid in a wood in Canada! + +You say I am given to be enthusiastic in my approbations, but she is +really charming. I am resolv'd not only to have a friendship for her +myself, but that _you_ shall, and have told her so; she comes to +England as soon as she is married; you are form'd to love each other. + +But I must tell you; Major Melmoth kept us a week at his house in +the country, in one continued round of rural amusements; by which I do +not mean hunting and shooting, but such pleasures as the ladies could +share; little rustic balls and parties round the neighbouring country, +in which parties we were joined by all the fine women at Montreal. Mrs. +Melmoth is a very pleasing, genteel brunette, but Emily Montague--you +will say I am in love with her if I describe her, and yet I declare to +you I am not: knowing she loves another, to whom she is soon to be +united, I see her charms with the same kind of pleasure I do yours; a +pleasure, which, tho' extremely lively, is by our situation without the +least mixture of desire. + +I have said, she is charming; there are men here who do not think +so, but to me she is loveliness itself. My ideas of beauty are perhaps +a little out of the common road: I hate a woman of whom every man +coldly says, _she is handsome_; I adore beauty, but it is not meer +features or complexion to which I give that name; 'tis life, +'tis spirit, 'tis animation, 'tis--in one word, 'tis Emily +Montague--without being regularly beautiful, she charms every +sensible heart; all other women, however lovely, appear marble statues +near her: fair; pale (a paleness which gives the idea of delicacy +without destroying that of health), with dark hair and eyes, the +latter large and languishing, she seems made to feel to a trembling +excess the passion she cannot fail of inspiring: her elegant form has +an air of softness and languor, which seizes the whole soul in a +moment: her eyes, the most intelligent I ever saw, hold you enchain'd +by their bewitching sensibility. + +There are a thousand unspeakable charms in her conversation; but +what I am most pleas'd with, is the attentive politeness of her manner, +which you seldom see in a person in love; the extreme desire of +pleasing one man generally taking off greatly from the attention due to +all the rest. This is partly owing to her admirable understanding, and +partly to the natural softness of her soul, which gives her the +strongest desire of pleasing. As I am a philosopher in these matters, +and have made the heart my study, I want extremely to see her with her +lover, and to observe the gradual encrease of her charms in his +presence; love, which embellishes the most unmeaning countenance, must +give to her's a fire irresistible: what eyes! when animated by +tenderness! + +The very soul acquires a new force and beauty by loving; a woman of +honor never appears half so amiable, or displays half so many virtues, +as when sensible to the merit of a man who deserves her affection. +Observe, Lucy, I shall never allow you to be handsome till I hear you +are in love. + +Did I tell you Emily Montague had the finest hand and arm in the +world? I should however have excepted yours: her tone of voice too has +the same melodious sweetness, a perfection without which the loveliest +woman could never make the least impression on my heart: I don't think +you are very unlike upon the whole, except that she is paler. You know, +Lucy, you have often told me I should certainly have been in love with +you if I had not been your brother: this resemblance is a proof you +were right. You are really as handsome as any woman can be whose +sensibility has never been put in motion. + +I am to give a ball to-morrow; Mrs. Melmoth is to have the honors of +it, but as she is with child, she does not dance. This circumstance has +produc'd a dispute not a little flattering to my vanity: the ladies are +making interest to dance with me; what a happy exchange have I made! +what man of common sense would stay to be overlook'd in England, who +can have rival beauties contend for him in Canada? This important +point is not yet settled; the _etiquette_ here is rather difficult +to adjust; as to me, I have nothing to do in the consultation; my +hand is destin'd to the longest pedigree; we stand prodigiously on our +noblesse at Montreal. + +Four o'clock. + +After a dispute in which two French ladies were near drawing their +husbands into a duel, the point of honor is yielded by both to Miss +Montague; each insisting only that I should not dance with the other: +for my part, I submit with a good grace, as you will suppose. + +Saturday morning. + +I never passed a more agreeable evening: we have our amusements +here, I assure you: a set of fine young fellows, and handsome women, +all well dress'd, and in humor with themselves, and with each other: my +lovely Emily like Venus amongst the Graces, only multiplied to about +sixteen. Nothing is, in my opinion, so favorable to the display of +beauty as a ball. A state of rest is ungraceful; all nature is most +beautiful in motion; trees agitated by the wind, a ship under sail, a +horse in the course, a fine woman dancing: never any human being had +such an aversion to still life as I have. + +I am going back to Melmoth's for a month; don't be alarm'd, Lucy! I +see all her perfections, but I see them with the cold eye of admiration +only: a woman engaged loses all her attractions as a woman; there is +no love without a ray of hope: my only ambition is to be her friend; I +want to be the confidant of her passion. With what spirit such a mind +as hers must love! + + Adieu! my dear! + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 7. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Montreal, August 15. + +By Heavens, Lucy, this is more than man can bear; I was mad to stay +so long at Melmoth's; there is no resisting this little seducer: 'tis +shameful in such a lovely woman to have understanding too; yet even +this I could forgive, had she not that enchanting softness in her +manner, which steals upon the soul, and would almost make ugliness +itself charm; were she but vain, one had some chance, but she will take +upon her to have no consciousness, at least no apparent consciousness, +of her perfections, which is really intolerable. I told her so last +night, when she put on such a malicious smile--I believe the little +tyrant wants to add me to the list of her slaves; but I was not form'd +to fill up a train. The woman I love must be so far from giving +another the preference, that she must have no soul but for me; I am one +of the most unreasonable men in the world on this head; she may fancy +what she pleases, but I set her and all her attractions at defiance: I +have made my escape, and shall set off for Quebec in an hour. Flying +is, I must acknowledge, a little out of character, and unbecoming a +soldier; but in these cases, it is the very best thing man or woman +either can do, when they doubt their powers of resistance. + +I intend to be ten days going to Quebec. I propose visiting the +priests at every village, and endeavouring to get some knowledge of the +nature of the country, in order to my intended settlement. Idleness +being the root of all evil, and the nurse of love, I am determin'd to +keep myself employed; nothing can be better suited to my temper than +my present design; the pleasure of cultivating lands here is as much +superior to what can be found in the same employment in England, as +watching the expanding rose, and beholding the falling leaves: America +is in infancy, Europe in old age. Nor am I very ill qualified for this +agreable task: I have studied the Georgicks, and am a pretty enough +kind of a husbandman as far as theory goes; nay, I am not sure I shall +not be, even in practice, the best _gentleman_ farmer in the +province. + +You may expect soon to hear of me in the _Museum Rusticum_; I +intend to make amazing discoveries in the rural way: I have already +found out, by the force of my own genius, two very uncommon +circumstances; that in Canada, contrary to what we see every where +else, the country is rich, the capital poor; the hills fruitful, the +vallies barren. You see what excellent dispositions I have to be an +useful member of society: I had always a strong biass to the study of +natural philosophy. + +Tell my mother how well I am employ'd, and she cannot but approve my +voyage: assure her, my dear, of my tenderest regard. + +The chaise is at the door. + + Adieu! + Ed. Rivers. + +The lover is every hour expected; I am not quite sure I should have +lik'd to see him arrive: a third person, you know, on such an occasion, +sinks into nothing; and I love, wherever I am, to be one of the figures +which strike the eye; I hate to appear on the back ground of the +picture. + + + +LETTER 8. + + +To Miss Rivers. + +Quebec, Aug. 24. + +You can't think, my dear, what a fund of useful knowledge I have +treasur'd up during my journey from Montreal. This colony is a rich +mine yet unopen'd; I do not mean of gold and silver, but of what are +of much more real value, corn and cattle. Nothing is wanting but +encouragement and cultivation; the Canadians are at their ease even +without labor; nature is here a bounteous mother, who pours forth her +gifts almost unsolicited: bigotry, stupidity, and laziness, united, +have not been able to keep the peasantry poor. I rejoice to find such +admirable capabilities where I propose to fix my dominion. + +I was hospitably entertained by the cures all the way down, tho' +they are in general but ill provided for: the parochial clergy are +useful every where, but I have a great aversion to monks, those drones +in the political hive, whose whole study seems to be to make themselves +as useless to the world as possible. Think too of the shocking +indelicacy of many of them, who make it a point of religion to abjure +linen, and wear their habits till they drop off. How astonishing that +any mind should suppose the Deity an enemy to cleanliness! the Jewish +religion was hardly any thing else. + +I paid my respects wherever I stopped, to the _seigneuress_ of +the village; for as to the seigneurs, except two or three, if they had +not wives, they would not be worth visiting. + +I am every day more pleased with the women here; and, if I was +gallant, should be in danger of being a convert to the French stile of +gallantry; which certainly debases the mind much less than ours. + +But what is all this to my Emily? How I envy Sir George! what +happiness has Heaven prepared for him, if he has a soul to taste it! + +I really must not think of her; I found so much delight in her +conversation, it was quite time to come away; I am almost ashamed to +own how much difficulty I found in leaving her: do you know I have +scarce slept since? This is absurd, but I cannot help it; which by the +way is an admirable excuse for any thing. + +I have been come but two hours, and am going to Silleri, to pay my +compliments to your friend Miss Fermor, who arrived with her father, +who comes to join his regiment, since I left Quebec. I hear there has +been a very fine importation of English ladies during my absence. I am +sorry I have not time to visit the rest, but I go to-morrow morning to +the Indian village for a fortnight, and have several letters to write +to-night. + + Adieu! I am interrupted, + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 9. + + +To Mrs. Melmoth, at Montreal. + +Quebec, August 24. + +I cannot, Madam, express my obligation to you for having added a +postscript to Major Melmoth's letter: I am sure he will excuse my +answering the whole to you; if not, I beg he may know that I shall be +very pert about it, being much more solicitous to please you than him, +for a thousand reasons too tedious to mention. + +I thought you had more penetration than to suppose me indifferent: +on the contrary, sensibility is my fault; though it is not your little +every-day beauties who can excite it: I have admirable dispositions to +love, though I am hard to please: in short, _I am not cruel, I am +only nice_: do but you, or your divine friend, give me leave to wear +your chains, and you shall soon be convinced I can love _like an +angel_, when I set in earnest about it. But, alas! you are married, +and in love with your husband; and your friend is in a situation still +more unfavorable to a lover's hopes. This is particularly unfortunate, +as you are the only two of your bewitching sex in Canada, for whom my +heart feels the least sympathy. To be plain, but don't tell the little +Major, I am more than half in love with you both, and, if I was the +grand Turk, should certainly fit out a fleet, to seize, and bring you +to my seraglio. + +There is one virtue I admire extremely in you both; I mean, that +humane and tender compassion for the poor men, which prompts you to be +always seen together; if you appeared separate, where is the hero who +could resist either of you? + +You ask me how I like the French ladies at Montreal: I think them +extremely pleasing; and many of them handsome; I thought Madame +L---- so, even near you and Miss Montague; which is, I think, saying as +much as can be said on the subject. + +I have just heard by accident that Sir George is arrived at +Montreal. Assure Miss Montague, no one can be more warmly interested in +her happiness than I am: she is the most perfect work of Heaven; may +she be the happiest! I feel much more on this occasion than I can +express: a mind like hers must, in marriage, be exquisitely happy or +miserable: my friendship makes me tremble for her, notwithstanding the +worthy character I have heard of Sir George. + +I will defer till another time what I had to say to Major Melmoth. + + I have the honour to be, + Madam, + Yours &c. + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 10. + + +Silleri, August 24. + +I have been a month arrived, my dear, without having seen your +brother, who is at Montreal, but I am told is expected to-day. I have +spent my time however very agreably. I know not what the winter may be, +but I am enchanted with the beauty of this country in summer; bold, +picturesque, romantic, nature reigns here in all her wanton +luxuriance, adorned by a thousand wild graces which mock the cultivated +beauties of Europe. The scenery about the town is infinitely lovely; +the prospect extensive, and diversified by a variety of hills, woods, +rivers, cascades, intermingled with smiling farms and cottages, and +bounded by distant mountains which seem to scale the very Heavens. + +The days are much hotter here than in England, but the heat is more +supportable from the breezes which always spring up about noon; and the +evenings are charming beyond expression. We have much thunder and +lightening, but very few instances of their being fatal: the thunder is +more magnificent and aweful than in Europe, and the lightening brighter +and more beautiful; I have even seen it of a clear pale purple, +resembling the gay tints of the morning. + +The verdure is equal to that of England, and in the evening acquires +an unspeakable beauty from the lucid splendor of the fire-flies +sparkling like a thousand little stars on the trees and on the grass. + +There are two very noble falls of water near Quebec, la Chaudiere +and Montmorenci: the former is a prodigious sheet of water, rushing +over the wildest rocks, and forming a scene grotesque, irregular, +astonishing: the latter, less wild, less irregular, but more pleasing +and more majestic, falls from an immense height, down the side of a +romantic mountain, into the river St. Lawrence, opposite the most +smiling part of the island of Orleans, to the cultivated charms of +which it forms the most striking and agreeable contrast. + +The river of the same name, which supplies the cascade of +Montmorenci, is the most lovely of all inanimate objects: but why do +I call it inanimate? It almost breathes; I no longer wonder at the +enthusiasm of Greece and Rome; 'twas from objects resembling this their +mythology took its rise; it seems the residence of a thousand deities. + +Paint to yourself a stupendous rock burst as it were in sunder by +the hands of nature, to give passage to a small, but very deep and +beautiful river; and forming on each side a regular and magnificent +wall, crowned with the noblest woods that can be imagined; the sides of +these romantic walls adorned with a variety of the gayest flowers, and +in many places little streams of the purest water gushing through, and +losing themselves in the river below: a thousand natural grottoes in +the rock make you suppose yourself in the abode of the Nereids; as a +little island, covered with flowering shrubs, about a mile above the +falls, where the river enlarges itself as if to give it room, seems +intended for the throne of the river goddess. Beyond this, the rapids, +formed by the irregular projections of the rock, which in some places +seem almost to meet, rival in beauty, as they excel in variety, the +cascade itself, and close this little world of enchantment. + +In short, the loveliness of this fairy scene alone more than pays +the fatigues of my voyage; and, if I ever murmur at having crossed the +Atlantic, remind me that I have seen the river Montmorenci. + +I can give you a very imperfect account of the people here; I have +only examined the landscape about Quebec, and have given very little +attention to the figures; the French ladies are handsome, but as to the +beaux, they appear to me not at all dangerous, and one might safely +walk in a wood by moonlight with the most agreeable Frenchman here. I +am not surprized the Canadian ladies take such pains to seduce our men +from us; but I think it a little hard we have no temptation to make +reprisals. + +I am at present at an extreme pretty farm on the banks of the river +St. Lawrence; the house stands at the foot of a steep mountain covered +with a variety of trees, forming a verdant sloping wall, which rises in +a kind of regular confusion, "Shade above shade, a woody theatre," and +has in front this noble river, on which the ships continually passing +present to the delighted eye the most charming moving picture +imaginable; I never saw a place so formed to inspire that pleasing +lassitude, that divine inclination to saunter, which may not improperly +be called, the luxurious indolence of the country. I intend to build a +temple here to the charming goddess of laziness. + +A gentleman is just coming down the winding path on the side of the +hill, whom by his air I take to be your brother. Adieu! I must receive +him: my father is at Quebec. + + Yours, + Arabella Fermor. + +Your brother has given me a very pleasing piece of intelligence: my +friend Emily Montague is at Montreal, and is going to be married to +great advantage; I must write to her immediately, and insist on her +making me a visit before she marries. She came to America two years +ago, with her uncle Colonel Montague, who died here, and I imagined was +gone back to England; she is however at Montreal with Mrs. Melmoth, a +distant relation of her mother's. Adieu! _ma tres chere!_ + + + +LETTER 11. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, Sept. 10. + +I find, my dear, that absence and amusement are the best remedies +for a beginning passion; I have passed a fortnight at the Indian +village of Lorette, where the novelty of the scene, and the enquiries I +have been led to make into their antient religion and manners, have +been of a thousand times more service to me than all the reflection in +the world would have been. + +I will own to you that I staid too long at Montreal, or rather at +Major Melmoth's; to be six weeks in the same house with one of the +most amiable, most pleasing of women, was a trying situation to a heart +full of sensibility, and of a sensibility which has been hitherto, +from a variety of causes, a good deal restrained. I should have avoided +the danger from the first, had it appeared to me what it really was; +but I thought myself secure in the consideration of her engagements, a +defence however which I found grow weaker every day. + +But to my savages: other nations talk of liberty, they possess it; +nothing can be more astonishing than to see a little village of about +thirty or forty families, the small remains of the Hurons, almost +exterminated by long and continual war with the Iroquoise, preserve +their independence in the midst of an European colony consisting of +seventy thousand inhabitants; yet the fact is true of the savages of +Lorette; they assert and they maintain that independence with a spirit +truly noble. One of our company having said something which an Indian +understood as a supposition that they had been _subjects_ of +France, his eyes struck fire, he stop'd him abruptly, contrary to +their respectful and sensible custom of never interrupting the person +who speaks, "You mistake, brother," said he; "we are subjects to no +prince; a savage is free all over the world." And he spoke only truth; +they are not only free as a people, but every individual is perfectly +so. Lord of himself, at once subject and master, a savage knows no +superior, a circumstance which has a striking effect on his behaviour; +unawed by rank or riches, distinctions unknown amongst his own nation, +he would enter as unconcerned, would possess all his powers as freely +in the palace of an oriental monarch, as in the cottage of the meanest +peasant: 'tis the species, 'tis man, 'tis his equal he respects, +without regarding the gaudy trappings, the accidental advantages, to +which polished nations pay homage. + +I have taken some pains to develop their present, as well as past, +religious sentiments, because the Jesuit missionaries have boasted so +much of their conversion; and find they have rather engrafted a few of +the most plain and simple truths of Christianity on their ancient +superstitions, than exchanged one faith for another; they are baptized, +and even submit to what they themselves call the _yoke_ of +confession, and worship according to the outward forms of the Romish +church, the drapery of which cannot but strike minds unused to +splendor; but their belief is very little changed, except that the +women seem to pay great reverence to the Virgin, perhaps because +flattering to the sex. They anciently believed in one God, the ruler +and creator of the universe, whom they called _the Great Spirit_ +and the _Master of Life_; in the sun as his image and representative; +in a multitude of inferior spirits and demons; and in a future +state of rewards and punishments, or, to use their own phrase, +in _a country of souls_. They reverenced the spirits of their +departed heroes, but it does not appear that they paid them any +religious adoration. Their morals were more pure, their manners more +simple, than those of polished nations, except in what regarded the +intercourse of the sexes: the young women before marriage were indulged +in great libertinism, hid however under the most reserved and decent +exterior. They held adultery in abhorrence, and with the more reason +as their marriages were dissolvable at pleasure. The missionaries are +said to have found no difficulty so great in gaining them to +Christianity, as that of persuading them to marry for life: they +regarded the Christian system of marriage as contrary to the laws of +nature and reason; and asserted that, as the _Great Spirit_ formed +us to be happy, it was opposing his will, to continue together when +otherwise. + +The sex we have so unjustly excluded from power in Europe have a +great share in the Huron government; the chief is chose by the matrons +from amongst the nearest male relations, by the female line, of him he +is to succeed; and is generally an aunt's or sister's son; a custom +which, if we examine strictly into the principle on which it is +founded, seems a little to contradict what we are told of the extreme +chastity of the married ladies. + +The power of the chief is extremely limited; he seems rather to +advise his people as a father than command them as a master: yet, as +his commands are always reasonable, and for the general good, no prince +in the world is so well obeyed. They have a supreme council of +ancients, into which every man enters of course at an age fixed, and +another of assistants to the chief on common occasions, the members of +which are like him elected by the matrons: I am pleased with this last +regulation, as women are, beyond all doubt, the best judges of the +merit of men; and I should be extremely pleased to see it adopted in +England: canvassing for elections would then be the most agreeable +thing in the world, and I am sure the ladies would give their votes on +much more generous principles than we do. In the true sense of the +word, _we_ are the savages, who so impolitely deprive you of the +common rights of citizenship, and leave you no power but that of which +we cannot deprive you, the resistless power of your charms. By the way, +I don't think you are obliged in conscience to obey laws you have had +no share in making; your plea would certainly be at least as good as +that of the Americans, about which we every day hear so much. + +The Hurons have no positive laws; yet being a people not numerous, +with a strong sense of honor, and in that state of equality which gives +no food to the most tormenting passions of the human heart, and the +council of ancients having a power to punish atrocious crimes, which +power however they very seldom find occasion to use, they live together +in a tranquillity and order which appears to us surprizing. + +In more numerous Indian nations, I am told, every village has its +chief and its councils, and is perfectly independent on the rest; but +on great occasions summon a general council, to which every village +sends deputies. + +Their language is at once sublime and melodious; but, having much +fewer ideas, it is impossible it can be so copious as those of Europe: +the pronunciation of the men is guttural, but that of the women +extremely soft and pleasing; without understanding one word of the +language, the sound of it is very agreeable to me. Their style even in +speaking French is bold and metaphorical: and I am told is on important +occasions extremely sublime. Even in common conversation they speak in +figures, of which I have this moment an instance. A savage woman was +wounded lately in defending an English family from the drunken rage of +one of her nation. I asked her after her wound; "It is well," said she; +"my sisters at Quebec (meaning the English ladies) have been kind to +me; and piastres, you know, are very healing." + +They have no idea of letters, no alphabet, nor is their language +reducible to rules: 'tis by painting they preserve the memory of the +only events which interest them, or that they think worth recording, +the conquests gained over their enemies in war. + +When I speak of their paintings, I should not omit that, though +extremely rude, they have a strong resemblance to the Chinese, a +circumstance which struck me the more, as it is not the stile of +nature. Their dances also, the most lively pantomimes I ever saw, +and especially the dance of peace, exhibit variety of attitudes +resembling the figures on Chinese fans; nor have their features and +complexion less likeness to the pictures we see of the Tartars, as +their wandering manner of life, before they became christians, was +the same. + +If I thought it necessary to suppose they were not natives of the +country, and that America was peopled later than the other quarters of +the world, I should imagine them the descendants of Tartars; as nothing +can be more easy than their passage from Asia, from which America is +probably not divided; or, if it is, by a very narrow channel. But I +leave this to those who are better informed, being a subject on which I +honestly confess my ignorance. + +I have already observed, that they retain most of their antient +superstitions. I should particularize their belief in dreams, of which +folly even repeated disappointments cannot cure them: they have also an +unlimited faith in their _powawers_, or conjurers, of whom there +is one in every Indian village, who is at once physician, orator, and +divine, and who is consulted as an oracle on every occasion. As I +happened to smile at the recital a savage was making of a prophetic +dream, from which he assured us of the death of an English officer whom +I knew to be alive, "You Europeans," said he, "are the most +unreasonable people in the world; you laugh at our belief in dreams, +and yet expect us to believe things a thousand times more incredible." + +Their general character is difficult to describe; made up of +contrary and even contradictory qualities, they are indolent, tranquil, +quiet, humane in peace; active, restless, cruel, ferocious in war: +courteous, attentive, hospitable, and even polite, when kindly treated; +haughty, stern, vindictive, when they are not; and their resentment is +the more to be dreaded, as they hold it a point of honor to dissemble +their sense of an injury till they find an opportunity to revenge it. + +They are patient of cold and heat, of hunger and thirst, even beyond +all belief when necessity requires, passing whole days, and often +three or four days together, without food, in the woods, when on the +watch for an enemy, or even on their hunting parties; yet indulging +themselves in their feasts even to the most brutal degree of +intemperance. They despise death, and suffer the most excruciating +tortures not only without a groan, but with an air of triumph; singing +their death song, deriding their tormentors, and threatening them with +the vengeance of their surviving friends: yet hold it honorable to fly +before an enemy that appears the least superior in number or force. + +Deprived by their extreme ignorance, and that indolence which +nothing but their ardor for war can surmount, of all the +conveniencies, as well as elegant refinements of polished life; +strangers to the softer passions, love being with them on the same +footing as amongst their fellow-tenants of the woods, their lives +appear to me rather tranquil than happy: they have fewer cares, but +they have also much fewer enjoyments, than fall to our share. I am +told, however, that, though insensible to love, they are not without +affections; are extremely awake to friendship, and passionately fond of +their children. + +They are of a copper color, which is rendered more unpleasing by a +quantity of coarse red on their cheeks; but the children, when born, +are of a pale silver white; perhaps their indelicate custom of +greasing their bodies, and their being so much exposed to the air and +sun even from infancy, may cause that total change of complexion, which +I know not how otherwise to account for: their hair is black and +shining, the women's very long, parted at the top, and combed back, +tied behind, and often twisted with a thong of leather, which they +think very ornamental: the dress of both sexes is a close jacket, +reaching to their knees, with spatterdashes, all of coarse blue cloth, +shoes of deer-skin, embroidered with porcupine quills, and sometimes +with silver spangles; and a blanket thrown across their shoulders, and +fastened before with a kind of bodkin, with necklaces, and other +ornaments of beads or shells. + +They are in general tall, well made, and agile to the last degree; +have a lively imagination, a strong memory; and, as far as their +interests are concerned, are very dextrous politicians. + +Their address is cold and reserved; but their treatment of +strangers, and the unhappy, infinitely kind and hospitable. A very +worthy priest, with whom I am acquainted at Quebec, was some years +since shipwrecked in December on the island of Anticosti: after a +variety of distresses, not difficult to be imagined on an island +without inhabitants, during the severity of a winter even colder than +that of Canada; he, with the small remains of his companions who +survived such complicated distress, early in the spring, reached the +main land in their boat, and wandered to a cabbin of savages; the +ancient of which, having heard his story, bid him enter, and liberally +supplied their wants: "Approach, brother," said he; "the unhappy have +a right to our assistance; we are men, and cannot but feel for the +distresses which happen to men;" a sentiment which has a strong +resemblance to a celebrated one in a Greek tragedy. + +You will not expect more from me on this subject, as my residence +here has been short, and I can only be said to catch a few marking +features flying. I am unable to give you a picture at full length. + +Nothing astonishes me so much as to find their manners so little +changed by their intercourse with the Europeans; they seem to have +learnt nothing of us but excess in drinking. + +The situation of the village is very fine, on an eminence, gently +rising to a thick wood at some distance, a beautiful little serpentine +river in front, on which are a bridge, a mill, and a small cascade, at +such a distance as to be very pleasing objects from their houses; and a +cultivated country, intermixed with little woods lying between them and +Quebec, from which they are distant only nine very short miles. + +What a letter have I written! I shall quit my post of historian to +your friend Miss Fermor; the ladies love writing much better than we +do; and I should perhaps be only just, if I said they write better. + + Adieu! + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 12. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, Sept. 12. + +I yesterday morning received a letter from Major Melmoth, to +introduce to my acquaintance Sir George Clayton, who brought it; he +wanted no other introduction to me than his being dear to the most +amiable woman breathing; in virtue of that claim, he may command every +civility, every attention in my power. He breakfasted with me +yesterday: we were two hours alone, and had a great deal of +conversation; we afterwards spent the day together very agreably, on a +party of pleasure in the country. + +I am going with him this afternoon to visit Miss Fermor, to whom he +has a letter from the divine Emily, which he is to deliver himself. + +He is very handsome, but not of my favorite stile of beauty: +extremely fair and blooming, with fine features, light hair and eyes; +his countenance not absolutely heavy, but inanimate, and to my taste +insipid: finely made, not ungenteel, but without that easy air of the +world which I prefer to the most exact symmetry without it. In short, +he is what the country ladies in England call _a sweet pretty man_. +He dresses well, has the finest horses and the handsomest liveries I +have seen in Canada. His manner is civil but cold, his conversation +sensible but not spirited; he seems to be a man rather to approve than +to love. Will you excuse me if I say, he resembles the form my +imagination paints of Prometheus's man of clay, before he stole the +celestial fire to animate him? + +Perhaps I scrutinize him too strictly; perhaps I am prejudiced in +my judgment by the very high idea I had form'd of the man whom Emily +Montague could love. I will own to you, that I thought it impossible +for her to be pleased with meer beauty; and I cannot even now change +my opinion; I shall find some latent fire, some hidden spark, when we +are better acquainted. + +I intend to be very intimate with him, to endeavour to see into his +very soul; I am hard to please in a husband for my Emily; he must have +spirit, he must have sensibility, or he cannot make her happy. + +He thank'd me for my civility to Miss Montague: do you know I +thought him impertinent? and I am not yet sure he was not so, though I +saw he meant to be polite. + +He comes: our horses are at the door. Adieu! + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + +Eight in the evening. + +We are return'd: I every hour like him less. There were several +ladies, French and English, with Miss Fermor, all on the rack to engage +the Baronet's attention; you have no notion of the effect of a title +in America. To do the ladies justice however, he really look'd very +handsome; the ride, and the civilities he receiv'd from a circle of +pretty women, for they were well chose, gave a glow to his complexion +extremely favorable to his desire of pleasing, which, through all his +calmness, it was impossible not to observe; he even attempted once or +twice to be lively, but fail'd: vanity itself could not inspire him +with vivacity; yet vanity is certainly his ruling passion, if such a +piece of still life can be said to have any passions at all. + +What a charm, my dear Lucy, is there in sensibility! 'Tis the magnet +which attracts all to itself: virtue may command esteem, understanding +and talents admiration, beauty a transient desire; but 'tis sensibility +alone which can inspire love. + +Yet the tender, the sensible Emily Montague--no, my dear, 'tis +impossible: she may fancy she loves him, but it is not in nature; +unless she extremely mistakes his character. His _approbation_ of +her, for he cannot feel a livelier sentiment, may at present, when with +her, raise him a little above his natural vegetative state, but after +marriage he will certainly sink into it again. + +If I have the least judgment in men, he will be a cold, civil, +inattentive husband; a tasteless, insipid, silent companion; a +tranquil, frozen, unimpassion'd lover; his insensibility will secure +her from rivals, his vanity will give her all the drapery of happiness; +her friends will congratulate her choice; she will be the envy of her +own sex: without giving positive offence, he will every moment wound, +because he is a stranger to, all the fine feelings of a heart like +hers; she will seek in vain the friend, the lover, she expected; yet, +scarce knowing of what to complain, she will accuse herself of caprice, +and be astonish'd to find herself wretched with _the best husband in +the world_. + +I tremble for her happiness; I know how few of my own sex are to be +found who have the lively sensibility of yours, and of those few how +many wear out their hearts by a life of gallantry and dissipation, and +bring only apathy and disgust into marriage. I know few men capable of +making her happy; but this Sir George--my Lucy, I have not patience. + +Did I tell you all the men here are in love with your friend Bell +Fermor? The women all hate her, which is an unequivocal proof that she +pleases the other sex. + + + +LETTER 13. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Montreal, Sept. 2. + +My dearest Bell will better imagine than I can describe, the +pleasure it gave me to hear of her being in Canada; I am impatient to +see her, but as Mrs. Melmoth comes in a fortnight to Quebec, I know she +will excuse my waiting to come with her. My visit however is to +Silleri; I long to see my dear girl, to tell her a thousand little +trifles interesting only to friendship. + +You congratulate me, my dear, on the pleasing prospect I have before +me; on my approaching marriage with a man young, rich, lovely, +enamor'd, and of an amiable character. + +Yes, my dear, I am oblig'd to my uncle for his choice; Sir George is +all you have heard; and, without doubt, loves me, as he marries me with +such an inferiority of fortune. I am very happy certainly; how is it +possible I should be otherwise? + +I could indeed wish my tenderness for him more lively, but perhaps +my wishes are romantic. I prefer him to all his sex, but wish my +preference was of a less languid nature; there is something in it more +like friendship than love; I see him with pleasure, but I part from him +without regret; yet he deserves my affection, and I can have no +objection to him which is not founded in caprice. + +You say true; Colonel Rivers is very amiable; he pass'd six weeks +with us, yet we found his conversation always new; he is the man on +earth of whom one would wish to make a friend; I think I could already +trust him with every sentiment of my soul; I have even more confidence +in him than in Sir George whom I love; his manner is soft, attentive, +insinuating, and particularly adapted to please women. Without +designs, without pretensions; he steals upon you in the character of a +friend, because there is not the least appearance of his ever being a +lover: he seems to take such an interest in your happiness, as gives +him a right to know your every thought. Don't you think, my dear, +these kind of men are dangerous? Take care of yourself, my dear Bell; +as to me, I am secure in my situation. + +Sir George is to have the pleasure of delivering this to you, and +comes again in a few days; love him for my sake, though he deserves it +for his own. I assure you, he is extremely worthy. + + Adieu! my dear. + Your affectionate + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 14. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Quebec, Sept. 15. + +Believe me, Jack, you are wrong; this vagrant taste is unnatural, +and does not lead to happiness; your eager pursuit of pleasure defeats +itself; love gives no true delight but where the heart is attach'd, and +you do not give yours time to fix. Such is our unhappy frailty, that +the tenderest passion may wear out, and another succeed, but the love +of change merely as change is not in nature; where it is a real taste, +'tis a depraved one. Boys are inconstant from vanity and affectation, +old men from decay of passion; but men, and particularly men of sense, +find their happiness only in that lively attachment of which it is +impossible for more than one to be the object. Love is an intellectual +pleasure, and even the senses will be weakly affected where the heart +is silent. + +You will find this truth confirmed even within the walls of the +seraglio; amidst this crowd of rival beauties, eager to please, one +happy fair generally reigns in the heart of the sultan; the rest serve +only to gratify his pride and ostentation, and are regarded by him with +the same indifference as the furniture of his superb palace, of which +they may be said to make a part. + +With your estate, you should marry; I have as many objections to the +state as you can have; I mean, on the footing marriage is at present. +But of this I am certain, that two persons at once delicate and +sensible, united by friendship, by taste, by a conformity of sentiment, +by that lively ardent tender inclination which alone deserves the name +of love, will find happiness in marriage, which is in vain sought in +any other kind of attachment. + +You are so happy as to have the power of chusing; you are rich, and +have not the temptation to a mercenary engagement. Look round you for +a companion, a confidente; a tender amiable friend, with all the +charms of a mistress: above all, be certain of her affection, that you +engage, that you fill her whole soul. Find such a woman, my dear +Temple, and you cannot make too much haste to be happy. + +I have a thousand things to say to you, but am setting off +immediately with Sir George Clayton, to meet the lieutenant governor at +Montreal; a piece of respect which I should pay with the most lively +pleasure, if it did not give me the opportunity of seeing the woman in +the world I most admire. I am not however going to set you the example +of marrying: I am not so happy; she is engaged to the gentleman who +goes up with me. Adieu! + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 15. + + +To Miss Montague, at Montreal. + +Silleri, Sept. 16. + +Take care, my dear Emily, you do not fall into the common error of +sensible and delicate minds, that of refining away your happiness. + +Sir George is handsome as an Adonis; you allow him to be of an +amiable character; he is rich, young, well born, and loves you; you +will have fine cloaths, fine jewels, a fine house, a coach and six; all +the _douceurs_ of marriage, with an extreme pretty fellow, who is +fond of you, whom _you see with pleasure, and prefer to all his sex_; +and yet you are discontented, because you have not for him at +twenty-four the romantic passion of fifteen, or rather that ideal +passion which perhaps never existed but in imagination. + +To be happy in this world, it is necessary not to raise one's ideas +too high: if I loved a man of Sir George's fortune half as well as by +your own account you love him, I should not hesitate one moment about +marrying; but sit down contented with ease, affluence, and an +agreeable man, without expecting to find life what it certainly is not, +a state of continual rapture. 'Tis, I am afraid, my dear, your +misfortune to have too much sensibility to be happy. + +I could moralize exceedingly well this morning on the vanity of +human wishes and expectations, and the folly of hoping for felicity in +this vile sublunary world: but the subject is a little exhausted, and I +have a passion for being original. I think all the moral writers, who +have set off with promising to shew us the road to happiness, have +obligingly ended with telling us there is no such thing; a conclusion +extremely consoling, and which if they had drawn before they set pen to +paper, would have saved both themselves and their readers an infinity +of trouble. This fancy of hunting for what one knows is not to be +found, is really an ingenious way of amusing both one's self and the +world: I wish people would either write to some purpose, or be so good +as not to write at all. + +I believe I shall set about writing a system of ethics myself, which +shall be short, clear, and comprehensive; nearer the Epicurean perhaps +than the Stoic; but rural, refined, and sentimental; rural by all +means; for who does not know that virtue is a country gentlewoman? all +the good mammas will tell you, there is no such being to be heard of in +town. + +I shall certainly be glad to see you, my dear; though I foresee +strange revolutions _in the state of Denmark_ from this event; at +present I have all the men to myself, and you must know I have a +prodigious aversion to divided empire: however, 'tis some comfort they +all know you are going to be married. You may come, Emily; only be so +obliging to bring Sir George along with you: in your present situation, +you are not so very formidable. + +The men here, as I said before, are all dying for me; there are many +handsomer women, but I flatter them, and the dear creatures cannot +resist it. I am a very good girl to women, but naturally artful (if you +will allow the expression) to the other sex; I can blush, look down, +stifle a sigh, flutter my fan, and seem so agreeably confused--you +have no notion, my dear, what fools men are. If you had not got the +start of me, I would have had your little white-haired baronet in a +week, and yet I don't take him to be made of very combustible +materials; rather mild, composed, and pretty, I believe; but he has +vanity, which is quite enough for my purpose. + +Either your love or Colonel Rivers will have the honor to deliver +this letter; 'tis rather cruel to take them both from us at once; +however, we shall soon be made amends; for we shall have a torrent of +beaux with the general. + +Don't you think the sun in this country vastly more chearing than in +England? I am charmed with the sun, to say nothing of the moon, though +to be sure I never saw a moon-light night that deserved the name till I +came to America. + +_Mon cher pere_ desires a thousand compliments; you know he +has been in love with you ever since you were seven years old: he is +vastly better for his voyage, and the clear air of Canada, and looks +ten years younger than before he set out. + +Adieu! I am going to ramble in the woods, and pick berries, with a +little smiling civil captain, who is enamoured of me: a pretty rural +amusement for lovers! + +Good morrow, my dear Emily, + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 16. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Sept. 18. + +Your brother, my dear, is gone to Montreal with Sir George Clayton, +of whom I suppose you have heard, and who is going to marry a friend of +mine, to pay a visit to _Monsieur le General_, who is arrived +there. The men in Canada, the English I mean, are eternally changing +place, even when they have not so pleasing a call; travelling is cheap +and amusing, the prospects lovely, the weather inviting; and there are +no very lively pleasures at present to attach them either to Quebec or +Montreal, so that they divide themselves between both. + +This fancy of the men, which is extremely the mode, makes an +agreable circulation of inamoratoes, which serves to vary the amusement +of the ladies; so that upon the whole 'tis a pretty fashion, and +deserves encouragement. + +You expect too much of your brother, my dear; the summer is charming +here, but with no such very striking difference from that of England, +as to give room to say a vast deal on the subject; though I believe, if +you will please to compare our letters, you will find, putting us +together, we cut a pretty figure in the descriptive way; at least if +your brother tells me truth. + +You may expect a very well painted frost-piece from me in the +winter; as to the present season, it is just like any fine autumn in +England: I may add, that the beauty of the nights is much beyond my +power of description: a constant _Aurora borealis_, without a +cloud in the heavens; and a moon so resplendent that you may see to +read the smallest print by its light; one has nothing to wish but that +it was full moon every night. Our evening walks are delicious, +especially at Silleri, where 'tis the pleasantest thing in the world to +listen to soft nonsense, + + "Whilst the moon dances through the trembling leaves" + +(A line I stole from Philander and Sylvia): But to return: + +The French ladies never walk but at night, which shews their good +taste; and then only within the walls of Quebec, which does not: they +saunter slowly, after supper, on a particular battery, which is a kind +of little Mall: they have no idea of walking in the country, nor the +least feeling of the lovely scene around them; there are many of them +who never saw the falls of Montmorenci, though little more than an +hour's drive from the town. They seem born without the smallest portion +of curiosity, or any idea of the pleasures of the imagination, or +indeed any pleasure but that of being admired; love, or rather +coquetry, dress, and devotion, seem to share all their hours: yet, as +they are lively, and in general handsome, the men are very ready to +excuse their want of knowledge. + +There are two ladies in the province, I am told, who read; but both +of them are above fifty, and they are regarded as prodigies of +erudition. + +Eight in the evening. + +Absolutely, Lucy, I will marry a savage, and turn squaw (a pretty soft +name for an Indian princess!): never was any thing so delightful as +their lives; they talk of French husbands, but commend me to an Indian +one, who lets his wife ramble five hundred miles, without asking where +she is going. + +I was sitting after dinner with a book, in a thicket of hawthorn +near the beach, when a loud laugh called my attention to the river, +where I saw a canoe of savages making to the shore; there were six +women, and two or three children, without one man amongst them: they +landed, tied the canoe to the root of a tree, and finding out the most +agreable shady spot amongst the bushes with which the beach was +covered, which happened to be very near me, made a fire, on which they +laid some fish to broil, and, fetching water from the river, sat down +on the grass to their frugal repast. + +I stole softly to the house, and, ordering a servant to bring some +wine and cold provisions, returned to my squaws: I asked them in French +if they were of Lorette; they shook their heads: I repeated the +question in English, when the oldest of the women told me, they were +not; that their country was on the borders of New England; that, their +husbands being on a hunting party in the woods, curiosity, and the +desire of seeing their brethren the English who had conquered Quebec, +had brought them up the great river, down which they should return as +soon as they had seen Montreal. She courteously asked me to sit down, +and eat with them, which I complied with, and produced my part of the +feast. We soon became good company, and _brighten'd the chain +of friendship_ with two bottles of wine, which put them into such +spirits, that they danced, sung, shook me by the hand, and grew so very +fond of me, that I began to be afraid I should not easily get rid of +them. They were very unwilling to part with me; but, after two or three +very ridiculous hours, I with some difficulty prevailed on the ladies +to pursue their voyage, having first replenished their canoe with +provisions and a few bottles of wine, and given them a letter of +recommendation to your brother, that they might be in no distress at +Montreal. + +Adieu! my father is just come in, and has brought some company with +him from Quebec to supper. + + Yours ever, + A. Fermor. + +Don't you think, my dear, my good sisters the squaws seem to live +something the kind of life of our gypsies? The idea struck me as they +were dancing. I assure you, there is a good deal of resemblance in +their persons: I have seen a fine old seasoned female gypsey, of as +dark a complexion as a savage: they are all equally marked as children +of the sun. + + + +LETTER 17. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Repentigny, Sept. 18, ten at night. + +I study my fellow traveller closely; his character, indeed, is not +difficult to ascertain; his feelings are dull, nothing makes the +least impression on him; he is as insensible to the various beauties of +the charming country through which we have travelled, as the very +Canadian peasants themselves who inhabit it. I watched his eyes at some +of the most beautiful prospects, and saw not the least gleam of +pleasure there: I introduced him here to an extreme handsome French +lady, and as lively as she is handsome, the wife of an officer who is +of my acquaintance; the same tasteless composure prevailed; he +complained of fatigue, and retired to his apartment at eight: the +family are now in bed, and I have an hour to give to my dear Lucy. + +He admires Emily because he has seen her admired by all the world, +but he cannot taste her charms of himself; they are not of a stile to +please him: I cannot support the thought of such a woman's being so +lost; there are a thousand insensible good young women to be found, who +would doze away life with him and be happy. + +A rich, sober, sedate, presbyterian citizen's daughter, educated by +her grandmother in the country, who would roll about with him in +unweildy splendor, and dream away a lazy existence, would be the proper +wife for him. Is it for him, a lifeless composition of earth and water, +to unite himself to the active elements which compose my divine Emily? + +Adieu! my dear! we set out early in the morning for Montreal. + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 18. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Montreal, Sept. 19, eleven o'clock. + +No, my dear, it is impossible she can love him; his dull soul is ill +suited to hers; heavy, unmeaning, formal; a slave to rules, to +ceremony, to _etiquette_, he has not an idea above those of a +gentleman usher. He has been three hours in town without seeing her; +dressing, and waiting to pay his compliments first to the general, who +is riding, and every minute expected back. I am all impatience, though +only her friend, but think it would be indecent in me to go without +him, and look like a design of reproaching his coldness. How +differently are we formed! I should have stole a moment to see the +woman I loved from the first prince in the universe. + +The general is returned. Adieu! till our visit is over; we go from +thence to Major Melmoth's, whose family I should have told you are in +town, and not half a street from us. What a soul of fire has this +_lover!_ 'Tis to profane the word to use it in speaking of him. + +One o'clock. + +I am mistaken, Lucy; astonishing as it is, she loves him; this dull +clod of uninformed earth has touched the lively soul of my Emily. Love +is indeed the child of caprice; I will not say of sympathy, for what +sympathy can there be between two hearts so different? I am hurt, she +is lowered in my esteem; I expected to find in the man she loved, a +mind sensible and tender as her own. + +I repeat it, my dear Lucy, she loves him; I observed her when we +entered the room; she blushed, she turned pale, she trembled, her +voice faltered; every look spoke the strong emotion of her soul. + +She is paler than when I saw her last; she is, I think, less +beautiful, but more touching than ever; there is a languor in her air, +a softness in her countenance, which are the genuine marks of a heart +in love; all the tenderness of her soul is in her eyes. + +Shall I own to you all my injustice? I hate this man for having the +happiness to please her: I cannot even behave to him with the +politeness due to every gentleman. + +I begin to fear my weakness is greater than I supposed. + +22d in the evening. + +I am certainly mad, Lucy; what right have I to expect!--you will +scarce believe the excess of my folly. I went after dinner to Major +Melmoth's; I found Emily at piquet with Sir George: can you conceive +that I fancied myself ill used, that I scarce spoke to her, and +returned immediately home, though strongly pressed to spend the evening +there. I walked two or three times about my room, took my hat, and went +to visit the handsomest Frenchwoman at Montreal, whose windows are +directly opposite to Major Melmoth's; in the excess of my anger, I +asked this lady to dance with me to-morrow at a little ball we are to +have out of town. Can you imagine any behaviour more childish? It would +have been scarce pardonable at sixteen. + +Adieu! my letter is called for. I will write to you again in a few +days. + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + +Major Melmoth tells me, they are to be married in a month at +Quebec, and to embark immediately for England. I will not be there; I +cannot bear to see her devote herself to wretchedness: she will be the +most unhappy of her sex with this man; I see clearly into his +character; his virtue is the meer absence of vice; his good qualities +are all of the negative kind. + + + +LETTER 19. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Montreal, Sept. 24. + +I have but a moment, my dear, to acknowledge your last; this week +has been a continual hurry. + +You mistake me; it is not the romantic passion of fifteen I wish to +feel, but that tender lively friendship which alone can give charms to +so intimate an union as that of marriage. I wish a greater conformity +in our characters, in our sentiments, in our tastes. + +But I will say no more on this subject till I have the pleasure of +seeing you at Silleri. Mrs. Melmoth and I come in a ship which sails +in a day or two; they tell us, it is the most agreeable way of coming: +Colonel Rivers is so polite, as to stay to accompany us down: Major +Melmoth asked Sir George, but he preferred the pleasure of parading +into Quebec, and shewing his fine horses and fine person to advantage, +to that of attending his mistress: shall I own to you that I am hurt at +this instance of his neglect, as I know his attendance on the general +was not expected? His situation was more than a sufficient excuse; it +was highly improper for two women to go to Quebec alone; it is in some +degree so that any other man should accompany me at this time: my pride +is extremely wounded. I expect a thousand times more attention from +him since his acquisition of fortune; it is with pain I tell you, my +dear friend, he seems to shew me much less. I will not descend to +suppose he presumes on this increase of fortune, but he presumes on the +inclination he supposes I have for him; an inclination, however, not +violent enough to make me submit to the least ill treatment from him. + +In my present state of mind, I am extremely hard to please; either +his behaviour or my temper have suffered a change. I know not how it +is, but I see his faults in a much stronger light than I have ever seen +them before. I am alarmed at the coldness of his disposition, so ill +suited to the sensibility of mine; I begin to doubt his being of the +amiable character I once supposed: in short, I begin to doubt of the +possibility of his making me happy. + +You will, perhaps, call it an excess of pride, when I say, I am much +less inclined to marry him than when our situations were equal. I +certainly love him; I have a habit of considering him as the man I am +to marry, but my affection is not of that kind which will make me easy +under the sense of an obligation. + +I will open all my heart to you when we meet: I am not so happy as +you imagine: do not accuse me of caprice; can I be too cautious, where +the happiness of my whole life is at stake? + + Adieu! + Your faithful + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 20. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Sept. 24. + +I declare off at once; I will not be a squaw; I admire their talking +of the liberty of savages; in the most essential point, they are +slaves: the mothers marry their children without ever consulting their +inclinations, and they are obliged to submit to this foolish tyranny. +Dear England! where liberty appears, not as here among these odious +savages, wild and ferocious like themselves, but lovely, smiling, led +by the hand of the Graces. There is no true freedom any where else. +They may talk of the privilege of chusing a chief; but what is that to +the dear English privilege of chusing a husband? + +I have been at an Indian wedding, and have no patience. Never did I +see so vile an assortment. + +Adieu! I shall not be in good humor this month. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 21. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Montreal, Sept. 24. + +What you say, my dear friend, is more true than I wish it was; our +English women of character are generally too reserved; their manner is +cold and forbidding; they seem to think it a crime to be too +attractive; they appear almost afraid to please. + +'Tis to this ill-judged reserve I attribute the low profligacy of +too many of our young men; the grave faces and distant behaviour of +the generality of virtuous women fright them from their acquaintance, +and drive them into the society of those wretched votaries of vice, +whose conversation debases every sentiment of their souls. + +With as much beauty, good sense, sensibility, and softness, at +least, as any women on earth, no women please so little as the English: +depending on their native charms, and on those really amiable qualities +which envy cannot deny them, they are too careless in acquiring those +enchanting nameless graces, which no language can define, which give +resistless force to beauty, and even supply its place where it is +wanting. + +They are satisfied with being good, without considering that +unadorned virtue may command esteem, but will never excite love; and +both are necessary in marriage, which I suppose to be the state every +woman of honor has in prospect; for I own myself rather incredulous as +to the assertions of maiden aunts and cousins to the contrary. I wish +my amiable countrywomen would consider one moment, that virtue is +never so lovely as when dressed in smiles: the virtue of women should +have all the softness of the sex; it should be gentle, it should be +even playful, to please. + +There is a lady here, whom I wish you to see, as the shortest way of +explaining to you all I mean; she is the most pleasing woman I ever +beheld, independently of her being one of the handsomest; her manner is +irresistible: she has all the smiling graces of France, all the +blushing delicacy and native softness of England. + +Nothing can be more delicate, my dear Temple, than the manner in +which you offer me your estate in Rutland, by way of anticipating your +intended legacy: it is however impossible for me to accept it; my +father, who saw me naturally more profuse than became my expectations, +took such pains to counterwork it by inspiring me with the love of +independence, that I cannot have such an obligation even to you. + +Besides, your legacy is left on the supposition that you are not to +marry, and I am absolutely determined you shall; so that, by accepting +this mark of your esteem, I should be robbing your younger children. + +I have not a wish to be richer whilst I am a batchelor, and the only +woman I ever wished to marry, the only one my heart desires, will be in +three weeks the wife of another; I shall spend less than my income +here: shall I not then be rich? To make you easy, know I have four +thousand pounds in the funds; and that, from the equality of living +here, an ensign is obliged to spend near as much as I am; he is +inevitably ruined, but I save money. + +I pity you, my friend; I am hurt to hear you talk of happiness in +the life you at present lead; of finding pleasure in possessing venal +beauty; you are in danger of acquiring a habit which will vitiate your +taste, and exclude you from that state of refined and tender friendship +for which nature formed a heart like yours, and which is only to be +found in marriage: I need not add, in a marriage of choice. + +It has been said that love marriages are generally unhappy; nothing +is more false; marriages of meer inclination will always be so: +passion alone being concerned, when that is gratified, all tenderness +ceases of course: but love, the gay child of sympathy and esteem, is, +when attended by delicacy, the only happiness worth a reasonable man's +pursuit, and the choicest gift of heaven: it is a softer, tenderer +friendship, enlivened by taste, and by the most ardent desire of +pleasing, which time, instead of destroying, will render every hour +more dear and interesting. + +If, as you possibly will, you should call me romantic, hear a man of +pleasure on the subject, the Petronius of the last age, the elegant, +but voluptuous St. Evremond, who speaks in the following manner of the +friendship between married persons: + +"I believe it is this pleasing intercourse of tenderness, this +reciprocation of esteem, or, if you will, this mutual ardor of +preventing each other in every endearing mark of affection, in which +consists the sweetness of this second species of friendship. + +"I do not speak of other pleasures, which are not so much in +themselves as in the assurance they give of the intire possession of +those we love: this appears to me so true, that I am not afraid to +assert, the man who is by any other means certainly assured of the +tenderness of her he loves, may easily support the privation of those +pleasures; and that they ought not to enter into the account of +friendship, but as proofs that it is without reserve. + +"'Tis true, few men are capable of the purity of these sentiments, +and 'tis for that reason we so very seldom see perfect friendship in +marriage, at least for any long time: the object which a sensual +passion has in view cannot long sustain a commerce so noble as that of +friendship." + +You see, the pleasures you so much boast are the least of those +which true tenderness has to give, and this in the opinion of a +voluptuary. + +My dear Temple, all you have ever known of love is nothing to that +sweet consent of souls in unison, that harmony of minds congenial to +each other, of which you have not yet an idea. + +You have seen beauty, and it has inspired a momentary emotion, but +you have never yet had a real attachment; you yet know nothing of that +irresistible tenderness, that delirium of the soul, which, whilst it +refines, adds strength to passion. + +I perhaps say too much, but I wish with ardor to see you happy; in +which there is the more merit, as I have not the least prospect of +being so myself. + +I wish you to pursue the plan of life which I myself think most +likely to bring happiness, because I know our souls to be of the same +frame: we have taken different roads, but you will come back to mine. +Awake to delicate pleasures, I have no taste for any other; there are +no other for sensible minds. My gallantries have been few, rather (if +it is allowed to speak thus of one's self even to a friend) from +elegance of taste than severity of manners; I have loved seldom, +because I cannot love without esteem. + +Believe me, Jack, the meer pleasure of loving, even without a +return, is superior to all the joys of sense where the heart is +untouched: the French poet does not exaggerate when he says, + + --Amour; + Tous les autres plaisirs ne valent pas tes peines. + +You will perhaps call me mad; I am just come from a woman who is +capable of making all mankind so. Adieu! + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 22. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Sept. 25. + +I have been rambling about amongst the peasants, and asking them a +thousand questions, in order to satisfy your inquisitive friend. As to +my father, though, properly speaking, your questions are addressed to +him, yet, being upon duty, he begs that, for this time, you will accept +of an answer from me. + +The Canadians live a good deal like the ancient patriarchs; the +lands were originally settled by the troops, every officer became a +seigneur, or lord of the manor, every soldier took lands under his +commander; but, as avarice is natural to mankind, the soldiers took a +great deal more than they could cultivate, by way of providing for a +family: which is the reason so much land is now waste in the finest +part of the province: those who had children, and in general they have +a great number, portioned out their lands amongst them as they married, +and lived in the midst of a little world of their descendants. + +There are whole villages, and there is even a large island, that of +Coudre, where the inhabitants are all the descendants of one pair, if +we only suppose that their sons went to the next village for wives, for +I find no tradition of their having had a dispensation to marry their +sisters. + +The corn here is very good, though not equal to ours; the harvest +not half so gay as in England, and for this reason, that the lazy +creatures leave the greatest part of their land uncultivated, only +sowing as much corn of different sorts as will serve themselves; and +being too proud and too idle to work for hire, every family gets in +its own harvest, which prevents all that jovial spirit which we find +when the reapers work together in large parties. + +Idleness is the reigning passion here, from the peasant to his lord; +the gentlemen never either ride on horseback or walk, but are driven +about like women, for they never drive themselves, lolling at their +ease in a calache: the peasants, I mean the masters of families, are +pretty near as useless as their lords. + +You will scarce believe me, when I tell you, that I have seen, at +the farm next us, two children, a very beautiful boy and girl, of about +eleven years old, assisted by their grandmother, reaping a field of +oats, whilst the lazy father, a strong fellow of thirty two, lay on the +grass, smoaking his pipe, about twenty yards from them: the old people +and children work here; those in the age of strength and health only +take their pleasure. + +_A propos_ to smoaking, 'tis common to see here boys of three +years old, sitting at their doors, smoaking their pipes, as grave and +composed as little old Chinese men on a chimney. + +You ask me after our fruits: we have, as I am told, an immensity of +cranberries all the year; when the snow melts away in spring, they are +said to be found under it as fresh and as good as in autumn: +strawberries and rasberries grow wild in profusion; you cannot walk a +step in the fields without treading on the former: great plenty of +currants, plumbs, apples, and pears; a few cherries and grapes, but not +in much perfection: excellent musk melons, and water melons in +abundance, but not so good in proportion as the musk. Not a peach, nor +any thing of the kind; this I am however convinced is less the fault +of the climate than of the people, who are too indolent to take pains +for any thing more than is absolutely necessary to their existence. +They might have any fruit here but gooseberries, for which the summer +is too hot; there are bushes in the woods, and some have been brought +from England, but the fruit falls off before it is ripe. The wild +fruits here, especially those of the bramble kind, are in much greater +variety and perfection than in England. + +When I speak of the natural productions of the country, I should not +forget that hemp and hops grow every where in the woods; I should +imagine the former might be cultivated here with great success, if the +people could be persuaded to cultivate any thing. + +A little corn of every kind, a little hay, a little tobacco, half a +dozen apple trees, a few onions and cabbages, make the whole of a +Canadian plantation. There is scarce a flower, except those in the +woods, where there is a variety of the most beautiful shrubs I ever +saw; the wild cherry, of which the woods are full, is equally charming +in flower and in fruit; and, in my opinion, at least equals the +arbutus. + +They sow their wheat in spring, never manure the ground, and plough +it in the slightest manner; can it then be wondered at that it is +inferior to ours? They fancy the frost would destroy it if sown in +autumn; but this is all prejudice, as experience has shewn. I myself +saw a field of wheat this year at the governor's farm, which was +manured and sown in autumn, as fine as I ever saw in England. + +I should tell you, they are so indolent as never to manure their +lands, or even their gardens; and that, till the English came, all the +manure of Quebec was thrown into the river. + +You will judge how naturally rich the soil must be, to produce good +crops without manure, and without ever lying fallow, and almost without +ploughing; yet our political writers in England never speak of Canada +without the epithet of _barren_. They tell me this extreme +fertility is owing to the snow, which lies five or six months on the +ground. Provisions are dear, which is owing to the prodigious number of +horses kept here; every family having a carriage, even the poorest +peasant; and every son of that peasant keeping a horse for his little +excursions of pleasure, besides those necessary for the business of the +farm. The war also destroyed the breed of cattle, which I am told +however begins to encrease; they have even so far improved in corn, as +to export some this year to Italy and Spain. + +Don't you think I am become an excellent farmeress? 'Tis intuition; +some people are born learned: are you not all astonishment at my +knowledge? I never was so vain of a letter in my life. + +Shall I own the truth? I had most of my intelligence from old John, +who lived long with my grandfather in the country; and who, having +little else to do here, has taken some pains to pick up a competent +knowledge of the state of agriculture five miles round Quebec. + +Adieu! I am tired of the subject. + + Your faithful, + A. Fermor. + +Now I think of it, why did you not write to your brother? Did you +chuse me to expose my ignorance? If so, I flatter myself you are a +little taken in, for I think John and I figure in the rural way. + + + +LETTER 23. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Sept. 29, 10 o'clock. + +O to be sure! we are vastly to be pitied: no beaux at all with the +general; only about six to one; a very pretty proportion, and what I +hope always to see. We, the ladies I mean, drink chocolate with the +general to-morrow, and he gives us a ball on Thursday; you would not +know Quebec again; nothing but smiling faces now; all so gay as never +was, the sweetest country in the world; never expect to see me in +England again; one is really somebody here: I have been asked to dance +by only twenty-seven. + +On the subject of dancing, I am, as it were, a little embarrassed: +you will please to observe that, in the time of scarcity, when all the +men were at Montreal, I suffered a foolish little captain to sigh and +say civil things to me, _pour passer le tems_, and the creature +takes the airs of a lover, to which he has not the least pretensions, +and chuses to be angry that I won't dance with him on Thursday, and I +positively won't. + +It is really pretty enough that every absurd animal, who takes upon +him to make love to one, is to fancy himself entitled to a return: I +have no patience with the men's ridiculousness: have you, Lucy? + +But I see a ship coming down under full sail; it may be Emily and +her friends: the colours are all out, they slacken sail; they drop +anchor opposite the house; 'tis certainly them; I must fly to the +beach: music as I am a person, and an awning on the deck: the boat puts +off with your brother in it. Adieu for a moment: I must go and invite +them on shore. + +2 o'clock. + +'Twas Emily and Mrs. Melmoth, with two or three very pretty French +women; your brother is a happy man: I found tea and coffee under the +awning, and a table loaded with Montreal fruit, which is vastly better +than ours; by the way, the colonel has brought me an immensity; he is +so gallant and all that: we regaled ourselves, and landed; they dine +here, and we dance in the evening; we are to have a syllabub in the +wood: my father has sent for Sir George and Major Melmoth, and half a +dozen of the most agreable men, from Quebec: he is enchanted with his +little Emily, he loved her when she was a child. I cannot tell you how +happy I am; my Emily is handsomer than ever; you know how partial I am +to beauty: I never had a friendship for an ugly woman in my life. + + Adieu! _ma tres chere_. + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + +Your brother looks like an angel this morning; he is not drest, he +is not undrest, but somehow, easy, elegant and enchanting: he has no +powder, and his hair a little _degagee_, blown about by the wind, +and agreably disordered; such fire in his countenance; his eyes say a +thousand agreable things; he is in such spirits as I never saw him: +not a man of them has the least chance to-day. I shall be in love with +him if he goes on at this rate: not that it will be to any purpose in +the world; he never would even flirt with me, though I have made him a +thousand advances. + +My heart is so light, Lucy, I cannot describe it: I love Emily at my +soul: 'tis three years since I saw her, and there is something so +romantic in finding her in Canada: there is no saying how happy I am: I +want only you, to be perfectly so. + +3 o'clock. + +The messenger is returned; Sir George is gone with a party of French +ladies to Lake Charles: Emily blushed when the message was delivered; +he might reasonably suppose they would be here to-day, as the wind was +fair: your brother dances with my sweet friend; she loses nothing by +the exchange; she is however a little piqued at this appearance of +disrespect. + +12 o'clock. + +Sir George came just as we sat down to supper; he did right, he +complained first, and affected to be angry she had not sent an express +from _Point au Tremble_. He was however gayer than usual, and very +attentive to his mistress; your brother seemed chagrined at his +arrival; Emily perceived it, and redoubled her politeness to him, which +in a little time restored part of his good humor: upon the whole, it +was an agreable evening, but it would have been more so, if Sir George +had come at first, or not at all. + +The ladies lie here, and we go all together in the morning to +Quebec; the gentlemen are going. + +I steal a moment to seal, and give this to the colonel, who will put +it in his packet to-morrow. + + + +LETTER 24. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, Sept. 30. + +Would you believe it possible, my dear, that Sir George should +decline attending Emily Montague from Montreal, and leave the pleasing +commission to me? I am obliged to him for the three happiest days of my +life, yet am piqued at his chusing me for a _cecisbeo_ to his +mistress: he seems to think me a man _sans consequence_, with whom +a lady may safely be trusted; there is nothing very flattering in such +a kind of confidence: let him take care of himself, if he is +impertinent, and sets me at defiance; I am not vain, but set our +fortunes aside, and I dare enter the lists with Sir George Clayton. I +cannot give her a coach and six; but I can give her, what is more +conducive to happiness, a heart which knows how to value her +perfections. + +I never had so pleasing a journey; we were three days coming down, +because we made it a continual party of pleasure, took music with us, +landed once or twice a day, visited the French families we knew, lay +both nights on shore, and danced at the seigneur's of the village. + +This river, from Montreal to Quebec, exhibits a scene perhaps not to +be matched in the world: it is settled on both sides, though the +settlements are not so numerous on the south shore as on the other: the +lovely confusion of woods, mountains, meadows, corn fields, rivers (for +there are several on both sides, which lose themselves in the St. +Lawrence), intermixed with churches and houses breaking upon you at a +distance through the trees, form a variety of landscapes, to which it +is difficult to do justice. + +This charming scene, with a clear serene sky, a gentle breeze in our +favor, and the conversation of half a dozen fine women, would have made +the voyage pleasing to the most insensible man on earth: my Emily too +of the party, and most politely attentive to the pleasure she saw I had +in making the voyage agreable to her. + +I every day love her more; and, without considering the impropriety +of it, I cannot help giving way to an inclination, in which I find such +exquisite pleasure; I find a thousand charms in the least trifle I can +do to oblige her. + +Don't reason with me on this subject: I know it is madness to +continue to see her; but I find a delight in her conversation, which I +cannot prevail on myself to give up till she is actually married. + +I respect her engagements, and pretend to no more from her than her +friendship; but, as to myself, will love her in whatever manner I +please: to shew you my prudence, however, I intend to dance with the +handsomest unmarried Frenchwoman here on Thursday, and to shew her an +attention which shall destroy all suspicion of my tenderness for Emily. +I am jealous of Sir George, and hate him; but I dissemble it better +than I thought it possible for me to do. + +My Lucy, I am not happy; my mind is in a state not to be described; +I am weak enough to encourage a hope for which there is not the least +foundation; I misconstrue her friendship for me every moment; and that +attention which is meerly gratitude for my apparent anxiety to oblige. +I even fancy her eyes understand mine, which I am afraid speak too +plainly the sentiments of my heart. + +I love her, my dear girl, to madness; these three days-- + +I am interrupted. Adieu! + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + +'Tis Capt. Fermor, who insists on my dining at Silleri. They will +eternally throw me in the way of this lovely woman: of what materials +do they suppose me formed? + + + +LETTER 25. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Oct. 3, Twelve o'clock. + +An enchanting ball, my dear; your little friend's head is turned. I +was more admired than Emily, which to be sure did not flatter my vanity +at all: I see she must content herself with being beloved, for without +coquetry 'tis in vain to expect admiration. + +We had more than three hundred persons at the ball; above three +fourths men; all gay and well dressed, an elegant supper; in short, +it was charming. + +I am half inclined to marry; I am not at all acquainted with the man +I have fixed upon, I never spoke to him till last night, nor did he +take the least notice of me, more than of other ladies, but that is +nothing; he pleases me better than any man I have seen here; he is not +handsome, but well made, and looks like a gentleman; he has a good +character, is heir to a very pretty estate. I will think further of it: +there is nothing more easy than to have him if I chuse it: 'tis only +saying to some of his friends, that I think Captain Fitzgerald the most +agreable fellow here, and he will immediately be astonished he did not +sooner find out I was the handsomest woman. I will consider this affair +seriously; one must marry, 'tis the mode; every body marries; why +don't you marry, Lucy? + +This brother of yours is always here; I am surprized Sir George is +not jealous, for he pays no sort of attention to me, 'tis easy to see +why he comes; I dare say I shan't see him next week: Emily is going to +Mrs. Melmoth's, where she stays till to-morrow sevennight; she goes +from hence as soon as dinner is over. + +Adieu! I am fatigued; we danced till morning; I am but this moment +up. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + +Your brother danced with Mademoiselle Clairaut; do you know I was +piqued he did not give me the preference, as Emily danced with her +lover? not but that I had perhaps a partner full as agreable, at least +I have a mind to think so. + +I hear it whispered that the whole affair of the wedding is to be +settled next week; my father is in the secret, I am not. Emily looks +ill this morning; she was not gay at the ball. I know not why, but she +is not happy. I have my fancies, but they are yet only fancies. + +Adieu! my dear girl; I can no more. + + + +LETTER 26. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, Oct. 6. + +I am going, my Lucy.--I know not well whither I am going, but I +will not stay to see this marriage. Could you have believed it +possible--But what folly! Did I not know her situation from the first? +Could I suppose she would break off an engagement of years, with a man +who gives so clear a proof that he prefers her to all other women, to +humor the frenzy of one who has never even told her he loved her? + +Captain Fermor assures me all is settled but the day, and that she +has promised to name that to-morrow. + +I will leave Quebec to-night; no one shall know the road I take: I +do not yet know it myself; I will cross over to Point Levi with my +valet de chambre, and go wherever chance directs me. I cannot bear even +to hear the day named. I am strongly inclined to write to her; but what +can I say? I should betray my tenderness in spite of myself, and her +compassion would perhaps disturb her approaching happiness: were it +even possible she should prefer me to Sir George, she is too far gone +to recede. + +My Lucy, I never till this moment felt to what an excess I loved +her. + +Adieu! I shall be about a fortnight absent: by that time she will be +embarked for England. I cannot bring myself to see her the wife of +another. Do not be alarmed for me; reason and the impossibility of +success will conquer my passion for this angelic woman; I have been to +blame in allowing myself to see her so often. + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 27. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Beaumont, Oct. 7. + +I think I breathe a freer air now I am out of Quebec. I cannot bear +wherever I go to meet this Sir George; his triumphant air is +insupportable; he has, or I fancy he has, all the insolence of a happy +rival; 'tis unjust, but I cannot avoid hating him; I look on him as a +man who has deprived me of a good to which I foolishly fancy I had +pretensions. + +My whole behaviour has been weak to the last degree: I shall grow +more reasonable when I no longer see this charming woman; I ought +sooner to have taken this step. + +I have found here an excuse for my excursion; I have heard of an +estate to be sold down the river; and am told the purchase will be +less expence than clearing any lands I might take up. I will go and see +it; it is an object, a pursuit, and will amuse me. + +I am going to send my servant back to Quebec; my manner of leaving +it must appear extraordinary to my friends; I have therefore made this +estate my excuse. I have written to Miss Fermor that I am going to make +a purchase; have begged my warmest wishes to her lovely friend, for +whose happiness no one on earth is more anxious; but have told her Sir +George is too much the object of my envy, to expect from me very +sincere congratulations. + +Adieu! my servant waits for this. You shall hear an account of my +adventures when I return to Quebec. + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 28. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Quebec, Oct. 7, twelve o'clock. + +I must see you, my dear, this evening; my mind is in an agitation +not to be expressed; a few hours will determine my happiness or misery +for ever; I am displeased with your father for precipitating a +determination which cannot be made with too much caution. + +I have a thousand things to say to you, which I can say to no one +else. + +Be at home, and alone; I will come to you as soon as dinner is over. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 29. + + +To Miss Montague, at Quebec. + +I will be at home, my dear, and denied to every body but you. + +I pity you, my dear Emily; but I am unable to give you advice. + +The world would wonder at your hesitating a moment. + + Your faithful + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 30. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Quebec, Oct. 7, three o'clock. + +My visit to you is prevented by an event beyond my hopes. Sir George +has this moment a letter from his mother, desiring him earnestly to +postpone his marriage till spring, for some reasons of consequence to +his fortune, with the particulars of which she will acquaint him by the +next packet. + +He communicated this intelligence to me with a grave air, but with a +tranquillity not to be described, and I received it with a joy I found +it impossible wholly to conceal. + +I have now time to consult both my heart and my reason at leisure, +and to break with him, if necessary, by degrees. + +What an escape have I had! I was within four and twenty hours of +either determining to marry a man with whom I fear I have little chance +to be happy, or of breaking with him in a manner that would have +subjected one or both of us to the censures of a prying impertinent +world, whose censures the most steady temper cannot always contemn. + +I will own to you, my dear, I every hour have more dread of this +marriage: his present situation has brought his faults into full light. +Captain Clayton, with little more than his commission, was modest, +humble, affable to his inferiors, polite to all the world; and I +fancied him possessed of those more active virtues, which I supposed +the smallness of his fortune prevented from appearing. 'Tis with pain I +see that Sir George, with a splendid income, is avaricious, selfish, +proud, vain, and profuse; lavish to every caprice of vanity and +ostentation which regards himself, coldly inattentive to the real +wants of others. + +Is this a character to make your Emily happy? We were not formed for +each other: no two minds were ever so different; my happiness is in +friendship, in the tender affections, in the sweets of dear domestic +life; his in the idle parade of affluence, in dress, in equipage, in +all that splendor, which, whilst it excites envy, is too often the mark +of wretchedness. + +Shall I say more? Marriage is seldom happy where there is a great +disproportion of fortune. The lover, after he loses that endearing +character in the husband, which in common minds I am afraid is not +long, begins to reflect how many more thousands he might have expected; +and perhaps suspects his mistress of those interested motives in +marrying, of which he now feels his own heart capable. Coldness, +suspicion, and mutual want of esteem and confidence, follow of course. + +I will come back with you to Silleri this evening; I have no +happiness but when I am with you. Mrs. Melmoth is so fond of Sir +George, she is eternally persecuting me with his praises; she is +extremely mortified at this delay, and very angry at the manner in +which I behave upon it. + +Come to us directly, my dear Bell, and rejoice with your faithful + + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 31. + + +To Miss Montague, at Quebec. + +I congratulate you, my dear; you will at least have the pleasure of +being five or six months longer your own mistress; which, in my +opinion, when one is not violently in love, is a consideration worth +attending to. You will also have time to see whether you like any body +else better; and you know you can take him if you please at last. + +Send him up to his regiment at Montreal with the Melmoths; stay the +winter with me, flirt with somebody else to try the strength of your +passion, and, if it holds out against six months absence, and the +attention of an agreable fellow, I think you may safely venture to +marry him. + +_A propos_ to flirting, have you seen Colonel Rivers? He has +not been here these two days. I shall begin to be jealous of this +little impertinent Mademoiselle Clairaut. Adieu! + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + +Rivers is absurd. I have a mighty foolish letter from him; he is +rambling about the country, buying estates: he had better have been +here, playing the fool with us; if I knew how to write to him I would +tell him so, but he is got out of the range of human beings, down the +river, Heaven knows where; he says a thousand civil things to you, but +I will bring the letter with me to save the trouble of repeating them. + +I have a sort of an idea he won't be very unhappy at this delay; I +want vastly to send him word of it. + + Adieu! _ma chere_. + + + +LETTER 32. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Kamaraskas, Oct. 10. + +I am at present, my dear Lucy, in the wildest country on earth; I +mean of those which are inhabited at all: 'tis for several leagues +almost a continual forest, with only a few straggling houses on the +river side; 'tis however of not the least consequence to me, all places +are equal to me where Emily is not. + +I seek amusement, but without finding it: she is never one moment +from my thoughts; I am every hour on the point of returning to Quebec; +I cannot support the idea of her leaving the country without my seeing +her. + +'Tis a lady who has this estate to sell: I am at present at her +house; she is very amiable; a widow about thirty, with an agreable +person, great vivacity, an excellent understanding, improved by +reading, to which the absolute solitude of her situation has obliged +her; she has an open pleasing countenance, with a candor and sincerity +in her conversation which would please me, if my mind was in a state to +be pleased with any thing. Through all the attention and civility I +think myself obliged to shew her, she seems to perceive the melancholy +which I cannot shake off: she is always contriving some little party +for me, as if she knew how much I am in want of amusement. + +Oct. 12. + +Madame Des Roches is very kind; she sees my chagrin, and takes every +method to divert it: she insists on my going in her shallop to see the +last settlement on the river, opposite the Isle of Barnaby; she does me +the honor to accompany me, with a gentleman and lady who live about a +mile from her. + +Isle Barnaby, Oct. 13. + +I have been paying a very singular visit; 'tis to a hermit, who has +lived sixty years alone on this island; I came to him with a strong +prejudice against him; I have no opinion of those who fly society; who +seek a state of all others the most contrary to our nature. Were I a +tyrant, and wished to inflict the most cruel punishment human nature +could support, I would seclude criminals from the joys of society, and +deny them the endearing sight of their species. + +I am certain I could not exist a year alone: I am miserable even in +that degree of solitude to which one is confined in a ship; no words +can speak the joy which I felt when I came to America, on the first +appearance of something like the chearful haunts of men; the first man, +the first house, nay the first Indian fire of which I saw the smoke +rise above the trees, gave me the most lively transport that can be +conceived; I felt all the force of those ties which unite us to each +other, of that social love to which we owe all our happiness here. + +But to my hermit: his appearance disarmed my dislike; he is a tall +old man, with white hair and beard, the look of one who has known +better days, and the strongest marks of benevolence in his countenance. +He received me with the utmost hospitality, spread all his little +stores of fruit before me, fetched me fresh milk, and water from a +spring near his house. + +After a little conversation, I expressed my astonishment, that a man +of whose kindness and humanity I had just had such proof, could find +his happiness in flying mankind: I said a good deal on the subject, to +which he listened with the politest attention. + +"You appear," said he, "of a temper to pity the miseries of others. +My story is short and simple: I loved the most amiable of women; I was +beloved. The avarice of our parents, who both had more gainful views +for us, prevented an union on which our happiness depended. My Louisa, +who was threatened with an immediate marriage with a man she detested, +proposed to me to fly the tyranny of our friends: she had an uncle at +Quebec, to whom she was dear. The wilds of Canada, said she, may afford +us that refuge our cruel country denies us. After a secret marriage, +we embarked. Our voyage was thus far happy; I landed on the opposite +shore, to seek refreshments for my Louisa; I was returning, pleased +with the thought of obliging the object of all my tenderness, when a +beginning storm drove me to seek shelter in this bay. The storm +encreased, I saw its progress with agonies not to be described; the +ship, which was in sight, was unable to resist its fury; the sailors +crowded into the boat; they had the humanity to place my Louisa there; +they made for the spot where I was, my eyes were wildly fixed on them; +I stood eagerly on the utmost verge of the water, my arms stretched out +to receive her, my prayers ardently addressed to Heaven, when an +immense wave broke over the boat; I heard a general shriek; I even +fancied I distinguished my Louisa's cries; it subsided, the sailors +again exerted all their force; a second wave--I saw them no more. + +"Never will that dreadful scene be absent one moment from my memory: +I fell senseless on the beach; when I returned to life, the first +object I beheld was the breathless body of my Louisa at my feet. Heaven +gave me the wretched consolation of rendering to her the last sad +duties. In that grave all my happiness lies buried. I knelt by her, and +breathed a vow to Heaven, to wait here the moment that should join me +to all I held dear. I every morning visit her loved remains, and +implore the God of mercy to hasten my dissolution. I feel that we shall +not long be separated; I shall soon meet her, to part no more." + +He stopped, and, without seeming to remember he was not alone, +walked hastily towards a little oratory he has built on the beach, near +which is the grave of his Louisa; I followed him a few steps, I saw +him throw himself on his knees; and, respecting his sorrow, returned +to the house. + +Though I cannot absolutely approve, yet I more than forgive, I +almost admire, his renouncing the world in his situation. Devotion is +perhaps the only balm for the wounds given by unhappy love; the heart +is too much softened by true tenderness to admit any common cure. + +Seven in the evening. + +I am returned to Madame Des Roches and her friends, who declined +visiting the hermit. I found in his conversation all which could have +adorned society; he was pleased with the sympathy I shewed for his +sufferings; we parted with regret. I wished to have made him a +present, but he will receive nothing. + +A ship for England is in sight. Madame Des Roches is so polite to +send off this letter; we return to her house in the morning. + + Adieu! my Lucy. + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 33. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, Oct. 12. + +I have no patience with this foolish brother of yours; he is +rambling about in the woods when we want him here: we have a most +agreeable assembly every Thursday at the General's, and have had +another ball since he has been gone on this ridiculous ramble; I miss +the dear creature wherever I go. We have nothing but balls, cards, and +parties of pleasure; but they are nothing without my little Rivers. + +I have been making the tour of the three religions this morning, +and, as I am the most constant creature breathing; am come back only a +thousand times more pleased with my own. I have been at mass, at +church, and at the presbyterian meeting: an idea struck me at the last, +in regard to the drapery of them all; that the Romish religion is like +an over-dressed, tawdry, rich citizen's wife; the presbyterian like a +rude aukward country girl; the church of England like an elegant +well-dressed woman of quality, "plain in her neatness" (to quote +Horace, who is my favorite author). There is a noble, graceful +simplicity both in the worship and the ceremonies of the church of +England, which, even if I were a stranger to her doctrines, would +prejudice me strongly in her favor. + +Sir George sets out for Montreal this evening, so do the house of +Melmoth; I have however prevailed on Emily to stay a month or two +longer with me. I am rejoiced Sir George is going away; I am tired of +seeing that eternal smile, that countenance of his, which attempts to +speak, and says nothing. I am in doubt whether I shall let Emily marry +him; she will die in a week, of no distemper but his conversation. + +They dine with us. I am called down. Adieu! + +Eight at night. + +Heaven be praised, our lover is gone; they parted with great +philosophy on both sides: they are the prettiest mild pair of +inamoratoes one shall see. + +Your brother's servant has just called to tell me he is going to his +master. I have a great mind to answer his letter, and order him back. + + + +LETTER 34. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Oct. 12. + +I have been looking at the estate Madame Des Roches has to sell; it +is as wild as the lands to which I have a right; I hoped this would +have amused my chagrin, but am mistaken: nothing interests me, nothing +takes up my attention one moment: my mind admits but one idea. This +charming woman follows me wherever I go; I wander about like the first +man when driven out of paradise: I vainly fancy every change of place +will relieve the anxiety of my mind. + +Madame Des Roches smiles, and tells me I am in love; 'tis however a +smile of tenderness and compassion: your sex have great penetration in +whatever regards the heart. + +Oct. 13. + +I have this moment a letter from Miss Fermor, to press my return to +Quebec; she tells me, Emily's marriage is postponed till spring. My +Lucy! how weak is the human heart! In spite of myself, a ray of +hope--I set off this instant: I cannot conceal my joy. + + + +LETTER 35. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec. + +London, July 23. + +You have no idea, Ned, how much your absence is lamented by the +dowagers, to whom, it must be owned, your charity has been pretty +extensive. + +It would delight you to see them condoling with each other on the +loss of the dear charming man, the man of sentiment, of true taste, who +admires the maturer beauties, and thinks no woman worth pursuing till +turned of twenty-five: 'tis a loss not to be made up; for your taste, +it must be owned, is pretty singular. + +I have seen your last favorite, Lady H----, who assures me, on the +word of a woman of honour, that, had you staid seven years in London, +she does not think she should have had the least inclination to change: +but an absent lover, she well observed, is, properly speaking, no lover +at all. "Bid Colonel Rivers remember," said she, "what I have read +somewhere, the parting words of a French lady to a bishop of her +acquaintance, Let your absence be short, my lord; and remember that a +mistress is a benefice which obliges to residence." + +I am told, you had not been gone a week before Jack Willmott had the +honor of drying up the fair widow's tears. + +I am going this evening to Vauxhall, and to-morrow propose setting +out for my house in Rutland, from whence you shall hear from me again. + +Adieu! I never write long letters in London. I should tell you, I +have been to see Mrs. Rivers and your sister; the former is well, but +very anxious to have you in England again; the latter grows so very +handsome, I don't intend to repeat my visits often. + + Yours, + J. Temple. + + + +LETTER 36. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Quebec, Oct. 14. + +I am this moment arrived from a ramble down the river; but, a ship +being just going, must acknowledge your last. + +You make me happy in telling me my dear Lady H---- has given my place +in her heart to so honest a fellow as Jack Willmott; and I sincerely +wish the ladies always chose their favorites as well. + +I should be very unreasonable indeed to expect constancy at almost +four thousand miles distance, especially when the prospect of my return +is so very uncertain. + +My voyage ought undoubtedly to be considered as an abdication: I am +to all intents and purposes dead in law as a lover; and the lady has +a right to consider her heart as vacant, and to proceed to a new +election. + +I claim no more than a share in her esteem and remembrance, which I +dare say I shall never want. + +That I have amused myself a little in the dowager way, I am very far +from denying; but you will observe, it was less from taste than the +principle of doing as little mischief as possible in my few excursions +to the world of gallantry. A little deviation from the exact rule of +right we men all allow ourselves in love affairs; but I was willing to +keep as near it as I could. Married women are, on my principles, +forbidden fruit; I abhor the seduction of innocence; I am too +delicate, and (with all my modesty) too vain, to be pleased with venal +beauty: what was I then to do, with a heart too active to be absolutely +at rest, and which had not met with its counterpart? Widows were, I +thought, fair prey, as being sufficiently experienced to take care of +themselves. + +I have said married women are, on my principles, forbidden fruit: I +should have explained myself; I mean in England, for my ideas on this +head change as soon as I land at Calais. + +Such is the amazing force of local prejudice, that I do not +recollect having ever made love to an English married woman, or a +French unmarried one. Marriages in France being made by the parents, +and therefore generally without inclination on either side, gallantry +seems to be a tacit condition, though not absolutely expressed in the +contract. + +But to return to my plan: I think it an excellent one; and would +recommend it to all those young men about town, who, like me, find in +their hearts the necessity of loving, before they meet with an object +capable of fixing them for life. + +By the way, I think the widows ought to raise a statue to my honor, +for having done my _possible_ to prove that, for the sake of +decorum, morals, and order, they ought to have all the men to +themselves. + +I have this moment your letter from Rutland. Do you know I am almost +angry? Your ideas of love are narrow and pedantic; custom has done +enough to make the life of one half of our species tasteless; but you +would reduce them to a state of still greater insipidity than even that +to which our tyranny has doomed them. + +You would limit the pleasure of loving and being beloved, and the +charming power of pleasing, to three or four years only in the life of +that sex which is peculiarly formed to feel tenderness; women are born +with more lively affections than men, which are still more softened by +education; to deny them the privilege of being amiable, the only +privilege we allow them, as long as nature continues them so, is such a +mixture of cruelty and false taste as I should never have suspected you +of, notwithstanding your partiality for unripened beauty. + +As to myself, I persist in my opinion, that women are most charming +when they join the attractions of the mind to those of the person, when +they feel the passion they inspire; or rather, that they are never +charming till then. + +A woman in the first bloom of youth resembles a tree in blossom; +when mature, in fruit: but a woman who retains the charms of her person +till her understanding is in its full perfection, is like those trees +in happier climes, which produce blossoms and fruit together. + +You will scarce believe, Jack, that I have lived a week _tete a +tete_, in the midst of a wood, with just the woman I have been +describing; a widow extremely my taste, _mature_, five or six +years more so than you say I require, lively, sensible, handsome, +without saying one civil thing to her; yet nothing can be more certain. + +I could give you powerful reasons for my insensibility; but you are +a traitor to love, and therefore have no right to be in any of his +secrets. + +I will excuse your visits to my sister; as well as I love you +myself, I have a thousand reasons for chusing she should not be +acquainted with you. + +What you say in regard to my mother, gives me pain; I will never +take back my little gift to her; and I cannot live in England on my +present income, though it enables me to live _en prince_ in +Canada. + +Adieu! I have not time to say more. I have stole this half hour from +the loveliest woman breathing, whom I am going to visit: surely you are +infinitely obliged to me. To lessen the obligation, however, my calash +is not yet come to the door. + + Adieu! once more. + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 37. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Oct. 15. + +Our wanderer is returned, my dear, and in such spirits as you can't +conceive: he passed yesterday with us; he likes to have us to himself, +and he had yesterday; we walked _a trio_ in the wood, and were +foolish; I have not passed so agreable a day since I came to Canada: I +love mightily to be foolish, and the people here have no taste that way +at all: your brother is divinely so upon occasion. The weather was, to +use the Canadian phrase, _superbe et magnifique_. We shall not, I +am told, have much more in the same _magnifique_ style, so we +intend to make the most of it: I have ordered your brother to come and +walk with us from morning till night; every day and all the day. + +The dear man was amazingly overjoyed to see us again; we shared in +his joy, though my little Emily took some pains to appear tranquil on +the occasion: I never saw more pleasure in the countenances of two +people in my life, nor more pains taken to suppress it. + +Do you know Fitzgerald is really an agreable fellow? I have an +admirable natural instinct; I perceived he had understanding, from his +aquiline nose and his eagle eye, which are indexes I never knew fail. I +believe we are going to be great; I am not sure I shall not admit him +to make up a _partie quarree_ with your brother and Emily: I told +him my original plot upon him, and he was immensely pleased with it. I +almost fancy he can be foolish; in that case, my business is done: if +with his other merits he has that, I am a lost woman. + +He has excellent sense, great good nature, and the true princely +spirit of an Irishman: he will be ruined here, but that is his affair, +not mine. He changed quarters with an officer now at Montreal; and, +because the lodgings were to be furnished, thought himself obliged to +leave three months wine in the cellars. + +His person is pleasing; he has good eyes and teeth (the only +beauties I require), is marked with the small pox, which in men gives a +sensible look; very manly, and looks extremely like a gentleman. + +He comes, the conqueror comes. + +I see him plainly through the trees; he is now in full view, within +twenty yards of the house. He looks particularly well on horseback, +Lucy; which is one certain proof of a good education. The fellow is +well born, and has ideas of things: I think I shall admit him of my +train. + +Emily wonders I have never been in love: the cause is clear; I have +prevented any attachment to one man, by constantly flirting with +twenty: 'tis the most sovereign receipt in the world. I think too, my +dear, you have maintained a sort of running fight with the little +deity: our hour is not yet come. Adieu! + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 38. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, Oct. 15, evening. + +I am returned, my dear, and have had the pleasure of hearing you and +my mother are well, though I have had no letters from either of you. + +Mr. Temple, my dearest Lucy, tells me he has visited you. Will you +pardon me a freedom which nothing but the most tender friendship can +warrant, when I tell you that I would wish you to be as little +acquainted with him as politeness allows? He is a most agreable man, +perhaps too agreable, with a thousand amiable qualities; he is the man +I love above all others; and, where women are not concerned, a man of +the most unblemished honor: but his manner of life is extremely +libertine, and his ideas of women unworthy the rest of his character; +he knows not the perfections which adorn the valuable part of your +sex, he is a stranger to your virtues, and incapable, at least I fear +so, of that tender affection which alone can make an amiable woman +happy. With all this, he is polite and attentive, and has a manner, +which, without intending it, is calculated to deceive women into an +opinion of his being attached when he is not: he has all the splendid +virtues which command esteem; is noble, generous, disinterested, open, +brave; and is the most dangerous man on earth to a woman of honor, who +is unacquainted with the arts of man. + +Do not however mistake me, my Lucy; I know him to be as incapable +of forming improper designs on you, even were you not the sister of his +friend, as you are of listening to him if he did: 'tis for your heart +alone I am alarmed; he is formed to please; you are young and +inexperienced, and have not yet loved; my anxiety for your peace makes +me dread your loving a man whose views are not turned to marriage, and +who is therefore incapable of returning properly the tenderness of a +woman of honor. + +I have seen my divine Emily: her manner of receiving me was very +flattering; I cannot doubt her friendship for me; yet I am not +absolutely content. I am however convinced, by the easy tranquillity of +her air, and her manner of bearing this delay of their marriage, that +she does not love the man for whom she is intended: she has been a +victim to the avarice of her friends. I would fain hope--yet what +have I to hope? If I had even the happiness to be agreable to her, if +she was disengaged from Sir George, my fortune makes it impossible for +me to marry her, without reducing her to indigence at home, or dooming +her to be an exile in Canada for life. I dare not ask myself what I +wish or intend: yet I give way in spite of me to the delight of seeing +and conversing with her. + +I must not look forward; I will only enjoy the present pleasure of +believing myself one of the first in her esteem and friendship, and of +shewing her all those little pleasing attentions so dear to a sensible +heart; attentions in which her _lover_ is astonishingly remiss: he +is at Montreal, and I am told was gay and happy on his journey thither, +though he left his mistress behind. + +I have spent two very happy days at Silleri, with Emily and your +friend Bell Fermor: to-morrow I meet them at the governor's, where +there is a very agreable assembly on Thursday evenings. Adieu! + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + +I shall write again by a ship which sails next week. + + + +LETTER 39. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Quebec, Oct. 18. + +I have this moment a letter from Madame Des Roches, the lady at +whose house I spent a week, and to whom I am greatly obliged. I am so +happy as to have an opportunity of rendering her a service, in which I +must desire your assistance. + +'Tis in regard to some lands belonging to her, which, not being +settled, some other person has applied for a grant of at home. I send +you the particulars, and beg you will lose no time in entering a +_caveat_, and taking other proper steps to prevent what would be an +act of great injustice: the war and the incursions of the Indians in +alliance with us have hitherto prevented these lands from being +settled, but Madame Des Roches is actually in treaty with some Acadians +to settle them immediately. Employ all your friends as well as mine if +necessary; my lawyer will direct you in what manner to apply, and pay +the expences attending the application. Adieu! + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 40. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Oct. 20. + +I danced last night till four o'clock in the morning (if you will +allow the expression), without being the least fatigued: the little +Fitzgerald was my partner, who grows upon me extremely; the monkey has +a way of being attentive and careless by turns, which has an amazing +effect; nothing attaches a woman of my temper so much to a lover as her +being a little in fear of losing him; and he keeps up the spirit of the +thing admirably. + +Your brother and Emily danced together, and I think I never saw +either of them look so handsome; she was a thousand times more admired +at this ball than the first, and reason good, for she was a thousand +times more agreable; your brother is really a charming fellow, he is +an immense favorite with the ladies; he has that very pleasing general +attention, which never fails to charm women; he can even be particular +to one, without wounding the vanity of the rest: if he was in company +with twenty, his mistress of the number, his manner would be such, that +every woman there would think herself the second in his esteem; and +that, if his heart had not been unluckily pre-engaged, she herself +should have been the object of his tenderness. + +His eyes are of immense use to him; he looks the civilest things +imaginable; his whole countenance speaks whatever he wishes to say; he +has the least occasion for words to explain himself of any man I ever +knew. + +Fitzgerald has eyes too, I assure you, and eyes that know how to +speak; he has a look of saucy unconcern and inattention, which is +really irresistible. + +We have had a great deal of snow already, but it melts away; 'tis a +lovely day, but an odd enough mixture of summer and winter; in some +places you see half a foot of snow lying, in others the dust is even +troublesome. + +Adieu! there are a dozen or two of beaux at the door. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 41. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Nov. 10. + +The savages assure us, my dear, on the information of the beavers, +that we shall have a very mild winter: it seems, these creatures have +laid in a less winter stock than usual. I take it very ill, Lucy, that +the beavers have better intelligence than we have. + +We are got into a pretty composed easy way; Sir George writes very +agreable, sensible, sentimental, gossiping letters, once a fortnight, +which Emily answers in due course, with all the regularity of a +counting-house correspondence; he talks of coming down after Christmas: +we expect him without impatience; and in the mean time amuse ourselves +as well as we can, and soften the pain of absence by the attention of +a man that I fancy we like quite as well. + +With submission to the beavers, the weather is very cold, and we +have had a great deal of snow already; but they tell me 'tis nothing to +what we shall have: they are taking precautions which make me shudder +beforehand, pasting up the windows, and not leaving an avenue where +cold can enter. + +I like the winter carriages immensely; the open carriole is a kind +of one-horse chaise, the covered one a chariot, set on a sledge to run +on the ice; we have not yet had snow enough to use them, but I like +their appearance prodigiously; the covered carrioles seem the prettiest +things in nature to make love in, as there are curtains to draw before +the windows: we shall have three in effect, my father's, Rivers's, and +Fitzgerald's; the two latter are to be elegance itself, and entirely +for the service of the ladies: your brother and Fitzgerald are trying +who shall be ruined first for the honor of their country. I will bet +three to one upon Ireland. They are every day contriving parties of +pleasure, and making the most gallant little presents imaginable to the +ladies. + +Adieu! my dear. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 42. + + +To Miss Rivers. + +Quebec, Nov. 14. + +I shall not, my dear, have above one more opportunity of writing to +you by the ships; after which we can only write by the packet once a +month. + +My Emily is every day more lovely; I see her often, and every hour +discover new charms in her; she has an exalted understanding, improved +by all the knowledge which is becoming in your sex; a soul awake to all +the finer sensations of the heart, checked and adorned by the native +gentleness of woman: she is extremely handsome, but she would please +every feeling heart if she was not; she has the soul of beauty: without +feminine softness and delicate sensibility, no features can give +loveliness; with them, very indifferent ones can charm: that +sensibility, that softness, never were so lovely as in my Emily. I can +write on no other subject. Were you to see her, my Lucy, you would +forgive me. My letter is called for. Adieu! + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + +Your friend Miss Fermor will write you every thing. + + + +LETTER 43. + + +To Miss Montague, at Silleri. + +Montreal, Nov. 14. + +Mr. Melmoth and I, my dear Emily, expected by this time to have seen +you at Montreal. I allow something to your friendship for Miss Fermor; +but there is also something due to relations who tenderly love you, and +under whose protection your uncle left you at his death. + +I should add, that there is something due to Sir George, had I not +already displeased you by what I have said on the subject. + +You are not to be told, that in a week the road from hence to Quebec +will be impassable for at least a month, till the rivers are +sufficiently froze to bear carriages. + +I will own to you, that I am a little jealous of your attachment to +Miss Fermor, though no one can think her more amiable than I do. + +If you do not come this week, I would wish you to stay till Sir +George comes down, and return with him; I will entreat the favor of +Miss Fermor to accompany you to Montreal, which we will endeavour to +make as agreable to her as we can. + +I have been ill of a slight fever, but am now perfectly recovered. +Sir George and Mr. Melmoth are well, and very impatient to see you +here. + + Adieu! my dear. + Your affectionate + E. Melmoth. + + + +LETTER 44. + + +To Mrs. Melmoth, at Montreal. + +Silleri, Nov. 20. + +I have a thousand reasons, my dearest Madam, for intreating you to +excuse my staying some time longer at Quebec. I have the sincerest +esteem for Sir George, and am not insensible of the force of our +engagements; but do not think his being there a reason for my coming: +the kind of suspended state, to say no more, in which those engagements +now are, call for a delicacy in my behaviour to him, which is so +difficult to observe without the appearance of affectation, that his +absence relieves me from a very painful kind of restraint: for the same +reason, 'tis impossible for me to come up at the time he does, if I do +come, even though Miss Fermor should accompany me. + +A moment's reflexion will convince you of the propriety of my +staying here till his mother does me the honor again to approve his +choice; or till our engagement is publicly known to be at an end. Mrs. +Clayton is a prudent mother, and a woman of the world, and may consider +that Sir George's situation is changed since she consented to his +marriage. + +I am not capricious; but I will own to you, that my esteem for Sir +George is much lessened by his behaviour since his last return from +New-York: he mistakes me extremely, if he supposes he has the least +additional merit in my eyes from his late acquisition of fortune: on +the contrary, I now see faults in him which were concealed by the +mediocrity of his situation before, and which do not promise happiness +to a heart like mine, a heart which has little taste for the false +glitter of life, and the most lively one possible for the calm real +delights of friendship, and domestic felicity. + +Accept my sincerest congratulations on your return of health; and +believe me, + + My dearest Madam, + Your obliged and affectionate + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 45. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Nov. 23. + +I have been seeing the last ship go out of the port, Lucy; you have +no notion what a melancholy sight it is: we are now left to ourselves, +and shut up from all the world for the winter: somehow we seem so +forsaken, so cut off from the rest of human kind, I cannot bear the +idea: I sent a thousand sighs and a thousand tender wishes to dear +England, which I never loved so much as at this moment. + +Do you know, my dear, I could cry if I was not ashamed? I shall not +absolutely be in spirits again this week. + +'Tis the first time I have felt any thing like bad spirits in +Canada: I followed the ship with my eyes till it turned Point Levi, +and, when I lost sight of it, felt as if I had lost every thing dear to +me on earth. I am not particular: I see a gloom on every countenance; I +have been at church, and think I never saw so many dejected faces in my +life. + +Adieu! for the present: it will be a fortnight before I can send +this letter; another agreable circumstance that: would to Heaven I +were in England, though I changed the bright sun of Canada for a fog! + +Dec. 1. + +We have had a week's snow without intermission: happily for us, your +brother and the Fitz have been weather-bound all the time at Silleri, +and cannot possibly get away. + +We have amused ourselves within doors, for there is no stirring +abroad, with playing at cards, playing at shuttlecock, playing the +fool, making love, and making moral reflexions: upon the whole, the +week has not been very disagreable. + +The snow is when we wake constantly up to our chamber windows; we +are literally dug out of it every morning. + +As to Quebec, I give up all hopes of ever seeing it again: but my +comfort is, that the people there cannot possibly get to their +neighbors; and I flatter myself very few of them have been half so well +entertained at home. + +We shall be abused, I know, for (what is really the fault of the +weather) keeping these two creatures here this week; the ladies hate us +for engrossing two such fine fellows as your brother and Fitzgerald, as +well as for having vastly more than our share of all the men: we +generally go out attended by at least a dozen, without any other woman +but a lively old French lady, who is a flirt of my father's, and will +certainly be my mamma. + +We sweep into the general's assembly on Thursdays with such a train +of beaux as draws every eye upon us: the rest of the fellows crowd +round us; the misses draw up, blush, and flutter their fans; and your +little Bell sits down with such a saucy impertinent consciousness in +her countenance as is really provoking: Emily on the contrary looks +mild and humble, and seems by her civil decent air to apologize to them +for being so much more agreable than themselves, which is a fault I for +my part am not in the least inclined to be ashamed of. + +Your idea of Quebec, my dear, is perfectly just; it is like a third +or fourth rate country town in England; much hospitality, little +society; cards, scandal, dancing, and good chear; all excellent things +to pass away a winter evening, and peculiarly adapted to what I am +told, and what I begin to feel, of the severity of this climate. + +I am told they abuse me, which I can easily believe, because my +impertinence to them deserves it: but what care I, you know, Lucy, so +long as I please myself, and am at Silleri out of the sound? + +They are squabbling at Quebec, I hear, about I cannot tell what, +therefore shall not attempt to explain: some dregs of old disputes, it +seems, which have had not time to settle: however, we new comers have +certainly nothing to do with these matters: you can't think how +comfortable we feel at Silleri, out of the way. + +My father says, the politics of Canada are as complex and as +difficult to be understood as those of the Germanic system. + +For my part, I think no politics worth attending to but those of the +little commonwealth of woman: if I can maintain my empire over hearts, +I leave the men to quarrel for every thing else. + +I observe a strict neutrality, that I may have a chance for admirers +amongst both parties. Adieu! the post is just going out. + + Your faithful + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 46. + + +To Miss Montague, at Silleri. + +Montreal, Dec. 18. + +There is something, my dear Emily, in what you say as to the +delicacy of your situation; but, whilst you are so very exact in acting +up to it on one side, do you not a little overlook it on the other? + +I am extremely unwilling to say a disagreable thing to you, but Miss +Fermor is too young as well as too gay to be a protection--the very +particular circumstance you mention makes Mr. Melmoth's the only house +in Canada in which, if I have any judgment, you can with propriety live +till your marriage takes place. + +You extremely injure Sir George in supposing it possible he should +fail in his engagements: and I see with pain that you are more +quicksighted to his failings than is quite consistent with that +tenderness, which (allow me to say) he has a right to expect from you. +He is like other men of his age and fortune; he is the very man you so +lately thought amiable, and of whose love you cannot without injustice +have a doubt. + +Though I approve your contempt of the false glitter of the world, +yet I think it a little strained at your time of life: did I not know +you as well as I do, I should say that philosophy in a young and +especially a female mind, is so out of season, as to be extremely +suspicious. The pleasures which attend on affluence are too great, and +too pleasing to youth, to be overlooked, except when under the +influence of a livelier passion. + +Take care, my Emily; I know the goodness of your heart, but I also +know its sensibility; remember that, if your situation requires great +circumspection in your behaviour to Sir George, it requires much +greater to every other person: it is even more delicate than marriage +itself. + +I shall expect you and Miss Fermor as soon as the roads are such +that you can travel agreably; and, as you object to Sir George as a +conductor, I will entreat Captain Fermor to accompany you hither. + + I am, my dear, + Your most affectionate + E. Melmoth. + + + +LETTER 47. + + +To Mrs. Melmoth, at Montreal. + +Silleri, Dec. 26. + +I entreat you, my dearest Madam, to do me the justice to believe I +see my engagement to Sir George in as strong a light as you can do; if +there is any change in my behaviour to him, it is owing to the very +apparent one in his conduct to me, of which no one but myself can be a +judge. As to what you say in regard to my contempt of affluence, I can +only say it is in my character, whether it is generally in the female +one or not. + +Were the cruel hint you are pleased to give just, be assured Sir +George should be the first person to whom I would declare it. I hope +however it is possible to esteem merit without offending even the most +sacred of all engagements. + +A gentleman waits for this. I have only time to say, that Miss +Fermor thanks you for your obliging invitation, and promises she will +accompany me to Montreal as soon as the river St. Lawrence will bear +carriages, as the upper road is extremely inconvenient. + + I am, + My dearest Madam, + Your obliged + and faithful + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 48. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Dec. 27. + +After a fortnight's snow, we have had near as much clear blue sky +and sunshine: the snow is six feet deep, so that we may be said to walk +on our own heads; that is, speaking _en philosophe_, we occupy the +space we should have done in summer if we had done so; or, to explain +it more clearly, our heels are now where our heads should be. + +The scene is a little changed for the worse: the lovely landscape is +now one undistinguished waste of snow, only a little diversified by the +great variety of ever-greens in the woods: the romantic winding path +down the side of the hill to our farm, on which we used to amuse +ourselves with seeing the beaux serpentize, is now a confused, +frightful, rugged precipice, which one trembles at the idea of +ascending. + +There is something exceedingly agreable in the whirl of the +carrioles, which fly along at the rate of twenty miles an hour; and +really hurry one out of one's senses. + +Our little coterie is the object of great envy; we live just as we +like, without thinking of other people, which I am not sure _here_ +is prudent, but it is pleasant, which is a better thing. + +Emily, who is the civilest creature breathing, is for giving up her +own pleasure to avoid offending others, and wants me, every time we +make a carrioling-party, to invite all the misses of Quebec to go with +us, because they seem angry at our being happy without them: but for +that very reason I persist in my own way, and consider wisely, that, +though civility is due to other people, yet there is also some civility +due to one's self. + +I agree to visit every body, but think it mighty absurd I must not +take a ride without asking a hundred people I scarce know to go with +me: yet this is the style here; they will neither be happy themselves, +nor let any body else. Adieu! + +Dec. 29. + +I will never take a beaver's word again as long as I live: there is +no supporting this cold; the Canadians say it is seventeen years since +there has been so severe a season. I thought beavers had been people +of more honor. + +Adieu! I can no more: the ink freezes as I take it from the standish +to the paper, though close to a large stove. Don't expect me to write +again till May; one's faculties are absolutely congealed this weather. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 49. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Jan. 1. + +It is with difficulty I breathe, my dear; the cold is so amazingly +intense as almost totally to stop respiration. I have business, the +business of pleasure, at Quebec; but have not courage to stir from the +stove. + +We have had five days, the severity of which none of the natives +remember to have ever seen equaled: 'tis said, the cold is beyond all +the thermometers here, tho' intended for the climate. + +The strongest wine freezes in a room which has a stove in it; even +brandy is thickened to the consistence of oil: the largest wood fire, +in a wide chimney, does not throw out its heat a quarter of a yard. + +I must venture to Quebec to-morrow, or have company at home: +amusements are here necessary to life; we must be jovial, or the blood +will freeze in our veins. + +I no longer wonder the elegant arts are unknown here; the rigour of +the climate suspends the very powers of the understanding; what then +must become of those of the imagination? Those who expect to see + + "A new Athens rising near the pole," + +will find themselves extremely disappointed. Genius will never +mount high, where the faculties of the mind are benumbed half the year. + +'Tis sufficient employment for the most lively spirit here to +contrive how to preserve an existence, of which there are moments that +one is hardly conscious: the cold really sometimes brings on a sort of +stupefaction. + +We had a million of beaux here yesterday, notwithstanding the severe +cold: 'tis the Canadian custom, calculated I suppose for the climate, +to visit all the ladies on New-year's-day, who sit dressed in form to +be kissed: I assure you, however, our kisses could not warm them; but +we were obliged, to our eternal disgrace, to call in rasberry brandy as +an auxiliary. + +You would have died to see the men; they look just like so many +bears in their open carrioles, all wrapped in furs from head to foot; +you see nothing of the human form appear, but the tip of a nose. + +They have intire coats of beaver skin, exactly like Friday's in +Robinson Crusoe, and casques on their heads like the old knights errant +in romance; you never saw such tremendous figures; but without this +kind of cloathing it would be impossible to stir out at present. + +The ladies are equally covered up, tho' in a less unbecoming style; +they have long cloth cloaks with loose hoods, like those worn by the +market-women in the north of England. I have one in scarlet, the hood +lined with sable, the prettiest ever seen here, in which I assure you I +look amazingly handsome; the men think so, and call me the _Little +red riding-hood_; a name which becomes me as well as the hood. + +The Canadian ladies wear these cloaks in India silk in summer, +which, fluttering in the wind, look really graceful on a fine woman. + +Besides our riding-hoods, when we go out, we have a large buffaloe's +skin under our feet, which turns up, and wraps round us almost to our +shoulders; so that, upon the whole, we are pretty well guarded from the +weather as well as the men. + +Our covered carrioles too have not only canvas windows (we dare not +have glass, because we often overturn), but cloth curtains to draw all +round us; the extreme swiftness of these carriages also, which dart +along like lightening, helps to keep one warm, by promoting the +circulation of the blood. + +I pity the Fitz; no tiger was ever so hard-hearted as I am this +weather: the little god has taken his flight, like the swallows. I say +nothing, but cruelty is no virtue in Canada; at least at this season. + +I suppose Pygmalion's statue was some frozen Canadian gentlewoman, +and a sudden warm day thawed her. I love to expound ancient fables, and +I think no exposition can be more natural than this. + +Would you know what makes me chatter so this morning? Papa has made +me take some excellent _liqueur_; 'tis the mode here; all the +Canadian ladies take a little, which makes them so coquet and agreable. +Certainly brandy makes a woman talk like an angel. Adieu! + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 50. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Jan. 4. + +I don't quite agree with you, my dear; your brother does not appear +to me to have the least scruple of that foolish false modesty which +stands in a man's way. + +He is extremely what the French call _awakened_; he is modest, +certainly; that is, he is not a coxcomb, but he has all that proper +self-confidence which is necessary to set his agreable qualities in +full light: nothing can be a stronger proof of this, than that, +wherever he is, he always takes your attention in a moment, and this +without seeming to solicit it. + +I am very fond of him, though he never makes love to me, in which +circumstance he is very singular: our friendship is quite platonic, at +least on his side, for I am not quite so sure on the other. I remember +one day in summer we were walking _tete a tete_ in the road to +Cape Rouge, when he wanted me to strike into a very beautiful thicket: +"Positively, Rivers," said I, "I will not venture with you into that +wood." "Are you afraid of _me_, Bell?" "No, but extremely of +_myself_." + +I have loved him ever since a little scene that passed here three or +four months ago: a very affecting story, of a distressed family in our +neighbourhood, was told him and Sir George; the latter preserved all +the philosophic dignity and manly composure of his countenance, very +coldly expressed his concern, and called another subject: your brother +changed color, his eyes glistened; he took the first opportunity to +leave the room, he sought these poor people, he found, he relieved +them; which we discovered by accident a month after. + +The weather, tho' cold beyond all that you in England can form an +idea of, is yet mild to what it has been the last five or six days; we +are going to Quebec, to church. + +Two o'clock. + +Emily and I have been talking religion all the way home: we are both +mighty good girls, as girls go in these degenerate days; our +grandmothers to be sure--but it's folly to look back. + +We have been saying, Lucy, that 'tis the strangest thing in the +world people should quarrel about religion, since we undoubtedly all +mean the same thing; all good minds in every religion aim at pleasing +the Supreme Being; the means we take differ according to the country +where we are born, and the prejudices we imbibe from education; a +consideration which ought to inspire us with kindness and indulgence to +each other. + +If we examine each other's sentiments with candor, we shall find +much less difference in essentials than we imagine; + + "Since all agree to own, at least to mean, + One great, one good, one general Lord of all." + +There is, I think, a very pretty Sunday reflexion for you, Lucy. + +You must know, I am extremely religious; and for this amongst other +reasons, that I think infidelity a vice peculiarly contrary to the +native softness of woman: it is bold, daring, masculine; and I should +almost doubt the sex of an unbeliever in petticoats. + +Women are religious as they are virtuous, less from principles +founded on reasoning and argument, than from elegance of mind, delicacy +of moral taste, and a certain quick perception of the beautiful and +becoming in every thing. + +This instinct, however, for such it is, is worth all the tedious +reasonings of the men; which is a point I flatter myself you will not +dispute with me. + +Monday, Jan. 5. + +This is the first day I have ventured in an open carriole; we have +been running a race on the snow, your brother and I against Emily and +Fitzgerald: we conquered from Fitzgerald's complaisance to Emily. I +shall like it mightily, well wrapt up: I set off with a crape over my +face to keep off the cold, but in three minutes it was a cake of solid +ice, from my breath which froze upon it; yet this is called a mild day, +and the sun shines in all his glory. + +Silleri, Thursday, Jan. 8, midnight. + +We are just come from the general's assembly; much company, and we +danced till this minute; for I believe we have not been more coming +these four miles. + +Fitzgerald is the very pink of courtesy; he never uses his covered +carriole himself, but devotes it intirely to the ladies; it stands at +the general's door in waiting on Thursdays: if any lady comes out +before her carriole arrives, the servants call out mechanically, +"Captain Fitzgerald's carriole here, for a lady." The Colonel is +equally gallant, but I generally lay an embargo on his: they have each +of them an extreme pretty one for themselves, or to drive a fair lady a +morning's airing, when she will allow them the honor, and the weather +is mild enough to permit it. + + _Bon soir!_ I am sleepy. + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 51. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Quebec, Jan. 9. + +You mistake me extremely, Jack, as you generally do: I have by no +means forsworn marriage: on the contrary, though happiness is not so +often found there as I wish it was, yet I am convinced it is to be +found no where else; and, poor as I am, I should not hesitate about +trying the experiment myself to-morrow, if I could meet with a woman +to my taste, unappropriated, whose ideas of the state agreed with mine, +which I allow are something out of the common road: but I must be +certain those ideas are her own, therefore they must arise +spontaneously, and not in complaisance to mine; for which reason, if I +could, I would endeavour to lead my mistress into the subject, and know +her sentiments on the manner of living in that state before I +discovered my own. + +I must also be well convinced of her tenderness before I make a +declaration of mine: she must not distinguish me because I flatter her, +but because she thinks I have merit; those fancied passions, where +gratified vanity assumes the form of love, will not satisfy my heart: +the eyes, the air, the voice of the woman I love, a thousand little +indiscretions dear to the heart, must convince me I am beloved, before +I confess I love. + +Though sensible of the advantages of fortune, I can be happy without +it: if I should ever be rich enough to live in the world, no one will +enjoy it with greater gust; if not, I can with great spirit, provided I +find such a companion as I wish, retire from it to love, content, and a +cottage: by which I mean to the life of a little country gentleman. + +You ask me my opinion of the winter here. If you can bear a degree +of cold, of which Europeans can form no idea, it is far from being +unpleasant; we have settled frost, and an eternal blue sky. Travelling +in this country in winter is particularly agreable: the carriages are +easy, and go on the ice with an amazing velocity, though drawn only by +one horse. + +The continual plain of snow would be extremely fatiguing both to the +eye and imagination, were not both relieved, not only by the woods in +prospect, but by the tall branches of pines with which the road is +marked out on each side, and which form a verdant avenue agreably +contrasted with the dazzling whiteness of the snow, on which, when the +sun shines, it is almost impossible to look steadily even for a moment. + +Were it not for this method of marking out the roads, it would be +impossible to find the way from one village to another. + +The eternal sameness however of this avenue is tiresome when you go +far in one road. + +I have passed the last two months in the most agreable manner +possible, in a little society of persons I extremely love: I feel +myself so attached to this little circle of friends, that I have no +pleasure in any other company, and think all the time absolutely lost +that politeness forces me to spend any where else. I extremely dread +our party's being dissolved, and wish the winter to last for ever, for +I am afraid the spring will divide us. + + Adieu! and believe me, + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 52. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Jan. 9. + +I begin not to disrelish the winter here; now I am used to the cold, +I don't feel it so much: as there is no business done here in the +winter, 'tis the season of general dissipation; amusement is the study +of every body, and the pains people take to please themselves +contribute to the general pleasure: upon the whole, I am not sure it is +not a pleasanter winter than that of England. + +Both our houses and our carriages are uncommonly warm; the clear +serene sky, the dry pure air, the little parties of dancing and cards, +the good tables we all keep, the driving about on the ice, the +abundance of people we see there, for every body has a carriole, the +variety of objects new to an European, keep the spirits in a continual +agreable hurry, that is difficult to describe, but very pleasant to +feel. + +Sir George (would you believe it?) has written Emily a very warm +letter; tender, sentimental, and almost impatient; Mrs. Melmoth's +dictating, I will answer for it; not at all in his own composed +agreable style. He talks of coming down in a few days: I have a strong +notion he is coming, after his long tedious two years siege, to +endeavor to take us by storm at last; he certainly prepares for a +_coup de main_. He is right, all women hate a regular attack. + +Adieu for the present. + +Monday, Jan. 12. + +We sup at your brother's to-night, with all the _beau monde_ of +Quebec: we shall be superbly entertained, I know. I am malicious enough +to wish Sir George may arrive during the entertainment, because I have +an idea it will mortify him; though I scarce know why I think so. +Adieu! + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 53. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Jan. 13, Eleven o'clock. + +We passed a most agreable evening with your brother, though a large +company, which is seldom the case: a most admirable supper, excellent +wine, an elegant dessert of preserved fruits, and every body in spirits +and good humor. + +The Colonel was the soul of our entertainment: amongst his other +virtues, he has the companionable and convivial ones to an immense +degree, which I never had an opportunity of discovering so clearly +before. He seemed charmed beyond words to see us all so happy: we staid +till four o'clock in the morning, yet all complained to-day we came +away too soon. + +I need not tell you we had fiddles, for there is no entertainment in +Canada without them: never was such a race of dancers. + +One o'clock. + +The dear man is come, and with an equipage which puts the Empress of +Russia's tranieau to shame. America never beheld any thing so +brilliant: + + "All other carrioles, at sight of this, + Hide their diminish'd heads." + +Your brother's and Fitzgerald's will never dare to appear now; they +sink into nothing. + +Seven in the evening. + +Emily has been in tears in her chamber; 'tis a letter of Mrs. +Melmoth's which has had this agreable effect; some wise advice, I +suppose. Lord! how I hate people that give advice! don't you, Lucy? + +I don't like this lover's coming; he is almost as bad as a husband: +I am afraid he will derange our little coterie; and we have been so +happy, I can't bear it. + +Good night, my dear. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 54. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Jan. 14. + +We have passed a mighty stupid day; Sir George is civil, attentive, +and dull; Emily pensive, thoughtful, and silent; and my little self as +peevish as an old maid: nobody comes near us, not even your brother, +because we are supposed to be settling preliminaries; for you must +know Sir George has graciously condescended to change his mind, and +will marry her, if she pleases, without waiting for his mother's +letter, which resolution he has communicated to twenty people at Quebec +in his way hither; he is really extremely obliging. I suppose the +Melmoths have spirited him up to this. + +One o'clock. + +Emily is strangely reserved to me; she avoids seeing me alone, and +when it happens talks of the weather; papa is however in her +confidence: he is as strong an advocate for this milky baronet as Mrs. +Melmoth. + +Ten at night. + +All is over, Lucy; that is to say, all is fixed: they are to be +married on Monday next at the Recollects church, and to set off +immediately for Montreal: my father has been telling me the whole plan +of operations: we go up with them, stay a fortnight, then all come +down, and show away till summer, when the happy pair embark in the +first ship for England. + +Emily is really what one would call a prudent pretty sort of woman, +I did not think it had been in her: she is certainly right, there is +danger in delay; she has a thousand proverbs on her side; I thought +what all her fine sentiments would come to; she should at least have +waited for mamma's consent; this hurry is not quite consistent with +that extreme delicacy on which she piques herself; it looks exceedingly +as if she was afraid of losing him. + +I don't love her half so well as I did three days ago; I hate +discreet young ladies that marry and settle; give me an agreable fellow +and a knapsack. + +My poor Rivers! what will become of him when we are gone? he has +neglected every body for us. + +As she loves the pleasures of conversation, she will be amazingly +happy in her choice; + + "With such a companion to spend the long day!" + +He is to be sure a most entertaining creature. + +Adieu! I have no patience. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + +After all, I am a little droll; I am angry with Emily for concluding +an advantageous match with a man she does not absolutely dislike, which +all good mammas say is sufficient; and this only because it breaks in +on a little circle of friends, in whose society I have been happy. O! +self! self! I would have her hazard losing a fine fortune and a coach +and six, that I may continue my coterie two or three months longer. + +Adieu! I will write again as soon as we are married. My next will, I +suppose, be from Montreal. I die to see your brother and my little +Fitzgerald; this man gives me the vapours. Heavens! Lucy, what a +difference there is in men! + + +END OF VOL. I. + + + + +THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE. + + +Vol. II + + + +LETTER 55. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Jan. 16. + +So, my dear, we went on too fast, it seems: Sir George was so +obliging as to settle all without waiting for Emily's consent; not +having supposed her refusal to be in the chapter of possibilities: +after having communicated their plan of operations to me as an affair +settled, papa was dispatched, as Sir George's ambassador, to inform +Emily of his gracious intentions in her favor. + +She received him with proper dignity, and like a girl of true spirit +told him, that as the delay was originally from Sir George, she should +insist on observing the conditions very exactly, and was determined to +wait till spring, whatever might be the contents of Mrs. Clayton's +expected letter; reserving to herself also the privilege of refusing +him even then, if upon mature deliberation she should think proper so +to do. + +She has further insisted, that till that time he shall leave +Silleri; take up his abode at Quebec, unless, which she thinks most +adviseable, he should return to Montreal for the winter; and never +attempt seeing her without witnesses, as their present situation is +particularly delicate, and that whilst it continues they can have +nothing to say to each other which their common friends may not with +propriety hear: all she can be prevailed on to consent to in his favor, +is to allow him _en attendant_ to visit here like any other +gentleman. + +I wish she would send him back to Montreal, for I see plainly he +will spoil all our little parties. + +Emily is a fine girl, Lucy, and I am friends with her again; so, my +dear, I shall revive my coterie, and be happy two or three months +longer. I have sent to ask my two sweet fellows at Quebec to dine here: +I really long to see them; I shall let them into the present state of +affairs here, for they both despise Sir George as much as I do; the +creature looks amazingly foolish, and I enjoy his humiliation not a +little: such an animal to set up for being beloved indeed! O to be +sure! + +Emily has sent for me to her apartment. Adieu for a moment. + +Eleven o'clock. + +She has shewn me Mrs. Melmoth's letter on the subject of concluding +the marriage immediately: it is in the true spirit of family +impertinence. She writes with the kind discreet insolence of a +relation; and Emily has answered her with the genuine spirit of an +independent Englishwoman, who is so happy as to be her own mistress, +and who is therefore determined to think for herself. + +She has refused going to Montreal at all this winter; and has +hinted, though not impolitely, that she wants no guardian of her +conduct but herself; adding a compliment to my ladyship's discretion so +very civil, it is impossible for me to repeat it with decency. + +O Heavens! your brother and Fitzgerald! I fly. The dear creatures! +my life has been absolute vegetation since they absented themselves. + + Adieu! my dear, + Your faithful + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 56. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Jan. 24. + +We have the same parties and amusements we used to have, my dear, +but there is by no means the same spirit in them; constraint and +dullness seem to have taken the place of that sweet vivacity and +confidence which made our little society so pleasing: this odious man +has infected us all; he seems rather a spy on our pleasures than a +partaker of them; he is more an antidote to joy than a tall maiden +aunt. + +I wish he would go; I say spontaneously every time I see him, +without considering I am impolite, "La! Sir George, when do you go to +Montreal?" He reddens, and gives me a peevish answer; and I then, and +not before, recollect how very impertinent the question is. + +But pray, my dear, because he has no taste for social companionable +life, has he therefore a right to damp the spirit of it in those that +have? I intend to consult some learned casuist on this head. + +He takes amazing pains to please in his way, is curled, powdered, +perfumed, and exhibits every day in a new suit of embroidery; but with +all this, has the mortification to see your brother please more in a +plain coat. I am lazy. Adieu! + + Yours, ever and ever, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 57. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Jan. 25. + +So you intend, my dear Jack, to marry when you are quite tired of a +life of gallantry: the lady will be much obliged to you for a heart, +the refuse of half the prostitutes in town; a heart, the best feelings +of which will be entirely obliterated; a heart hardened by a long +commerce with the most unworthy of the sex; and which will bring +disgust, suspicion, coldness, and depravity of taste, to the bosom of +sensibility and innocence. + +For my own part, though fond of women to the greatest degree, I have +had, considering my profession and complexion, very few intrigues. I +have always had an idea I should some time or other marry, and have +been unwilling to bring to a state in which I hoped for happiness from +mutual affection, a heart worn out by a course of gallantries: to a +contrary conduct is owing most of our unhappy marriages; the woman +brings with her all her stock of tenderness, truth, and affection; the +man's is exhausted before they meet: she finds the generous delicate +tenderness of her soul, not only unreturned, but unobserved; she +fancies some other woman the object of his affection, she is unhappy, +she pines in secret; he observes her discontent, accuses her of +caprice; and her portion is wretchedness for life. + +If I did not ardently wish your happiness, I should not thus +repeatedly combat a prejudice, which, as you have sensibility, will +infallibly make the greater part of your life a scene of insipidity +and regret. + +You are right, Jack, as to the savages; the only way to civilize +them is to _feminize_ their women; but the task is rather +difficult: at present their manners differ in nothing from those of the +men; they even add to the ferocity of the latter. + +You desire to know the state of my heart: excuse me, Jack; you know +nothing of love; and we who do, never disclose its mysteries to the +prophane: besides, I always chuse a female for the confidante of my +sentiments; I hate even to speak of love to one of my own sex. + +Adieu! I am going a party with half a dozen ladies, and have not +another minute to spare. + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 58. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Jan. 28. + +I every hour, my dear, grow more in love with French manners; there +is something charming in being young and sprightly all one's life: it +would appear absurd in England to hear, what I have just heard, a fat +virtuous lady of seventy toast _Love and Opportunity_ to a young +fellow; but 'tis nothing here: they dance too to the last gasp; I have +seen the daughter, mother, and grand-daughter, in the same French +country dance. + +They are perfectly right; and I honor them for their good sense and +spirit, in determining to make life agreable as long as they can. + +_A propos_ to age, I am resolved to go home, Lucy; I have found +three grey hairs this morning; they tell me 'tis common; this vile +climate is at war with beauty, makes one's hair grey, and one's hands +red. I won't stay, absolutely. + +Do you know there is a very pretty fellow here, Lucy, Captain +Howard, who has taken a fancy to make people believe he and I are on +good terms? He affects to sit by me, to dance with me, to whisper +nothing to me, to bow with an air of mystery, and to shew me all the +little attentions of a lover in public, though he never yet said a +civil thing to me when we were alone. + +I was standing with him this morning near the brow of the hill, +leaning against a tree in the sunshine, and looking down the precipice +below, when I said something of the lover's leap, and in play, as you +will suppose, made a step forwards: we had been talking of indifferent +things, his air was till then indolence itself; but on this little +motion of mine, though there was not the least danger, he with the +utmost seeming eagerness catched hold of me as if alarmed at the very +idea, and with the most passionate air protested his life depended on +mine, and that he would not live an hour after me. I looked at him with +astonishment, not being able to comprehend the meaning of this sudden +flight, when turning my head, I saw a gentleman and lady close behind +us, whom he had observed though I had not. They were retiring: "Pray +approach, my dear Madam," said I; "we have no secrets, this declaration +was intended for you to hear; we were talking of the weather before you +came." + +He affected to smile, though I saw he was mortified; but as his +smile shewed the finest teeth imaginable I forgave him: he is really +very handsome, and 'tis pity he has this foolish quality of preferring +the shadow to the substance. + +I shall, however, desire him to flirt elsewhere, as this _badinage_, +however innocent, may hurt my character, and give pain to my little +Fitzgerald: I believe I begin to love this fellow, because I begin to +be delicate on the subject of flirtations, and feel my spirit of +coquetry decline every day. + +29th. + +Mrs. Clayton has wrote, my dear; and has at last condescended to +allow Emily the honor of being her daughter-in-law, in consideration of +her son's happiness, and of engagements entered into with her own +consent; though she very prudently observes, that what was a proper +match for Captain Clayton is by no means so for Sir George; and talks +something of an offer of a citizen's daughter with fifty thousand +pounds, and the promise of an Irish title. She has, however, observed +that indiscreet engagements are better broke than kept. + +Sir George has shewn the letter, a very indelicate one in my +opinion, to my father and me; and has talked a great deal of nonsense +on the subject. He wants to shew it to Emily, and I advise him to it, +because I know the effect it will have. I see plainly he wishes to make +a great merit of keeping his engagement, if he does keep it: he hinted +a little fear of breaking her heart; and I am convinced, if he thought +she could survive his infidelity, all his tenderness and constancy +would cede to filial duty and a coronet. + +Eleven o'clock. + +After much deliberation, Sir George has determined to write to +Emily, inclose his mother's letter, and call in the afternoon to enjoy +the triumph of his generosity in keeping his engagement, when it is in +his power to do so much better: 'tis a pretty plan, and I encourage him +in it; my father, who wishes the match, shrugs his shoulders, and +frowns at me; but the little man is fixed as fate in his resolve, and +is writing at this moment in my father's apartment. I long to see his +letter; I dare say it will be a curiosity: 'tis short, however, for he +is coming out of the room already. + +Adieu! my father calls for this letter; it is to go in one of his to +New York, and the person who takes it waits for it at the door. + + Ever yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 59. + + +To Miss Montague, at Silleri. + +Dear Madam, + +I send you the inclosed from my mother: I thought it necessary you +should see it, though not even a mother's wishes shall ever influence +me to break those engagements which I have had the happiness of +entering into with the most charming of women, and which a man of honor +ought to hold sacred. + +I do not think happiness intirely dependent on rank or fortune, and +have only to wish my mother's sentiments on this subject more agreable +to my own, as there is nothing I so much wish as to oblige her: at all +events, however, depend on my fulfilling those promises, which ought to +be the more binding, as they were made at a time when our situations +were more equal. + +I am happy in an opportunity of convincing you and the world, that +interest and ambition have no power over my heart, when put in +competition with what I owe to my engagements; being with the greatest +truth, + + My dearest Madam, + Yours, &c. + G. Clayton. + +You will do me the honor to name the day to make me happy. + + + +LETTER 60. + + +To Sir George Clayton, at Quebec. + +Dear Sir, + +I have read Mrs. Clayton's letter with attention; and am of her +opinion, that indiscreet engagements are better broke than kept. + +I have the less reason to take ill your breaking the kind of +engagement between us at the desire of your family, as I entered into +it at first entirely in compliance with mine. I have ever had the +sincerest esteem and friendship for you, but never that romantic love +which hurries us to forget all but itself: I have therefore no reason +to expect in you the imprudent disinterestedness that passion +occasions. + +A fuller explanation is necessary on this subject than it is +possible to enter into in a letter: if you will favor us with your +company this afternoon at Silleri, we may explain our sentiments more +clearly to each other: be assured, I never will prevent your complying +in every instance with the wishes of so kind and prudent a mother. + + I am, dear Sir, + Your affectionate friend + and obedient servant, + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 61. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +I have been with Emily, who has been reading Mrs. Clayton's letter; I +saw joy sparkle in her eyes as she went on, her little heart seemed to +flutter with transport; I see two things very clearly, one of which +is, that she never loved this little insipid Baronet; the other I leave +your sagacity to find out. All the spirit of her countenance is +returned: she walks in air; her cheeks have the blush of pleasure; I +never saw so astonishing a change. I never felt more joy from the +acquisition of a new lover, than she seems to find in the prospect of +losing an old one. + +She has written to Sir George, and in a style that I know will hurt +him; for though I believe he wishes her to give him up, yet his vanity +would desire it should cost her very dear; and appear the effort of +disinterested love, and romantic generosity, not what it really is, the +effect of the most tranquil and perfect indifference. + +By the way, a disinterested mistress is, according to my ideas, a +mistress who _fancies_ she loves: we may talk what we please, at a +distance, of sacrificing the dear man to his interest, and promoting +his happiness by destroying our own; but when it comes to the point, I +am rather inclined to believe all women are of my way of thinking; and +let me die if I would give up a man I loved to the first dutchess in +Christendom: 'tis all mighty well in theory; but for the practical +part, let who will believe it for Bell. + +Indeed when a woman finds her lover inclined to change, 'tis good to +make a virtue of necessity, and give the thing a sentimental turn, +which gratifies his vanity, and does not wound one's own. + +Adieu! I see Sir George and his fine carriole; I must run, and tell +Emily. + + Ever yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 62. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Jan. 28. + +Yes, my Lucy, your brother tenderly regrets the absence of a sister +endeared to him much more by her amiable qualities than by blood; who +would be the object of his esteem and admiration, if she was not that +of his fraternal tenderness; who has all the blooming graces, +simplicity, and innocence of nineteen, with the accomplishments and +understanding of five and twenty; who joins the strength of mind so +often confined to our sex, to the softness, delicacy, and vivacity of +her own; who, in short, is all that is estimable and lovely; and who, +except one, is the most charming of her sex: you will forgive the +exception, Lucy; perhaps no man but a brother would make it. + +My sweet Emily appears every day more amiable; she is now in the +full tyranny of her charms, at the age when the mind is improved, and +the person in its perfection. I every day see in her more indifference +to her lover, a circumstance which gives me a pleasure which perhaps it +ought not: there is a selfishness in it, for which I am afraid I ought +to blush. + +You judge perfectly well, my dear, in checking the natural vivacity +of your temper, however pleasing it is to all who converse with you: +coquetry is dangerous to English women, because they have sensibility; +it is more suited to the French, who are naturally something of the +salamander kind. + +I have this moment a note from Bell Fermor, that she must see me +this instant. I hope my Emily is well: Heaven preserve the most +perfect of all its works. + + Adieu! my dear girl. + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 63. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Feb. 1. + +We have passed three or four droll days, my dear. Emily persists in +resolving to break with Sir George; he thinks it decent to combat her +resolution, lest he should lose the praise of generosity: he is also +piqued to see her give him up with such perfect composure, though I am +convinced he will not be sorry upon the whole to be given up; he has, +from the first receipt of the letter, plainly wished her to resign +him, but hoped for a few faintings and tears, as a sacrifice to his +vanity on the occasion. + +My father is setting every engine at work to make things up again, +supposing Emily to have determined from pique, not from the real +feelings of her heart: he is frighted to death lest I should +counterwork him, and so jealous of my advising her to continue a +conduct he so much disapproves, that he won't leave us a moment +together; he even observes carefully that each goes into her +respective apartment when we retire to bed. + +This jealousy has started an idea which I think will amuse us, and +which I shall take the first opportunity of communicating to Emily; +'tis to write each other at night our sentiments on whatever passes in +the day; if she approves the plan, I will send you the letters, which +will save me a great deal of trouble in telling you all our _petites +histoires_. + +This scheme will have another advantage; we shall be a thousand +times more sincere and open to each other by letter than face to face; +I have long seen by her eyes that the little fool has twenty things to +say to me, but has not courage; now letters you know, my dear, + + "Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart." + +Besides, it will be so romantic and pretty, almost as agreable as a +love affair: I long to begin the correspondence. + + Adieu! + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 64. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, Feb. 5. + +I have but a moment, my Lucy, to tell you, my divine Emily has broke +with her lover, who this morning took an eternal leave of her, and set +out for Montreal in his way to New York, whence he proposes to embark +for England. + +My sensations on this occasion are not to be described: I admire +that amiable delicacy which has influenced her to give up every +advantage of rank and fortune which could tempt the heart of woman, +rather than unite herself to a man for whom she felt the least degree +of indifference; and this, without regarding the censures of her +family, or of the world, by whom, what they will call her imprudence, +will never be forgiven: a woman who is capable of acting so nobly, is +worthy of being beloved, of being adored, by every man who has a soul +to distinguish her perfections. + +If I was a vain man, I might perhaps fancy her regard for me had +some share in determining her conduct, but I am convinced of the +contrary; 'tis the native delicacy of her soul alone, incapable of +forming an union in which the heart has no share, which, independent of +any other consideration, has been the cause of a resolution so worthy +of herself. + +That she has the tenderest affection for me, I cannot doubt one +moment; her attention is too flattering to be unobserved; but 'tis that +kind of affection in which the mind alone is concerned. I never gave +her the most distant hint that I loved her: in her situation, it would +have been even an outrage to have done so. She knows the narrowness of +my circumstances, and how near impossible it is for me to marry; she +therefore could not have an idea--no, my dear girl, 'tis not to love, +but to true delicacy, that she has sacrificed avarice and ambition; and +she is a thousand times the more estimable from this circumstance. + +I am interrupted. You shall hear from me in a few days. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 65. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Feb. 10. + +I have mentioned my plan to Emily, who is charmed with it; 'tis a +pretty evening amusement for two solitary girls in the country. + +Behold the first fruits of our correspondence: + +"To Miss Fermor. + +"It is not to you, my dear girl, I need vindicate my conduct in +regard to Sir George; you have from the first approved it; you have +even advised it. If I have been to blame, 'tis in having too long +delayed an explanation on a point of such importance to us both. I +have been long on the borders of a precipice, without courage to retire +from so dangerous a situation: overborn by my family, I have been near +marrying a man for whom I have not the least tenderness, and whose +conversation is even now tedious to me. + +"My dear friend, we were not formed for each other: our minds have +not the least resemblance. Have you not observed that, when I have +timidly hazarded my ideas on the delicacy necessary to keep love alive +in marriage, and the difficulty of preserving the heart of the object +beloved in so intimate an union, he has indolently assented, with a +coldness not to be described, to sentiments which it is plain from his +manner he did not understand; whilst another, not interested in the +conversation, has, by his countenance, by the fire of his eyes, by +looks more eloquent than all language, shewed his soul was of +intelligence with mine! + +"A strong sense of the force of engagements entered into with my +consent, though not the effect of my free, unbiassed choice, and the +fear of making Sir George, by whom I supposed myself beloved, unhappy, +have thus long prevented my resolving to break with him for ever; and +though I could not bring myself to marry him, I found myself at the +same time incapable of assuming sufficient resolution to tell him so, +'till his mother's letter gave me so happy an occasion. + +"There is no saying what transport I feel in being freed from the +insupportable yoke of this engagement, which has long sat heavy on my +heart, and suspended the natural chearfulness of my temper. + +"Yes, my dear, your Emily has been wretched, without daring to +confess it even to you: I was ashamed of owning I had entered into such +engagements with a man whom I had never loved, though I had for a short +time mistaken esteem for a greater degree of affection than my heart +ever really knew. How fatal, my dear Bell, is this mistake to half our +sex, and how happy am I to have discovered mine in time! + +"I have scarce yet asked myself what I intend; but I think it will +be most prudent to return to England in the first ship, and retire to a +relation of my mother's in the country, where I can live with decency +on my little fortune. + +"Whatever is my fate, no situation can be equally unhappy with that +of being wife to a man for whom I have not even the slightest +friendship or esteem, for whose conversation I have not the least +taste, and who, if I know him, would for ever think me under an +obligation to him for marrying me. + +"I have the pleasure to see I give no pain to his heart, by a step +which has relieved mine from misery: his feelings are those of wounded +vanity, not of love. + + "Adieu! Your + Emily Montague." + + +I have no patience with relations, Lucy; this sweet girl has been +two years wretched under the bondage her uncle's avarice (for he +foresaw Sir George's acquisition, though she did not) prepared for her. +Parents should chuse our company, but never even pretend to direct our +choice; if they take care we converse with men of honor only, 'tis +impossible we can chuse amiss: a conformity of taste and sentiment +alone can make marriage happy, and of that none but the parties +concerned can judge. + +By the way, I think long engagements, even between persons who love, +extremely unfavorable to happiness: it is certainly right to be long +enough acquainted to know something of each other's temper; but 'tis +bad to let the first fire burn out before we come together; and when +we have once resolved, I have no notion of delaying a moment. + +If I should ever consent to marry Fitzgerald, and he should not fly +for a licence before I had finished the sentence, I would dismiss him +if there was not another lover to be had in Canada. + + Adieu! + Your faithful + A. Fermor. + +My Emily is now free as air; a sweet little bird escaped from the +gilded cage. Are you not glad of it, Lucy? I am amazingly. + + + +LETTER 66. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, Feb. 11. + +Would one think it possible, Lucy, that Sir George should console +himself for the loss of all that is lovely in woman, by the sordid +prospect of acquiring, by an interested marriage, a little more of that +wealth of which he has already much more than he can either enjoy or +become? By what wretched motives are half mankind influenced in the +most important action of their lives! + +The vulgar of every rank expect happiness where it is not to be +found, in the ideal advantages of splendor and dissipation; those who +dare to think, those minds who partake of the celestial fire, seek it +in the real solid pleasures of nature and soft affection. + +I have seen my lovely Emily since I wrote to you; I shall not see +her again of some days; I do not intend at present to make my visits to +Silleri so frequent as I have done lately, lest the world, ever +studious to blame, should misconstrue her conduct on this very delicate +occasion. I am even afraid to shew my usual attention to her when +present, lest she herself should think I presume on the politeness she +has ever shewn me, and see her breaking with Sir George in a false +light: the greater I think her obliging partiality to me, the more +guarded I ought to be in my behaviour to her; her situation has some +resemblance to widowhood, and she has equal decorums to observe. + +I cannot however help encouraging a pleasing hope that I am not +absolutely indifferent to her: her lovely eyes have a softness when +they meet mine, to which words cannot do justice: she talks less to me +than to others, but it is in a tone of voice which penetrates my soul; +and when I speak, her attention is most flattering, though of a nature +not to be seen by common observers; without seeming to distinguish me +from the crowd who strive to engage her esteem and friendship, she has +a manner of addressing me which the heart alone can feel; she contrives +to prevent my appearing to give her any preference to the rest of her +sex, yet I have seen her blush at my civility to another. + +She has at least a friendship for me, which alone would make the +happiness of my life; and which I would prefer to the love of the most +charming woman imagination could form, sensible as I am to the sweetest +of all passions: this friendship, however, time and assiduity may ripen +into love; at least I should be most unhappy if I did not think so. + +I love her with a tenderness of which few of my sex are capable: you +have often told me, and you were right, that my heart has all the +sensibility of woman. + +A mail is arrived, by which I hope to hear from you; I must hurry to +the post office; you shall hear again in a few days. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 67. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec. + +London, Dec. 1. + +You need be in no pain, my dear brother, on Mr. Temple's account; +my heart is in no danger from a man of his present character: his +person and manner are certainly extremely pleasing; his understanding, +and I believe his principles, are worthy of your friendship; an +encomium which, let me observe, is from me a very high one: he will be +admired every where, but to be beloved, he wants, or at least appears +to me to want, the most endearing of all qualities, that genuine +tenderness of soul, that almost feminine sensibility, which, with all +your firmness of mind and spirit, you possess beyond any man I ever yet +met with. + +If your friend wishes to please me, which I almost fancy he does, he +must endeavor to resemble you; 'tis rather hard upon me, I think, that +the only man I perfectly approve, and whose disposition is formed to +make me happy, should be my brother: I beg you will find out somebody +very like yourself for your sister, for you have really made me saucy. + +I pity you heartily, and wish above all things to hear of your +Emily's marriage, for your present situation must be extremely +unpleasant. + +But, my dear brother, as you were so very wise about Temple, allow +me to ask you whether it is quite consistent with prudence to throw +yourself in the way of a woman so formed to inspire you with +tenderness, and whom it is so impossible you can ever hope to possess: +is not this acting a little like a foolish girl, who plays round the +flame which she knows will consume her? + +My mother is well, but will never be happy till you return to +England; I often find her in tears over your letters: I will say no +more on a subject which I know will give you pain. I hope, however, to +hear you have given up all thoughts of settling in America: it would be +a better plan to turn farmer in Rutland; we could double the +estate by living upon it, and I am sure I should make the prettiest +milk-maid in the county. + +I am serious, and think we could live very superbly all together in +the country; consider it well, my dear Ned, for I cannot bear to see my +mother so unhappy as your absence makes her. I hear her on the stairs; +I must hurry away my letter, for I don't chuse she should know I write +to you on this subject. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Lucy Rivers. + +Say every thing for me to Bell Fermor; and in your own manner to +your Emily, in whose friendship I promise myself great happiness. + + + +LETTER 68. + + +To Miss Montague, at Silleri. + +Montreal, Feb. 10. + +Never any astonishment equalled mine, my dear Emily, at hearing you +had broke an engagement of years, so much to your advantage as to +fortune, and with a man of so very unexceptionable a character as Sir +George, without any other apparent cause than a slight indelicacy in a +letter of his mother's, for which candor and affection would have found +a thousand excuses. I will not allow myself to suppose, what is however +publicly said here, that you have sacrificed prudence, decorum, and I +had almost said honor, to an imprudent inclination for a man, to whom +there is the strongest reason to believe you are indifferent, and who +is even said to have an attachment to another: I mean Colonel Rivers, +who, though a man of worth, is in a situation which makes it impossible +for him to think of you, were you even as dear to him as the world says +he is to you. + +I am too unhappy to say more on this subject, but expect from our +past friendship a very sincere answer to two questions; whether love +for Colonel Rivers was the real motive for the indiscreet step you have +taken? and whether, if it was, you have the excuse of knowing he loves +you? I should be glad to know what are your views, if you have any. I +am, + + My dear Emily, + Your affectionate friend, + E. Melmoth. + + + +LETTER 69. + + +To Mrs. Melmoth, at Montreal. + +Silleri, Feb. 19. + +My dear Madam, + +I am too sensible of the rights of friendship, to refuse answering +your questions; which I shall do in as few words as possible. I have +not the least reason to suppose myself beloved by Colonel Rivers; nor, +if I know my heart, do I _love him_ in that sense of the word +your question supposes: I think him the best, the most amiable of +mankind; and my extreme affection for him, though I believe that +affection only a very lively friendship, first awakened me to a sense +of the indelicacy and impropriety of marrying Sir George. + +To enter into so sacred an engagement as marriage with one man, with +a stronger affection for another, of how calm and innocent a nature +soever that affection may be, is a degree of baseness of which my heart +is incapable. + +When I first agreed to marry Sir George, I had no superior esteem +for any other man; I thought highly of him, and wanted courage to +resist the pressing solicitations of my uncle, to whom I had a thousand +obligations. I even almost persuaded myself I loved him, nor did I find +my mistake till I saw Colonel Rivers, in whose conversation I had so +very lively a pleasure as soon convinced me of my mistake: I therefore +resolved to break with Sir George, and nothing but the fear of giving +him pain prevented my doing it sooner: his behaviour on the receipt of +his mother's letter removed that fear, and set me free in my own +opinion, and I hope will in yours, from engagements which were equally +in the way of my happiness, and his ambition. If he is sincere, he will +tell you my refusal of him made him happy, though he chuses to affect a +chagrin which he does not feel. + +I have no view but that of returning to England in the spring, and +fixing with a relation in the country. + +If Colonel Rivers has an attachment, I hope it is to one worthy of +him; for my own part, I never entertained the remotest thought of him +in any light but that of the most sincere and tender of friends. I am, +Madam, with great esteem, + + Your affectionate friend + and obedient servant, + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 70. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Feb. 27. + +There are two parties at Quebec in regard to Emily: the prudent +mammas abuse her for losing a good match, and suppose it to proceed +from her partiality to your brother, to the imprudence of which they +give no quarter; whilst the misses admire her generosity and spirit, in +sacrificing all for love; so impossible it is to please every body. +However, she has, in my opinion, done the wisest thing in the world; +that is, she has pleased herself. + +As to her inclination for your brother, I am of their opinion, that +she loves him without being quite clear in the point herself: she has +not yet confessed the fact even to me; but she has speaking eyes, Lucy, +and I think I can interpret their language. + +Whether he sees it or not I cannot tell; I rather think he does, +because he has been less here, and more guarded in his manner when +here, than before this matrimonial affair was put an end to; which is +natural enough on that supposition, because he knows the impertinence +of Quebec, and is both prudent and delicate to a great degree. + +He comes, however, and we are pretty good company, only a little +more reserved on both sides; which is, in my opinion, a little +symptomatic. + +La! here's papa come up to write at my bureau; I dare say, it's only +to pry into what I am about; but excuse me, my dear Sir, for that. +Adieu! _jusqu'au demain, ma tres chere_. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 71. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, Feb. 20. + +Every hour, my Lucy, convinces me more clearly there is no happiness +for me without this lovely woman; her turn of mind is so correspondent +to my own, that we seem to have but one soul: the first moment I saw +her the idea struck me that we had been friends in some pre-existent +state, and were only renewing our acquaintance here; when she speaks, +my heart vibrates to the sound, and owns every thought she expresses a +native there. + +The same dear affections, the same tender sensibility, the most +precious gift of Heaven, inform our minds, and make us peculiarly +capable of exquisite happiness or misery. + +The passions, my Lucy, are common to all; but the affections, the +lively sweet affections, the only sources of true pleasure, are the +portion only of a chosen few. + +Uncertain at present of the nature of her sentiments, I am +determined to develop them clearly before I discover mine: if she loves +as I do, even a perpetual exile here will be pleasing. The remotest +wood in Canada with her would be no longer a desert wild; it would be +the habitation of the Graces. + +But I forget your letter, my dear girl; I am hurt beyond words at +what you tell me of my mother; and would instantly return to England, +did not my fondness for this charming woman detain me here: you are +both too good in wishing to retire with me to the country; will your +tenderness lead you a step farther, my Lucy? It would be too much to +hope to see you here; and yet, if I marry Emily, it will be impossible +for me to think of returning to England. + +There is a man here whom I should prefer of all men I ever saw for +you; but he is already attached to your friend Bell Fermor, who is very +inattentive to her own happiness, if she refuses him: I am very happy +in finding you think of Temple as I wish you should. + +You are so very civil, Lucy, in regard to me, I am afraid of +becoming vain from your praises. + +Take care, my dear, you don't spoil me by this excess of civility, +for my only merit is that of not being a coxcomb. + +I have a heaviness of heart, which has never left me since I read +your letter: I am shocked at the idea of giving pain to the best parent +that ever existed; yet have less hope than ever of seeing England, +without giving up the tender friend, the dear companion, the adored +mistress; in short the very woman I have all my life been in search of: +I am also hurt that I cannot place this object of all my wishes in a +station equal to that she has rejected, and I begin to think rejected +for me. + +I never before repined at seeing the gifts of fortune lavished on +the unworthy. + +Adieu, my dear! I will write again when I can write more chearfully. + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 72. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +My Lord, + +Silleri, Feb. 20. + +Your Lordship does me great honor in supposing me capable of giving +any satisfactory account of a country in which I have spent only a few +months. + +As a proof, however, of my zeal, and the very strong desire I have +to merit the esteem you honor me with, I shall communicate from time to +time the little I have observed, and may observe, as well as what I +hear from good authority, with that lively pleasure with which I have +ever obeyed every command of your Lordship's. + +The French, in the first settling this colony, seem to have had an +eye only to the conquest of ours: their whole system of policy seems +to have been military, not commercial; or only so far commercial as was +necessary to supply the wants, and by so doing to gain the friendship, +of the savages, in order to make use of them against us. + +The lands are held on military tenure: every peasant is a soldier, +every seigneur an officer, and both serve without pay whenever called +upon; this service is, except a very small quit-rent by way of +acknowledgement, all they pay for their lands: the seigneur holds of +the crown, the peasant of the seigneur, who is at once his lord and +commander. + +The peasants are in general tall and robust, notwithstanding their +excessive indolence; they love war, and hate labor; are brave, hardy, +alert in the field, but lazy and inactive at home; in which they +resemble the savages, whose manners they seem strongly to have +imbibed. The government appears to have encouraged a military spirit +all over the colony; though ignorant and stupid to a great degree, +these peasants have a strong sense of honor; and though they serve, as +I have said, without pay, are never so happy as when called to the +field. + +They are excessively vain, and not only look on the French as the +only civilized nation in the world, but on themselves as the flower of +the French nation: they had, I am told, a great aversion to the regular +troops which came from France in the late war, and a contempt equal to +that aversion; they however had an affection and esteem for the late +Marquis De Montcalm, which almost rose to idolatry; and I have even at +this distance of time seen many of them in tears at the mention of his +name: an honest tribute to the memory of a commander equally brave and +humane; for whom his enemies wept even on the day when their own hero +fell. + +I am called upon for this letter, and have only time to assure your +Lordship of my respect, and of the pleasure I always receive from your +commands. I have the honor to be, + + My Lord, + Your Lordship's, &c. + William Fermor. + + + +LETTER 73. + + +To Miss Fermor. + +Feb. 24, Eleven at night. + +I have indeed, my dear, a pleasure in his conversation, to which +words cannot do justice: love itself is less tender and lively than my +friendship for Rivers; from the first moment I saw him, I lost all +taste for other conversation; even yours, amiable as you are, borrows +its most prevailing charm from the pleasure of hearing you talk of him. + +When I call my tenderness for him friendship, I do not mean either +to paint myself as an enemy to tenderer sentiments, or him as one whom +it is easy to see without feeling them: all I mean is, that, as our +situations make it impossible for us to think of each other except as +friends, I have endeavored--I hope with success--to see him in no +other light: it is not in his power to marry without fortune, and mine +is a trifle: had I worlds, they should be his; but, I am neither so +selfish as to desire, nor so romantic as to expect, that he should +descend from the rank of life he has been bred in, and live lost to the +world with me. + +As to the impertinence of two or three women, I hear of it with +perfect indifference: my dear Rivers esteems me, he approves my +conduct, and all else is below my care: the applause of worlds would +give me less pleasure than one smile of approbation from him. + +I am astonished your father should know me so little, as to suppose +me capable of being influenced even by you: when I determined to refuse +Sir George, it was from the feelings of my own heart alone; the first +moment I saw Colonel Rivers convinced me my heart had till then been a +stranger to true tenderness: from that moment my life has been one +continued struggle between my reason, which shewed me the folly as well +as indecency of marrying one man when I so infinitely preferred +another, and a false point of honor and mistaken compassion: from which +painful state, a concurrence of favorable accidents has at length +happily relieved me, and left me free to act as becomes me. + +Of this, my dear, be assured, that, though I have not the least idea +of ever marrying Colonel Rivers, yet, whilst my sentiments for him +continue what they are, I will never marry any other man. + +I am hurt at what Mrs. Melmoth hinted in her letter to you, of +Rivers having appeared to attach himself to me from vanity; she +endeavors in vain to destroy my esteem for him: you well know, he never +did appear to attach himself to me; he is incapable of having done it +from such a motive; but if he had, such delight have I in whatever +pleases him, that I should with joy have sacrificed my own vanity to +gratify his. + + Adieu! Your + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 74. + + +To Miss Montague. + +Feb. 25, Eight o'clock, just up. + +My dear, you deceive yourself; you love Colonel Rivers; you love him +even with all the tenderness of romance: read over again the latter +part of your letter; I know friendship, and of what it is capable; but +I fear the sacrifices it makes are of a different nature. + +Examine your heart, my Emily, and tell me the result of that +examination. It is of the utmost consequence to you to be clear as to +the nature of your affection for Rivers. + + Adieu! Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 75. + + +To Miss Fermor. + +Yes, my dear Bell, you know me better than I know myself; your Emily +loves.--But tell me, and with that clear sincerity which is the +cement of our friendship; has not your own heart discovered to you the +secret of mine? do you not also love this most amiable of mankind? Yes, +you do, and I am lost: it is not in woman to see him without love; +there are a thousand charms in his conversation, in his look, nay in +the very sound of his voice, to which it is impossible for a soul like +yours to be insensible. + +I have observed you a thousand times listening to him with that air +of softness and complacency--Believe me, my dear, I am not angry with +you for loving him; he is formed to charm the heart of woman: I have +not the least right to complain of you; you knew nothing of my passion +for him; you even regarded me almost as the wife of another. But tell +me, though my heart dies within me at the question, is your tenderness +mutual? does he love you? I have observed a coldness in his manner +lately, which now alarms me.--My heart is torn in pieces. Must I +receive this wound from the two persons on earth most dear to me? +Indeed, my dear, this is more than your Emily can bear. Tell me only +whether you love: I will not ask more.--Is there on earth a man who +can please where he appears? + + + +LETTER 76. + + +To Miss Montague. + +You have discovered me, my sweet Emily: I love--not quite so +dyingly as you do; but I love; will you forgive me when I add that I am +beloved? It is unnecessary to add the name of him I love, as you have +so kindly appropriated the whole sex to Colonel Rivers. + +However, to shew you it is possible you may be mistaken, 'tis the +little Fitz I love, who, in my eye, is ten times more agreable than +even your nonpareil of a Colonel; I know you will think me a shocking +wretch for this depravity of taste; but so it is. + +Upon my word, I am half inclined to be angry with you for not being +in love with Fitzgerald; a tall Irishman, with good eyes, has as clear +a title to make conquests as other people. + +Yes, my dear, _there is a man on earth_, and even in the little +town of Quebec, _who can please where he appears_. Surely, child, +if there was but one man on earth who could please, you would not be so +unreasonable as to engross him all to yourself. + +For my part, though I like Fitzgerald extremely, I by no means +insist that every other woman shall. + +Go, you are a foolish girl, and don't know what you would be at. +Rivers is a very handsome agreable fellow; but _it is in woman_ to +see him without dying for love, of which behold your little Bell an +example. Adieu! be wiser, and believe me + + Ever yours, + A. Fermor. + +Will you go this morning to Montmorenci on the ice, and dine on the +island of Orleans? dare you trust yourself in a covered carriole with +the dear man? Don't answer this, because I am certain you can say +nothing on the subject, which will not be very foolish. + + + +LETTER 77. + + +To Miss Fermor. + +I am glad you do not see Colonel Rivers with my eyes; yet it seems +to me very strange; I am almost piqued at your giving another the +preference. I will say no more, it being, as you observe, impossible to +avoid being absurd on such a subject. + +I will go to Montmorenci; and, to shew my courage, will venture in a +covered carriole with Colonel Rivers, though I should rather wish your +father for my cavalier at present. + + Yours, + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 78. + + +To Miss Montague. + +You are right, my dear: 'tis more prudent to go with my father. I +love prudence; and will therefore send for Mademoiselle Clairaut to be +Rivers's belle. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 79. + + +To Miss Fermor. + +You are a provoking chit, and I will go with Rivers. Your father may +attend Madame Villiers, who you know will naturally take it ill if she +is not of our party. We can ask Mademoiselle Clairaut another time. + + Adieu! Your + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 80. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Feb. 25. + +Those who have heard no more of a Canadian winter than what regards +the intenseness of its cold, must suppose it a very joyless season: +'tis, I assure you, quite otherwise; there are indeed some days here of +the severity of which those who were never out of England can form no +conception; but those days seldom exceed a dozen in a whole winter, +nor do they come in succession; but at intermediate periods, as the +winds set in from the North-West; which, coming some hundred leagues, +from frozen lakes and rivers, over woods and mountains covered with +snow, would be insupportable, were it not for the furs with which the +country abounds, in such variety and plenty as to be within the reach +of all its inhabitants. + +Thus defended, the British belles set the winter of Canada at +defiance; and the season of which you seem to entertain such terrible +ideas, is that of the utmost chearfulness and festivity. + +But what particularly pleases me is, there is no place where women +are of such importance: not one of the sex, who has the least share of +attractions, is without a levee of beaux interceding for the honor of +attending her on some party, of which every day produces three or four. + +I am just returned from one of the most agreable jaunts imagination +can paint, to the island of Orleans, by the falls of Montmorenci; the +latter is almost nine miles distant, across the great bason of Quebec; +but as we are obliged to reach it in winter by the waving line, our +direct road being intercepted by the inequalities of the ice, it is now +perhaps a third more. You will possibly suppose a ride of this kind +must want one of the greatest essentials to entertainment, that of +variety, and imagine it only one dull whirl over an unvaried plain of +snow: on the contrary, my dear, we pass hills and mountains of ice in +the trifling space of these few miles. The bason of Quebec is formed by +the conflux of the rivers St. Charles and Montmorenci with the great +river St. Lawrence, the rapidity of whose flood tide, as these rivers +are gradually seized by the frost, breaks up the ice, and drives it +back in heaps, till it forms ridges of transparent rock to an height +that is astonishing, and of a strength which bids defiance to the +utmost rage of the most furiously rushing tide. + +This circumstance makes this little journey more pleasing than you +can possibly conceive: the serene blue sky above, the dazling +brightness of the sun, and the colors from the refraction of its rays +on the transparent part of these ridges of ice, the winding course +these oblige you to make, the sudden disappearing of a train of fifteen +or twenty carrioles, as these ridges intervene, which again discover +themselves on your rising to the top of the frozen mount, the +tremendous appearance both of the ascent and descent, which however are +not attended with the least danger; all together give a grandeur and +variety to the scene, which almost rise to enchantment. + +Your dull foggy climate affords nothing that can give you the least +idea of our frost pieces in Canada; nor can you form any notion of our +amusements, of the agreableness of a covered carriole, with a sprightly +fellow, rendered more sprightly by the keen air and romantic scene +about him; to say nothing of the fair lady at his side. + +Even an overturning has nothing alarming in it; you are laid gently +down on a soft bed of snow, without the least danger of any kind; and +an accident of this sort only gives a pretty fellow occasion to vary +the style of his civilities, and shew a greater degree of attention. + +But it is almost time to come to Montmorenci: to avoid, however, +fatiguing you or myself, I shall refer the rest of our tour to another +letter, which will probably accompany this: my meaning is, that two +moderate letters are vastly better than one long one; in which +sentiment I know you agree with + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 81. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Feb. 25, Afternoon. + +So, my dear, as I was saying, this same ride to Montmorenci--where +was I, Lucy? I forget.--O, I believe pretty near the mouth of the +bay, embosomed in which lies the lovely cascade of which I am to give +you a winter description, and which I only slightly mentioned when I +gave you an account of the rivers by which it is supplied. + +The road, about a mile before you reach this bay, is a regular +glassy level, without any of those intervening hills of ice which I +have mentioned; hills, which with the ideas, though false ones, of +danger and difficulty, give those of beauty and magnificence too. + +As you gradually approach the bay, you are struck with an awe, which +increases every moment, as you come nearer, from the grandeur of a +scene, which is one of the noblest works of nature: the beauty, the +proportion, the solemnity, the wild magnificence of which, surpassing +every possible effect of art, impress one strongly with the idea of its +Divine Almighty Architect. + +The rock on the east side, which is first in view as you approach, +is a smooth and almost perpendicular precipice, of the same height as +the fall; the top, which a little over-hangs, is beautifully covered +with pines, firs, and ever-greens of various kinds, whose verdant +lustre is rendered at this season more shining and lovely by the +surrounding snow, as well as by that which is sprinkled irregularly on +their branches, and glitters half melted in the sun-beams: a thousand +smaller shrubs are scattered on the side of the ascent, and, having +their roots in almost imperceptible clefts of the rock, seem to those +below to grow in air. + +The west side is equally lofty, but more sloping, which, from that +circumstance, affords soil all the way, upon shelving inequalities of +the rock, at little distances, for the growth of trees and shrubs, by +which it is almost entirely hid. + +The most pleasing view of this miracle of nature is certainly in +summer, and in the early part of it, when every tree is in foliage and +full verdure, every shrub in flower; and when the river, swelled with a +waste of waters from the mountains from which it derives its source, +pours down in a tumultuous torrent, that equally charms and astonishes +the beholder. + +The winter scene has, notwithstanding, its beauties, though of a +different kind, more resembling the stillness and inactivity of the +season. + +The river being on its sides bound up in frost, and its channel +rendered narrower than in the summer, affords a less body of water to +supply the cascade; and the fall, though very steep, yet not being +exactly perpendicular, masses of ice are formed, on different shelving +projections of the rock, in a great variety of forms and proportions. + +The torrent, which before rushed with such impetuosity down the deep +descent in one vast sheet of water, now descends in some parts with a +slow and majestic pace; in others seems almost suspended in mid air; +and in others, bursting through the obstacles which interrupt its +course, pours down with redoubled fury into the foaming bason below, +from whence a spray arises, which, freezing in its ascent, becomes on +each side a wide and irregular frozen breast-work; and in front, the +spray being there much greater, a lofty and magnificent pyramid of +solid ice. + +I have not told you half the grandeur, half the beauty, half the +lovely wildness of this scene: if you would know what it is, you must +take no information but that of your own eyes, which I pronounce +strangers to the loveliest work of creation till they have seen the +river and fall of Montmorenci. + +In short, my dear, I am Montmorenci-mad. + +I can hardly descend to tell you, we passed the ice from thence to +Orleans, and dined out of doors on six feet of snow, in the charming +enlivening warmth of the sun, though in the month of February, at a +time when you in England scarce feel his beams. + +Fitzgerald made violent love to me all the way, and I never felt +myself listen with such complacency. + +Adieu! I have wrote two immense letters. Write oftener; you are +lazy, yet expect me to be an absolute slave in the scribbling way. + + Your faithful + A. Fermor. + +Do you know your brother has admirable ideas? He contrived to lose +his way on our return, and kept Emily ten minutes behind the rest of +the company. I am apt to fancy there was something like a declaration, +for she blushed, + + "Celestial rosy red," + +when he led her into the dining room at Silleri. + + Once more, adieu! + + + +LETTER 82. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +March 1. + +I was mistaken, my dear; not a word of love between your brother and +Emily, as she positively assures me; something very tender has passed, +I am convinced, notwithstanding, for she blushes more than ever when he +approaches, and there is a certain softness in his voice when he +addresses her, which cannot escape a person of my penetration. + +Do you know, my dear Lucy, that there is a little impertinent girl +here, a Mademoiselle Clairaut, who, on the meer merit of features and +complexion, sets up for being as handsome as Emily and me? + +If beauty, as I will take the liberty to assert, is given us for the +purpose of pleasing, she who pleases most, that is to say, she who +excites the most passion, is to all intents and purposes the most +beautiful woman; and, in this case, I am inclined to believe your +little Bell stands pretty high on the roll of beauty; the men's _eyes_ +may perhaps _say_ she is handsome, but their _hearts feel_ +that I am so. + +There is, in general, nothing so insipid, so uninteresting, as a +beauty; which those men experience to their cost, who chuse from +vanity, not inclination. I remember Sir Charles Herbert, a Captain in +the same regiment with my father, who determined to marry Miss Raymond +before he saw her, merely because he had been told she was a celebrated +beauty, though she was never known to have inspired a real passion: he +saw her, not with his own eyes, but those of the public, took her +charms on trust; and, till he was her husband, never found out she was +not his taste; a secret, however, of some little importance to his +happiness. + +I have, however, known some beauties who had a right to please; that +is, who had a mixture of that invisible charm, that nameless grace +which by no means depends on beauty, and which strikes the heart in a +moment; but my first aversion is your _fine women_: don't you +think _a fine woman_ a detestable creature, Lucy? I do: they are +vastly well to _fill_ public places; but as to the heart--Heavens, +my dear! yet there are men, I suppose, to be found, who have a taste +for the great sublime in beauty. + +Men are vastly foolish, my dear; very few of them have spirit to +think for themselves; there are a thousand Sir Charles Herberts: I +have seen some of them weak enough to decline marrying the woman on +earth most pleasing to themselves, because not thought handsome by the +generality of their companions. + +Women are above this folly, and therefore chuse much oftener from +affection than men. We are a thousand times wiser, Lucy, than these +important beings, these mighty lords, + + "Who strut and fret their hour upon the stage;" + +and, instead of playing the part in life which nature dictates to +their reason and their hearts, act a borrowed one at the will of +others. + +I had rather even judge ill, than not judge for myself. + + Adieu! yours ever, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 83. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, March 4. + +After debating with myself some days, I am determined to pursue +Emily; but, before I make a declaration, will go to see some ungranted +lands at the back of Madame Des Roches's estate; which, lying on a very +fine river, and so near the St. Lawrence, may I think be cultivated at +less expence than those above Lake Champlain, though in a much inferior +climate: if I make my settlement here, I will purchase the estate +Madame Des Roches has to sell, which will open me a road to the river +St. Lawrence, and consequently treble the value of my lands. + +I love, I adore this charming woman; but I will not suffer my +tenderness for her to make her unhappy, or to lower her station in +life: if I can, by my present plan, secure her what will in this +country be a degree of affluence, I will endeavor to change her +friendship for me into a tenderer and more lively affection; if she +loves, I know by my own heart, that Canada will be no longer a place of +exile; if I have flattered myself, and she has only a friendship for +me, I will return immediately to England, and retire with you and my +mother to our little estate in the country. + +You will perhaps say, why not make Emily of our party? I am almost +ashamed to speak plain; but so weak are we, and so guided by the +prejudices we fancy we despise, that I cannot bear my Emily, after +refusing a coach and six, should live without an equipage suitable at +least to her birth, and the manner in which she has always lived when +in England. + +I know this is folly, that it is a despicable pride; but it is a +folly, a pride, I cannot conquer. + +There are moments when I am above all this childish prejudice, but +it returns upon me in spite of myself. + +Will you come to us, my Lucy? Tell my mother, I will build her a +rustic palace, and settle a little principality on you both. + +I make this a private excursion, because I don't chuse any body +should even guess at my views. I shall set out in the evening, and make +a circuit to cross the river above the town. + +I shall not even take leave at Silleri, as I propose being back in +four days, and I know your friend Bell will be inquisitive about my +journey. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 84. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, March 6. + +Your brother is gone nobody knows whither, and without calling upon +us before he set off; we are piqued, I assure you, my dear, and with +some little reason. + +Four o'clock. + +Very strange news, Lucy; they say Colonel Rivers is gone to marry +Madame Des Roches, a lady at whose house he was some time in autumn; if +this is true, I forswear the whole sex: his manner of stealing off is +certainly very odd, and she is rich and agreable; but, if he does not +love Emily, he has been excessively cruel in shewing an attention which +has deceived her into a passion for him. I cannot believe it possible: +not that he has ever told her he loved her; but a man of honor will +not tell an untruth even with his eyes, and his have spoke a very +unequivocal language. + +I never saw any thing like her confusion, when she was told he was +gone to visit Madame Des Roches; but, when it was hinted with what +design, I was obliged to take her out of the room, or she would have +discovered all the fondness of her soul. I really thought she would +have fainted as I led her out. + +Eight o'clock. + +I have sent away all the men, and drank tea in Emily's apartment; +she has scarce spoke to me; I am miserable for her; she has a paleness +which alarms me, the tears steal every moment into her lovely eyes. +Can Rivers act so unworthy a part? her tenderness cannot have been +unobserved by him; it was too visible to every body. + +9th, Ten o'clock. + +Not a line from your brother yet; only a confirmation of his being +with Madame Des Roches, having been seen there by some Canadians who +are come up this morning: I am not quite pleased, though I do not +believe the report; he might have told us surely where he was going. + +I pity Emily beyond words; she says nothing, but there is a dumb +eloquence in her countenance which is not to be described. + +Twelve o'clock. + +I have been an hour alone with the dear little girl, who has, from a +hint I dropt on purpose, taken courage to speak to me on this very +interesting subject; she says, "she shall be most unhappy if this +report is true, though without the least right to complain of Colonel +Rivers, who never even hinted a word of any affection for her more +tender than friendship; that if her vanity, her self-love, or her +tenderness, have deceived her, she ought only to blame herself." She +added, "that she wished him to marry Madame Des Roches, if she could +make him happy;" but when she said this, an involuntary tear seemed to +contradict the generosity of her sentiments. + +I beg your pardon, my dear, but my esteem for your brother is +greatly lessened; I cannot help fearing there is something in the +report, and that this is what Mrs. Melmoth meant when she mentioned his +having an attachment. + +I shall begin to hate the whole sex, Lucy, if I find your brother +unworthy, and shall give Fitzgerald his dismission immediately. + +I am afraid Mrs. Melmoth knows men better than we foolish girls do: +she said, he attached himself to Emily meerly from vanity, and I begin +to believe she was right: how cruel is this conduct! The man who from +vanity, or perhaps only to amuse an idle hour, can appear to be +attached where he is not, and by that means seduce the heart of a +deserving woman, or indeed of any woman, falls in my opinion very +little short in baseness of him who practises a greater degree of +seduction. + +What right has he to make the most amiable of women wretched? a +woman who would have deserved him had he been monarch of the universal +world! I might add, who has sacrificed ease and affluence to her +tenderness for him? + +You will excuse my warmth on such an occasion; however, as it may +give you pain, I will say no more. + + Adieu! + Your faithful + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 85. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Kamaraskas, March 12. + +I have met with something, my dear Lucy, which has given me infinite +uneasiness; Madame Des Roches, from my extreme zeal to serve her in an +affair wherein she has been hardly used, from my second visit, and a +certain involuntary attention, and softness of manner I have to all +women, has supposed me in love with her, and with a frankness I cannot +but admire, and a delicacy not to be described, has let me know I am +far from being indifferent to her. + +I was at first extremely embarrassed; but when I had reflected a +moment, I considered that the ladies, though another may be the object, +always regard with a kind of complacency a man who _loves_, as +one who acknowledges the power of the sex, whereas an indifferent is a +kind of rebel to their empire; I considered also that the confession +of a prior inclination saves the most delicate vanity from being +wounded; and therefore determined to make her the confidante of my +tenderness for Emily; leaving her an opening to suppose that, if my +heart had been disengaged, it could not have escaped her attractions. + +I did this with all possible precaution, and with every softening +friendship and politeness could suggest; she was shocked at my +confession, but soon recovered herself enough to tell me she was highly +flattered by this proof of my confidence and esteem; that she believed +me a man to have only the more respect for a woman who by owning her +partiality had told me she considered me not only as the most amiable, +but the most noble of my sex; that she had heard, no love was so +tender as that which was the child of friendship; but that of this she +was convinced, that no friendship was so tender as that which was the +child of love; that she offered me this tender, this lively friendship, +and would for the future find her happiness in the consideration of +mine. + +Do you know, my dear, that, since this confession, I feel a kind of +tenderness for her, to which I cannot give a name? It is not love; for +I love, I idolize another: but it is softer and more pleasing, as well +as more animated, than friendship. + +You cannot conceive what pleasure I find in her conversation; she +has an admirable understanding, a feeling heart, and a mixture of +softness and spirit in her manner, which is peculiarly pleasing to men. +My Emily will love her; I must bring them acquainted: she promises to +come to Quebec in May; I shall be happy to shew her every attention +when there. + +I have seen the lands, and am pleased with them: I believe this will +be my residence, if Emily, as I cannot avoid hoping, will make me +happy; I shall declare myself as soon as I return, but must continue +here a few days longer: I shall not be less pleased with this situation +for its being so near Madame Des Roches, in whom Emily will find a +friend worthy of her esteem, and an entertaining lively companion. + + Adieu, my dear Lucy! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + +I have fixed on the loveliest spot on earth, on which to build a +house for my mother: do I not expect too much in fancying she will +follow me hither? + + + +LETTER 86. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, March 13. + +Still with Madame Des Roches; appearances are rather against him, +you must own, Lucy: but I will not say all I think to you. Poor Emily! +we dispute continually, for she will persist in defending his conduct; +she says, he has a right to marry whoever he pleases; that her loving +him is no tie upon his honor, especially as he does not even know of +this preference; that she ought only to blame the weakness of her own +heart, which has betrayed her into a false belief that their tenderness +was mutual: this is pretty talking, but he has done every thing to +convince her of his feeling the strongest passion for her, except +making a formal declaration. + +She talks of returning to England the moment the river is open: +indeed, if your brother marries, it is the only step left her to take. I +almost wish now she had married Sir George: she would have had all the +_douceurs_ of marriage; and as to love, I begin to think men +incapable of feeling it: some of them can indeed talk well on the +subject; but self-interest and vanity are the real passions of their +souls. I detest the whole sex. + + Adieu! + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 87. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +My Lord, + +Silleri, March 13. + +I generally distrust my own opinion when it differs from your +Lordship's; but in this instance I am most certainly in the right: +allow me to say, nothing can be more ill-judged than your Lordship's +design of retiring into a small circle, from that world of which you +have so long been one of the most brilliant ornaments. What you say of +the disagreableness of age, is by no means applicable to your Lordship; +nothing is in this respect so fallible as the parish register. Why +should any man retire from society whilst he is capable of contributing +to the pleasures of it? Wit, vivacity, good-nature, and politeness, +give an eternal youth, as stupidity and moroseness a premature old +age. Without a thousandth part of your Lordship's shining qualities, I +think myself much younger than half the boys about me, meerly because I +have more good-nature, and a stronger desire of pleasing. + +My daughter is much honored by your Lordship's enquiries: she is +Bell Fermor still; but is addressed by a gentleman who is extremely +agreable to me, and I believe not less so to her; I however know too +well the free spirit of woman, of which she has her full share, to let +Bell know I approve her choice; I am even in doubt whether it would not +be good policy to seem to dislike the match, in order to secure her +consent: there is something very pleasing to a young girl, in opposing +the will of her father. + +To speak truth, I am a little out of humor with her at present, for +having contributed, and I believe entirely from a spirit of opposition +to me, to break a match on which I had extremely set my heart; the +lady was the niece of my particular friend, and one of the most +lovely and deserving women I ever knew: the gentleman very worthy, with +an agreable, indeed a very handsome person, and a fortune which with +those who know the world, would have compensated for the want of most +other advantages. + +The fair lady, after an engagement of two years, took a whim that +there was no happiness in marriage without being madly in love, and +that her passion was not sufficiently romantic; in which piece of folly +my rebel encouraged her, and the affair broke off in a manner which has +brought on her the imputation of having given way to an idle +prepossession in favor of another. + +Your Lordship will excuse my talking on a subject very near my +heart, though uninteresting to you; I have too often experienced your +Lordship's indulgence to doubt it on this occasion: your good-natured +philosophy will tell you, much fewer people talk or write to amuse or +inform their friends, than to give way to the feelings of their own +hearts, or indulge the governing passion of the moment. + +In my next, I will endeavor in the best manner I can, to obey your +Lordship's commands in regard to the political and religious state of +Canada: I will make a point of getting the best information possible; +what I have yet seen, has been only the surface. + + I have the honor to be, + My Lord, + Your Lordship's &c. + William Fermor. + + + +LETTER 88. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, March 16, Monday. + +Your brother is come back; and has been here: he came after dinner +yesterday. My Emily is more than woman; I am proud of her behaviour: +he entered with his usual impatient air; she received him with a +dignity which astonished me, and disconcerted him: there was a cool +dispassionate indifference in her whole manner, which I saw cut his +vanity to the quick, and for which he was by no means prepared. + +On such an occasion I should have flirted violently with some other +man, and have shewed plainly I was piqued: she judged much better; I +have only to wish it may last. He is the veriest coquet in nature, for, +after all, I am convinced he loves Emily. + +He stayed a very little time, and has not been here this morning; he +may pout if he pleases, but I flatter myself we shall hold out the +longest. + +Nine o'clock. + +He came to dine; we kept up our state all dinner time; he begged a +moment's conversation, which we refused, but with a timid air that +makes me begin to fear we shall beat a parley: he is this moment gone, +and Emily retired to her apartment on pretence of indisposition: I am +afraid she is a foolish girl. + +Half hour after six. + +It will not do, Lucy: I found her in tears at the window, following +Rivers's carriole with her eyes: she turned to me with such a look--in +short, my dear, + + "The weak, the fond, the fool, the coward woman" + +has prevailed over all her resolution: her love is only the more +violent for having been a moment restrained; she is not equal to the +task she has undertaken; her resentment was concealed tenderness, and +has retaken its first form. + +I am sorry to find there is not one wise woman in the world but +myself. + +Past ten. + +I have been with her again: she seemed a little calmer; I commended +her spirit; she disavowed it; was peevish with me, angry with herself; +said she had acted in a manner unworthy her character; accused herself +of caprice, artifice, and cruelty; said she ought to have seen him, if +not alone, yet with me only: that it was natural he should be surprized +at a reception so inconsistent with true friendship, and therefore +that he should wish an explanation; that _her_ Rivers (and why not +Madame Des Roches's Rivers?) was incapable of acting otherwise than as +became the best and most tender of mankind, and that therefore she +ought not to have suffered a whisper injurious to his honor: that I had +meant well, but had, by depriving her of Rivers's friendship, which she +had lost by her haughty behaviour, destroyed all the happiness of her +life. + +To be sure, your poor Bell is always to blame: but if ever I +intermeddle between lovers again, Lucy-- + +I am sure she was ten times more angry with him than I was, but this +it is to be too warm in the interest of our friends. + + Adieu! till to-morrow. + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + +I can only say, that if Fitzgerald had visited a handsome rich +French widow, and staid with her ten days _tete a tete_ in the +country, without my permission-- + +O Heavens! here is _mon cher pere_: I must hide my letter. + + _Bon soir. _ + + + +LETTER 89. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, March 6. + +I cannot account, my dear, for what has happened to me. I left +Madame Des Roches's full of the warm impatience of love, and flew to my +Emily at Silleri: I was received with a disdainful coldness which I did +not think had been in her nature, and which has shocked me beyond all +expression. + +I went again to-day, and met with the same reception; I even saw my +presence was painful to her, therefore shortened my visit, and, if I +have resolution to persevere, will not go again till invited by Captain +Fermor in form. + +I could bear any thing but to lose her affection; my whole heart was +set upon her: I had every reason to believe myself dear to her. Can +caprice find a place in that bosom which is the abode of every virtue? + +I must have been misrepresented to her, or surely this could not +have happened: I will wait to-morrow, and if I hear nothing will write +to her, and ask an explanation by letter; she refused me a verbal one +to-day, though I begged to speak with her only for a moment. + +Tuesday. + +I have been asked on a little riding party, and, as I cannot go to +Silleri, have accepted it: it will amuse my present anxiety. + +I am to drive Mademoiselle Clairaut, a very pretty French lady: this +is however of no consequence, for my eyes see nothing lovely but Emily. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 90. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Wednesday morning. + +Poor Emily is to meet with perpetual mortification: we have been +carrioling with Fitzgerald and my father; and, coming back, met your +brother driving Mademoiselle Clairaut: Emily trembled, turned pale, and +scarce returned Rivers's bow; I never saw a poor little girl so in +love; she is amazingly altered within the last fortnight. + +Two o'clock. + +A letter from Mrs. Melmoth: I send you a copy of it with this. + + Adieu! + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 91. + + +To Miss Montague, at Silleri. + +Montreal, March 19. + +If you are not absolutely resolved on destruction, my dear Emily, it +is yet in your power to retrieve the false step you have made. + +Sir George, whose good-nature is in this instance almost without +example, has been prevailed on by Mr. Melmoth to consent I should write +to you before he leaves Montreal, and again offer you his hand, though +rejected in a manner so very mortifying both to vanity and love. + +He gives you a fortnight to consider his offer, at the end of which +if you refuse him he sets out for England over the lakes. + +Be assured, the man for whom it is too plain you have acted this +imprudent part, is so far from returning your affection, that he is at +this moment addressing another; I mean Madame Des Roches, a near +relation of whose assured me that there was an attachment between them: +indeed it is impossible he could have thought of a woman whose fortune +is as small as his own. Men, Miss Montague, are not the romantic beings +you seem to suppose them; you will not find many Sir George Claytons. + +I beg as early an answer as is consistent with the attention so +important a proposal requires, as a compliment to a passion so generous +and disinterested as that of Sir George. I am, my dear Emily, + + Your affectionate friend, + E. Melmoth. + + + +LETTER 92. + + +To Mrs. Melmoth, at Montreal. + +Silleri, March 19. + +I am sorry, my dear Madam, you should know so little of my heart, as +to suppose it possible I could have broke my engagements with Sir +George from any motive but the full conviction of my wanting that +tender affection for him, and that lively taste for his conversation, +which alone could have ensured either his felicity or my own; happy is +it for both that I discovered this before it was too late: it was a +very unpleasing circumstance, even under an intention only of marrying +him, to find my friendship stronger for another; what then would it +have been under the most sacred of all engagements, that of marriage? +What wretchedness would have been the portion of both, had timidity, +decorum, or false honor, carried me, with this partiality in my heart, +to fulfill those views, entered into from compliance to my family, and +continued from a false idea of propriety, and weak fear of the censures +of the world? + +The same reason therefore still subsisting, nay being every moment +stronger, from a fuller conviction of the merit of him my heart +prefers, in spite of me, to Sir George, our union is more impossible +than ever. + +I am however obliged to you, and Major Melmoth, for your zeal to +serve me, though you must permit me to call it a mistaken one; and to +Sir George, for a concession which I own I should not have made in his +situation, and which I can only suppose the effect of Major Melmoth's +persuasions, which he might suppose were known to me, and an +imagination that my sentiments for him were changed: assure him of my +esteem, though love is not in my power. + +As Colonel Rivers never gave me the remotest reason to suppose him +more than my friend, I have not the least right to disapprove his +marrying: on the contrary, as his friend, I _ought_ to wish a +connexion which I am told is greatly to his advantage. + +To prevent all future importunity, painful to me, and, all +circumstances considered, degrading to Sir George, whose honor is very +dear to me, though I am obliged to refuse him that hand which he surely +cannot wish to receive without my heart, I am compelled to say, that, +without an idea of ever being united to Colonel Rivers, I will never +marry any other man. + +Were I never again to behold him, were he even the husband of +another, my tenderness, a tenderness as innocent as it is lively, +would never cease: nor would I give up the refined delight of loving +him, independently of any hope of being beloved, for any advantage in +the power of fortune to bestow. + +These being my sentiments, sentiments which no time can alter, they +cannot be too soon known to Sir George: I would not one hour keep him +in suspence in a point, which this step seems to say is of consequence +to his happiness. + +Tell him, I entreat him to forget me, and to come into views which +will make his mother, and I have no doubt himself, happier than a +marriage with a woman whose chief merit is that very sincerity of heart +which obliges her to refuse him. + + I am, Madam, + Your affectionate, &c. + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 93. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, Thursday. + +Your brother dines here to-day, by my father's invitation; I am +afraid it will be but an awkward party. + +Emily is at this moment an exceeding fine model for a statue of +tender melancholy. + +Her anger is gone; not a trace remaining; 'tis sorrow, but the most +beautiful sorrow I ever beheld: she is all grief for having offended +the dear man. + +I am out of patience with this look; it is so flattering to him, I +could beat her for it: I cannot bear his vanity should be so +gratified. + +I wanted her to treat him with a saucy, unconcerned, flippant air; +but her whole appearance is gentle, tender, I had almost said, +supplicating: I am ashamed of the folly of my own sex: O, that I could +to-day inspire her with a little of my spirit! she is a poor tame +household dove, and there is no making any thing of her. + +Eleven o'clock. + + "For my shepherd is kind, and my heart is at ease." + +What fools women are, Lucy! He took her hand, expressed concern for +her health, softened the tone of his voice, looked a few civil things +with those expressive lying eyes of his, and without one word of +explanation all was forgot in a moment. + + Good night! Yours, + A. Fermor. + + +Heavens! the fellow is here, has followed me to my dressing-room; +was ever any thing so confident? These modest men have ten times the +assurance of your impudent fellows. I believe absolutely he is going to +make love to me: 'tis a critical hour, Lucy; and to rob one's friend of +a lover is really a temptation. + +Twelve o'clock. + +The dear man is gone, and has made all up: he insisted on my +explaining the reasons of the cold reception he had met with; which you +know was impossible, without betraying the secret of poor Emily's +little foolish heart. + +I however contrived to let him know we were a little piqued at his +going without seeing us, and that we were something inclined to be +jealous of his _friendship_ for Madame Des Roches. + +He made a pretty decent defence; and, though I don't absolutely +acquit him of coquetry, yet upon the whole I think I forgive him. + +He loves Emily, which is great merit with me: I am only sorry they +are two such poor devils, it is next to impossible they should ever +come together. + +I think I am not angry now; as to Emily, her eyes dance with +pleasure; she has not the same countenance as in the morning; this +love is the finest cosmetick in the world. + +After all, he is a charming fellow, and has eyes, Lucy--Heaven be +praised, he never pointed their fire at me! + +Adieu! I will try to sleep. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 94. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Quebec, March 20. + +The coldness of which I complained, my dear Lucy, in regard to +Emily, was the most flattering circumstance which could have happened: +I will not say it was the effect of jealousy, but it certainly was of +a delicacy of affection which extremely resembles it. + +Never did she appear so lovely as yesterday; never did she display +such variety of loveliness: there was a something in her look, when I +first addressed her on entering the room, touching beyond all words, a +certain inexpressible melting languor, a dying softness, which it was +not in man to see unmoved: what then must a lover have felt? + +I had the pleasure, after having been in the room a few moments, to +see this charming languor change to a joy which animated her whole +form, and of which I was so happy as to believe myself the cause: my +eyes had told her all that passed in my heart; hers had shewed me +plainly they understood their language. We were standing at a window at +some little distance from the rest of the company, when I took an +opportunity of hinting my concern at having, though without knowing it, +offended her: she blushed, she looked down, she again raised her lovely +eyes, they met mine, she sighed; I took her hand, she withdrew it, but +not in anger; a smile, like that of the poet's Hebe, told me I was +forgiven. + +There is no describing what then passed in my soul: with what +difficulty did I restrain my transports! never before did I really know +love: what I had hitherto felt even for her, was cold to that +enchanting, that impassioned moment. + +She is a thousand times dearer to me than life: my Lucy, I cannot +live without her. + +I contrived, before I left Silleri, to speak to Bell Fermor on the +subject of Emily's reception of me; she did not fully explain herself, +but she convinced me hatred had no part in her resentment. + +I am going again this afternoon: every hour not passed with her is +lost. + +I will seek a favorable occasion of telling her the whole happiness +of my life depends on her tenderness. + +Before I write again, my fate will possibly be determined: with +every reason to hope, the timidity inseparable from love makes me dread +a full explanation of my sentiments: if her native softness should have +deceived me--but I will not study to be unhappy. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 95. + + +To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Silleri, March 20. + +I have been telling Fitzgerald I am jealous of his prodigious +attention to Emily, whose cecisbeo he has been the last ten days: the +simpleton took me seriously, and began to vindicate himself, by +explaining the nature of his regard for her, pleading her late +indisposition as an excuse for shewing her some extraordinary +civilities. + +I let him harangue ten minutes, then stops me him short, puts on my +poetical face, and repeats, + + "When sweet Emily complains, + I have sense of all her pains; + But for little Bella, I + Do not only grieve, but die." + +He smiled, kissed my hand, praised my amazing penetration, and was +going to take this opportunity of saying a thousand civil things, when +my divine Rivers appeared on the side of the hill; I flew to meet him, +and left my love to finish the conversation alone. + +Twelve o'clock. + +I am the happiest of all possible women; Fitzgerald is in the +sullens about your brother; surely there is no pleasure in nature equal +to that of plaguing a fellow who really loves one, especially if he has +as much merit as Fitzgerald, for otherwise he would not be worth +tormenting. He had better not pout with me: I believe I know who will +be tired first. + +Eight in the evening. + +I have passed a most delicious day: Fitzgerald took it into his wise +head to endeavor to make me jealous of a little pert French-woman, the +wife of a Croix de St. Louis, who I know he despises; I then thought +myself at full liberty to play off all my airs, which I did with +ineffable success, and have sent him home in a humor to hang himself. +Your brother stays the evening, so does a very handsome fellow I have +been flirting with all the day: Fitz was engaged here too, but I told +him it was impossible for him not to attend Madame La Brosse to Quebec; +he looked at me with a spite in his countenance which charmed me to the +soul, and handed the fair lady to his carriole. + +I'll teach him to coquet, Lucy; let him take his Madame La Brosse: +indeed, as her husband is at Montreal, I don't see how he can avoid +pursuing his conquest: I am delighted, because I know she is his +aversion. + +Emily calls me to cards. Adieu! my dear little Lucy. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 96. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec. + +Pall Mall, January 3. + +I have but a moment, my dear Ned, to tell you, that without so much +as asking your leave, and in spite of all your wise admonitions, your +lovely sister has this morning consented to make me the happiest of +mankind: to-morrow gives me all that is excellent and charming in +woman. + +You are to look on my writing this letter as the strongest proof I +ever did, or ever can give you of my friendship. I must love you with +no common affection to remember at this moment that there is such a man +in being: perhaps you owe this recollection only to your being brother +to the loveliest woman nature ever formed; whose charms in a month +have done more towards my conversion than seven years of your preaching +would have done. I am going back to Clarges Street. Adieu! + + Yours, &c. + John Temple. + + + +LETTER 97. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec. + +Clarges Street, January 3. + +I am afraid you knew very little of the sex, my dear brother, when +you cautioned me so strongly against loving Mr. Temple: I should +perhaps, with all his merit, have never thought of him but for that +caution. + +There is something very interesting to female curiosity in the idea +of these very formidable men, whom no woman can see without danger; we +gaze on the terrible creature at a distance, see nothing in him so very +alarming; he approaches, our little hearts palpitate with fear, he is +gentle, attentive, respectful; we are surprized at this respect, we are +sure the world wrongs the dear civil creature; he flatters, we are +pleased with his flattery; our little hearts still palpitate--but not +with fear. + +In short, my dear brother, if you wish to serve a friend with us, +describe him as the most dangerous of his sex; the very idea that he is +so, makes us think resistance vain, and we throw down our defensive +arms in absolute despair. + +I am not sure this is the reason of my discovering Mr. Temple to be +the most amiable of men; but of this I am certain, that I love him with +the most lively affection, and that I am convinced, notwithstanding all +you have said, that he deserves all my tenderness. + +Indeed, my dear prudent brother, you men fancy yourselves extremely +wise and penetrating, but you don't know each other half so well as we +know you: I shall make Temple in a few weeks as tame a domestic animal +as you can possibly be, even with your Emily. + +I hope you won't be very angry with me for accepting an agreable +fellow, and a coach and six: if you are, I can only say, that finding +the dear man steal every day upon my heart, and recollecting how very +dangerous a creature he was, + + "I held it both safest and best + To marry, for fear you should chide." + + Adieu! + Your affectionate, &c. + Lucy Rivers. + + +Please to observe, mamma was on Mr. Temple's side, and that I only +take him from obedience to her commands. He has behaved like an angel +to her; but I leave himself to explain how: she has promised to live +with us. We are going a party to Richmond, and only wait for Mr. +Temple. + +With all my pertness, I tremble at the idea that to-morrow will +determine the happiness or misery of my life. + + Adieu! my dearest brother. + + + +LETTER 98. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Quebec, March 21. + +Were I convinced of your conversion, my dear Jack, I should be the +happiest man breathing in the thought of your marrying my sister; but I +tremble lest this resolution should be the effect of passion merely, +and not of that settled esteem and tender confidence without which +mutual repentance will be the necessary consequence of your connexion. + +Lucy is one of the most beautiful women I ever knew, but she has +merits of a much superior kind; her understanding and her heart are +equally lovely: she has also a sensibility which exceedingly alarms me +for her, as I know it is next to impossible that even her charms can +fix a heart so long accustomed to change. + +Do I not guess too truly, my dear Temple, when I suppose the +charming mistress is the only object you have in view; and that the +tender amiable friend, the pleasing companion, the faithful confidante, +is forgot? + +I will not however anticipate evils: if any merit has power to fix +you, Lucy's cannot fail of doing it. + +I expect with impatience a further account of an event in which my +happiness is so extremely interested. + +If she is yours, may you know her value, and you cannot fail of +being happy: I only fear from your long habit of improper attachments; +naturally, I know not a heart filled with nobler sentiments than yours, +nor is there on earth a man for whom I have equal esteem. Adieu! + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 99. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Quebec, March 23. + +I have received your second letter, my dear Temple, with the account +of your marriage. + +Nothing could make me so happy as an event which unites a sister I +idolize to the friend on earth most dear to me, did I not tremble for +your future happiness, from my perfect knowledge of both. + +I know the sensibility of Lucy's temper, and that she loves you: I +know also the difficulty of weaning the heart from such a habit of +inconstancy as you have unhappily acquired. + +Virtues like Lucy's will for ever command your esteem and +friendship; but in marriage it is equally necessary to keep love alive: +her beauty, her gaiety, her delicacy, will do much; but it is also +necessary, my dearest Temple, that you keep a guard on your heart, +accustomed to liberty, to give way to every light impression. + +I need not tell you, who have experienced the truth of what I say, +that happiness is not to be found in a life of intrigue; there is no +real pleasure in the possession of beauty without the heart; with it, +the fears, the anxieties, a man not absolutely destitute of humanity +must feel for the honor of her who ventures more than life for him, +must extremely counterbalance his transports. + +Of all the situations this world affords, a marriage of choice gives +the fairest prospect of happiness; without love, life would be a +tasteless void; an unconnected human being is the most wretched of all +creatures: by love I would be understood to mean that tender lively +friendship, that mixed sensation, which the libertine never felt; and +with which I flatter myself my amiable sister cannot fail of inspiring +a heart naturally virtuous, however at present warped by a foolish +compliance with the world. + +I hope, my dear Temple, to see you recover your taste for those +pleasures peculiarly fitted to our natures; to see you enjoy the pure +delights of peaceful domestic life, the calm social evening hour, the +circle of friends, the prattling offspring, and the tender impassioned +smile of real love. + +Your generosity is no more than I expected from your character; and +to convince you of my perfect esteem, I so far accept it, as to draw +out the money I have in the funds, which I intended for my sister: it +will make my settlement here turn to greater advantage, and I allow you +the pleasure of convincing Lucy of the perfect disinterestedness of +your affection: it would be a trifle to you, and will make me happy. + +But I am more delicate in regard to my mother, and will never +consent to resume the estate I have settled on her: I esteem you above +all mankind, but will not let _her_ be dependent even on you: I +consent she visit you as often as she pleases, but insist on her +continuing her house in town, and living in every respect as she has +been accustomed. + +As to Lucy's own little fortune, as it is not worth your receiving, +suppose she lays it out in jewels? I love to see beauty adorned; and +two thousand pounds, added to what you have given her, will set her on +a footing in this respect with a nabobess. + +Your marriage, my dear Temple, removes the strongest objection to +mine; the money I have in the funds, which whilst Lucy was unmarried I +never would have taken, enables me to fix to great advantage here. I +have now only to try whether Emily's friendship for me is sufficiently +strong to give up all hopes of a return to England. + +I shall make an immediate trial: you shall know the event in a few +days. If she refuses me, I bid adieu to all my schemes, and embark in +the first ship. + +Give my kindest tenderest wishes to my mother and sister. My dear +Temple, only know the value of the treasure you possess, and you must +be happy. Adieu! + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 100. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +My Lord, + +Silleri, March 24. + +Nothing can be more just than your Lordship's observation; and I am +the more pleased with it, as it coincides with what I had the honor of +saying to you in my last, in regard to the impropriety, the cruelty, +I had almost said the injustice, of your intention of deserting that +world of which you are at once the ornament and the example. + +Good people, as your Lordship observes, are generally too retired +and abstracted to let their example be of much service to the world: +whereas the bad, on the contrary, are conspicuous to all; they stand +forth, they appear on the fore ground of the picture, and force +themselves into observation. + +'Tis to that circumstance, I am persuaded, we may attribute that +dangerous and too common mistake, that vice is natural to the human +heart, and virtuous characters the creatures of fancy; a mistake of the +most fatal tendency, as it tends to harden our hearts, and destroy +that mutual confidence so necessary to keep the bands of society from +loosening, and without which man is the most ferocious of all beasts +of prey. + +Would all those whose virtues like your Lordship's are adorned by +politeness and knowledge of the world, mix more in society, we should +soon see vice hide her head: would all the good appear in full view, +they would, I am convinced, be found infinitely the majority. + +Virtue is too lovely to be hid in cells, the world is her scene of +action: she is soft, gentle, indulgent; let her appear then in her own +form, and she must charm: let politeness be for ever her attendant, +that politeness which can give graces even to vice itself, which makes +superiority easy, removes the sense of inferiority, and adds to every +one's enjoyment both of himself and others. + +I am interrupted, and must postpone till to-morrow what I have +further to say to your Lordship. I have the honor to be, my Lord, + + Your Lordship's, &c. + W. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 101. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, March 25. + +Your brother, my dear Lucy, has made me happy in communicating to me +the account he has received of your marriage. I know Temple; he is, +besides being very handsome, a fine, sprightly, agreable fellow, and is +particularly formed to keep a woman's mind in that kind of play, that +gentle agitation, which will for ever secure her affection. + +He has in my opinion just as much coquetry as is necessary to +prevent marriage from degenerating into that sleepy kind of existence, +which to minds of the awakened turn of yours and mine would be +insupportable. + +He has also a fine fortune, which I hold to be a pretty enough +ingredient in marriage. + +In short, he is just such a man, upon the whole, as I should have +chose for myself. + +Make my congratulations to the dear man, and tell him, if he is not +the happiest man in the world, he will forfeit all his pretensions to +taste; and if he does not make you the happiest woman, he forfeits all +title to my favor, as well as to the favor of the whole sex. + +I meant to say something civil; but, to tell you the truth, I am not +_en train_; I am excessively out of humor: Fitzgerald has not been +here of several days, but spends his whole time in gallanting Madame +La Brosse, a woman to whom he knows I have an aversion, and who has +nothing but a tolerable complexion and a modest assurance to recommend +her. + +I certainly gave him some provocation, but this is too much: +however, 'tis very well; I don't think I shall break my heart, though +my vanity is a little piqued. I may perhaps live to take my revenge. + +I am hurt, because I began really to like the creature; a secret +however to which he is happily a stranger. I shall see him to-morrow at +the governor's, and suppose he will be in his penitentials: I have some +doubt whether I shall let him dance with me; yet it would look so +particular to refuse him, that I believe I shall do him the honor. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + A. Fermor. + +26th, Thursday, 11 at night. + +No, Lucy, if I forgive him this, I have lost all the free spirit of +woman; he had the insolence to dance with Madame La Brosse to-night at +the governor's. I never will forgive him. There are men perhaps quite +his equals!--but 'tis no matter--I do him too much honor to be +piqued--yet on the footing we were--I could not have believed-- + + Adieu! + + +I was so certain he would have danced with me, that I refused +Colonel H----, one of the most agreable men in the place, and therefore +could not dance at all. Nothing hurt me so much as the impertinent +looks of the women; I could cry for vexation. + +Would your brother have behaved thus to Emily? but why do I name +other men with your brother! do you know he and Emily had the +good-nature to refuse to dance, that my sitting still might be the less +taken notice of? We all played at cards, and Rivers contrived to be of +my party, by which he would have won Emily's heart if he had not had it +before. + + Good night. + + + +LETTER 102. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Quebec, March 27. + +I have been twice at Silleri with the intention of declaring my +passion, and explaining my situation, to Emily; but have been prevented +by company, which made it impossible for me to find the opportunity I +wished. + +Had I found that opportunity, I am not sure I should have made use +of it; a degree of timidity is inseparable from true tenderness; and I +am afraid of declaring myself a lover, lest, if not beloved, I should +lose the happiness I at present possess in visiting her as her friend: +I cannot give up the dear delight I find in seeing her, in hearing her +voice, in tracing and admiring every sentiment of that lovely +unaffected generous mind as it rises. + +In short, my Lucy, I cannot live without her esteem and friendship; +and though her eyes, her attention to me, her whole manner, encourage +me in the hope of being beloved, yet the possibility of my being +mistaken makes me dread an explanation by which I hazard losing the +lively pleasure I find in her friendship. + +This timidity however must be conquered; 'tis pardonable to feel +it, but not to give way to it. I have ordered my carriole, and am +determined to make my attack this very morning like a man of courage +and a soldier. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + +A letter from Bell Fermor, to whom I wrote this morning on the +subject: + +"To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec. + +Silleri, Friday morning. + +"You are a foolish creature, and know nothing of women. Dine at +Silleri, and we will air after dinner; 'tis a glorious day, and if you +are timid in a covered carriole, I give you up. + + "Adieu! + Yours, + A. Fermor." + + + +LETTER 103. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Quebec, March 27, 11 at night. + +She is an angel, my dear Lucy, and no words can do her justice: I am +the happiest of mankind; I painted my passion with all the moving +eloquence of undissembled love; she heard me with the most flattering +attention; she said little, but her looks, her air, her tone of voice, +her blushes, her very silence--how could I ever doubt her tenderness? +have not those lovely eyes a thousand times betrayed the dear secret of +her heart? + +My Lucy, we were formed for each other; our souls are of +intelligence; every thought, every idea--from the first moment I +beheld her--I have a thousand things to say, but the tumult of my +joy--she has given me leave to write to her; what has she not said in +that permission? + +I cannot go to bed; I will go and walk an hour on the battery; 'tis +the loveliest night I ever beheld, even in Canada: the day is scarce +brighter. + +One in the morning. + +I have had the sweetest walk imaginable: the moon shines with a +splendor I never saw before; a thousand streaming meteors add to her +brightness; I have stood gazing on the lovely planet, and delighting +myself with the idea that 'tis the same moon that lights my Emily. + +Good night, my Lucy! I love you beyond all expression; I always +loved you tenderly, but there is a softness about my heart +to-night--this lovely woman-- + +I know not what I would say, but till this night I could never be +said to live. + + Adieu! Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 104. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Quebec, 28th March. + +I had this morning a short billet from her dear hand, entreating me +to make up a quarrel between Bell Fermor and her lover: your friend has +been indiscreet; her spirit of coquetry is eternally carrying her +wrong; but in my opinion Fitzgerald has been at least equally to blame. + +His behaviour at the governor's on Thursday night was inexcusable, +as it exposed her to the sneers of a whole circle of her own sex, many +of them jealous of her perfections. + +A lover should overlook little caprices, where the heart is good and +amiable like Bell's: I should think myself particularly obliged to +bring this affair to an amicable conclusion, even if Emily had not +desired it, as I was originally the innocent cause of their quarrel. In +my opinion he ought to beg her pardon; and, as a friend tenderly +interested for both, I have a right to tell him I think so: he loves +her, and I know must suffer greatly, though a foolish pride prevents +his acknowledging it. + +My greatest fear is, that an idle resentment may engage him in an +intrigue with the lady in question, who is a woman of gallantry, and +whom he may find very troublesome hereafter. It is much easier to +commence an affair of this kind than to break it off; and a man, though +his heart was disengaged, should be always on his guard against any +thing like an attachment where his affections are not really +interested: meer passion or meer vanity will support an affair _en +passant_; but, where the least degree of constancy and attention are +expected, the heart must feel, or the lover is subjecting himself to a +slavery as irksome as a marriage without inclination. + +Temple will tell you I speak like an oracle; for I have often seen +him led by vanity into this very disagreable situation: I hope I am not +too late to save Fitzgerald from it. + +Six in the evening. + +All goes well: his proud heart is come down, he has begged her +pardon, and is forgiven; you have no idea how civil both are to me, +for having persuaded them to do what each of them has longed to do from +the first moment: I love to advise, when I am sure the heart of the +person advised is on my side. Both were to blame, but I always love to +save the ladies from any thing mortifying to the dignity of their +characters; a little pride in love becomes them, but not us; and 'tis +always our part to submit on these occasions. + +I never saw two happier people than they are at present, as I have a +little preserved decorum on both sides, and taken the whole trouble of +the reconciliation on myself: Bell knows nothing of my having applied +to Fitzgerald, nor he that I did it at Emily's request: my conversation +with him on this subject seemed accidental. I was obliged to leave +them, having business in town; but my lovely Emily thanked me by a +smile which would overpay a thousand such little services. + +I am to spend to-morrow at Silleri: how long shall I think this +evening! + +Adieu! my tenderest wishes attend you all! + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 105. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, March 27, evening. + +Fitzgerald has been here, and has begged my pardon; he declares he +had no thought of displeasing me at the governor's, but from my +behaviour was afraid of importuning me if he addressed me as usual. + +I thought who would come to first; for my part, if he had stayed +away for ever, I would not have suffered papa to invite him to Silleri: +it was easy to see his neglect was all pique; it would have been +extraordinary indeed if such a woman as Madame La Brosse could have +rivalled me: I am something younger; and, if either my glass or the men +are to be believed, as handsome: _entre nous_, there is some +little difference; if she was not so very fair, she would be +absolutely ugly; and these very fair women, you know, Lucy, are always +insipid; she is the taste of no man breathing, though eternally making +advances to every man; without spirit, fire, understanding, vivacity, +or any quality capable of making amends for the mediocrity of her +charms. + +Her insolence in attempting to attach Fitzgerald is intolerable, +especially when the whole province knows him to be my lover: there is +no expressing to what a degree I hate her. + +The next time we meet I hope to return her impertinence on Thursday +night at the governor's; I will never forgive Fitzgerald if he takes +the least notice of her. + +Emily has read my letter; and says she did not think I had so much +of the woman in me; insists on my being civil to Madame La Brosse, but +if I am, Lucy-- + +These Frenchwomen are not to be supported; they fancy vanity and +assurance are to make up for the want of every other virtue; forgetting +that delicacy, softness, sensibility, tenderness, are attractions to +which they are strangers: some of them here are however tolerably +handsome, and have a degree of liveliness which makes them not quite +insupportable. + +You will call all this spite, as Emily does, so I will say no more: +only that, in order to shew her how very easy it is to be civil to a +rival, I wish for the pleasure of seeing another French lady, that I +could mention, at Quebec. + +Good night, my dear! tell Temple, I am every thing but in love with +him. + + Your faithful, + A. Fermor. + +I will however own, I encouraged Fitzgerald by a kind look. I was +so pleased at his return, that I could not keep up the farce of disdain +I had projected: in love affairs, I am afraid, we are all fools alike. + + + +LETTER 106. + + +To Miss Fermor. + +Saturday noon. + +Come to my dressing-room, my dear; I have a thousand things to say +to you: I want to talk of my Rivers, to tell you all the weakness of my +soul. + +No, my dear, I cannot love him more, a passion like mine will not +admit addition; from the first moment I saw him my whole soul was his: +I knew not that I was dear to him; but true genuine love is +self-existent, and does not depend on being beloved: I should have +loved him even had he been attached to another. + +This declaration has made me the happiest of my sex; but it has not +increased, it could not increase, my tenderness: with what softness, +what diffidence, what respect, what delicacy, was this declaration +made! my dear friend, he is a god, and my ardent affection for him is +fully justified. + +I love him--no words can speak how much I love him. + +My passion for him is the first and shall be the last of my life: my +bosom never heaved a sigh but for my Rivers. + +Will you pardon the folly of a heart which till now was ashamed to +own its feelings, and of which you are even now the only confidante? + +I find all the world so insipid, nothing amuses me one moment; in +short, I have no pleasure but in Rivers's conversation, nor do I count +the hours of his absence in my existence. + +I know all this will be called folly, but it is a folly which makes +all the happiness of my life. + +You love, my dear Bell; and therefore will pardon the weakness of +your + + Emily. + + + +LETTER 107. + + +To Miss Montague. + +Saturday. + +Yes, my dear, I love, at least I think so; but, thanks to my stars, +not in the manner you do. + +I prefer Fitzgerald to all the rest of his sex; but _I count the +hours of his absence in my existence_; and contrive sometimes to +pass them pleasantly enough, if any other agreable man is in the way: +in short, I relish flattery and attention from others, though I +infinitely prefer them from him. + +I certainly love him, for I was jealous of Madame La Brosse; but, in +general, I am not alarmed when I see him flirt a little with others. +Perhaps my vanity was as much wounded as my love, with regard to Madame +La Brosse. + +I find love is quite a different plant in different soils; it is an +exotic, and grows faintly, with us coquets; but in its native climate +with you people of sensibility and sentiment. + +Adieu! I will attend you in a quarter of an hour. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 108. + + +To Miss Fermor. + +Not alarmed, my dear, at his attention to others? believe me, you +know nothing of love. + +I think every woman who beholds my Rivers a rival; I imagine I see +in every female countenance a passion tender and lively as my own; I +turn pale, my heart dies within me, if I observe his eyes a moment +fixed on any other woman; I tremble at the possibility of his changing; +I cannot support the idea that the time may come when I may be less +dear to my Rivers than at present. Do you believe it possible, my +dearest Bell, for any heart, not prepossessed, to be insensible one +moment to my Rivers? + +He is formed to charm the soul of woman; his delicacy, his +sensibility, the mind that speaks through those eloquent eyes; the +thousand graces of his air, the sound of his voice--my dear, I never +heard him speak without feeling a softness of which it is impossible to +convey an idea. + +But I am wrong to encourage a tenderness which is already too great; +I will think less of him; I will not talk of him; do not speak of him +to me, my dear Bell: talk to me of Fitzgerald; there is no danger of +your passion becoming too violent. + +I wish you loved more tenderly, my dearest; you would then be more +indulgent to my weakness: I am ashamed of owning it even to you. + +Ashamed, did I say? no, I rather glory in loving the most amiable, +the most angelic of mankind. + +Speak of him to me for ever; I abhor all conversation of which he is +not the subject. I am interrupted. Adieu! + + Your faithful + Emily. + + +My dearest, I tremble; he is at the door; how shall I meet him +without betraying all the weakness of my heart? come to me this moment, +I will not go down without you. Your father is come to fetch me; +follow me, I entreat: I cannot see him alone; my heart is too much +softened at this moment. He must not know to what excess he is beloved. + + + +LETTER 109. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Quebec, March 28. + +I am at present, my dear Lucy, extremely embarrassed; Madame Des +Roches is at Quebec: it is impossible for me not to be more than polite +to her; yet my Emily has all my heart, and demands all my attention; +there is but one way of seeing them both as often as I wish; 'tis to +bring them as often as possible together: I wish extremely that Emily +would visit her, but 'tis a point of the utmost delicacy to manage. + +Will it not on reflection be cruel to Madame Des Roches? I know her +generosity of mind, but I also know the weakness of the human heart: +can she see with pleasure a beloved rival? + +My Lucy, I never so much wanted your advice: I will consult Bell +Fermor, who knows every thought of my Emily's heart. + +Eleven o'clock. + +I have visited Madame Des Roches at her relation's; she received me +with a pleasure which was too visible not to be observed by all +present: she blushed, her voice faltered when she addressed me; her +eyes had a softness which seemed to reproach my insensibility: I was +shocked at the idea of having inspired her with a tenderness not in my +power to return; I was afraid of increasing that tenderness; I scarce +dared to meet her looks. + +I felt a criminal in the presence of this amiable woman; for both +our sakes, I must see her seldom: yet what an appearance will my +neglect have, after the attention she has shewed me, and the friendship +she has expressed for me to all the world? + +I know not what to determine. I am going to Silleri. Adieu till my +return. + +Eight o'clock. + +I have entreated Emily to admit Madame Des Roches among the number +of her friends, and have asked her to visit her to-morrow morning: she +changed color at my request, but promised to go. + +I almost repent of what I have done: I am to attend Emily and Bell +Fermor to Madame Des Roches in the morning: I am afraid I shall +introduce them with a very bad grace. Adieu! + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 110. + + +To Miss Fermor. + +Sunday morning. + +Could you have believed he would have expected such a proof of my +desire to oblige him? but what can he ask that his Emily will refuse? I +will see this _friend_ of his, this Madame Des Roches; I will even +love her, if it is in woman to be so disinterested. She loves him; he +sees her; they say she is amiable; I could have wished her visit to +Quebec had been delayed. + +But he comes; he looks up; his eyes seem to thank me for this excess +of complaisance: what is there I would not do to give him pleasure? + +Six o'clock. + +Do you think her so very pleasing, my dear Bell? she has fine eyes, +but have they not more fire than softness? There was a vivacity in her +manner which hurt me extremely: could she have behaved with such +unconcern, had she loved as I do? + +Do you think it possible, Bell, for a Frenchwoman to love? is not +vanity the ruling passion of their hearts? + +May not Rivers be deceived in supposing her so much attached to him? +was there not some degree of affectation in her particular attention to +me? I cannot help thinking her artful. + +Perhaps I am prejudiced: she may be amiable, but I will own she does +not please me. + +Rivers begged me to have a friendship for her; I am afraid this is +more than is in my power: friendship, like love, is the child of +sympathy, not of constraint. + + Adieu! Yours, + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 111. + + +To Miss Montague. + +Monday. + +The inclosed, my dear, is as much to you as to me, perhaps more; I +pardon the lady for thinking you the handsomest. Is not this the +strongest proof I could give of my friendship? perhaps I should have +been piqued, however, had the preference been given by a man; but I +can with great tranquillity allow you to be the women's beauty. + +Dictate an answer to your little Bell, who waits your commands at +her bureau. + + Adieu! + +"To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Monday. + +"You and your lovely friend obliged me beyond words, my dear Bell, +by your visit of yesterday: Madame Des Roches is charmed with you +both: you will not be displeased when I tell you she gives Emily the +preference; she says she is beautiful as an angel; that she should +think the man insensible, who could see her without love; that she is +_touchant_, to use her own word, beyond any thing she ever beheld. + +"She however does justice to your charms, though Emily's seem to +affect her most. She even allows you to be perhaps more the taste of +men in general. + +"She intends paying her respects to you and Emily this afternoon; +and has sent to desire me to conduct her. As it is so far, I would wish +to find you at home. + + "Yours, + Ed. Rivers." + + + +LETTER 112. + + +To Miss Fermor. + +Always Madame Des Roches! but let her come: indeed, my dear, she is +artful; she gains upon him by this appearance of generosity; I cannot +return it, I do not love her; yet I will receive her with politeness. + +He is to drive her too; but 'tis no matter; if the tenderest +affection can secure his heart, I have nothing to fear: loving him as I +do, it is impossible not to be apprehensive: indeed, my dear, he knows +not how I love him. + + Adieu! + Your Emily. + + + +LETTER 113. + + +To Miss Fermor. + +Monday evening. + +Surely I am the weakest of my weak sex; I am ashamed to tell you all +my feelings: I cannot conquer my dislike to Madame Des Roches: she +said a thousand obliging things to me, she praised my Rivers; I made +her no answer, I even felt tears ready to start; what must she think of +me? there is a meanness in my jealousy of her, which I cannot forgive +myself. + +I cannot account for her attention to me, it is not natural; she +behaved to me not only with politeness, but with the appearance of +affection; she seemed to feel and pity my confusion. She is either the +most artful, or the most noble of women. + + Adieu! + Your + Emily. + + + +LETTER 114. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, March 29. + +We are going to dine at a farm house in the country, where we are to +meet other company, and have a ball: the snow begins a little to +soften, from the warmth of the sun, which is greater than in England in +May. Our winter parties are almost at an end. + +My father drives Madame Des Roches, who is of our party, and your +brother Emily; I hope the little fool will be easy now, Lucy; she is +very humble, to be jealous of one, who, though really very pleasing, is +neither so young nor so handsome as herself; and who professes to wish +only for Rivers's friendship. + +But I have no right to say a word on this subject, after having been +so extremely hurt at Fitzgerald's attention to such a woman as Madame +La Brosse; an attention too which was so plainly meant to pique me. + +We are all, I am afraid, a little absurd in these affairs, and +therefore ought to have some degree of indulgence for others. + +Emily and I, however, differ in our ideas of love: it is the +business of her life, the amusement of mine; 'tis the food of her +hours, the seasoning of mine. + +Or, in other words, she loves like a foolish woman, I like a +sensible man: for men, you know, compared to women, love in about the +proportion of one to twenty. + +'Tis a mighty wrong thing, after all, Lucy, that parents will +educate creatures so differently, who are to live with and for each +other. + +Every possible means is used, even from infancy, to soften the minds +of women, and to harden those of men; the contrary endeavor might be of +use, for the men creatures are unfeeling enough by nature, and we are +born too tremblingly alive to love, and indeed to every soft affection. + +Your brother is almost the only one of his sex I know, who has the +tenderness of woman with the spirit and firmness of man: a circumstance +which strikes every woman who converses with him, and which contributes +to make him the favorite he is amongst us. Foolish women who cannot +distinguish characters may possibly give the preference to a coxcomb; +but I will venture to say, no woman of sense was ever much acquainted +with Colonel Rivers without feeling for him an affection of some kind +or other. + +_A propos_ to women, the estimable part of us are divided into +two classes only, the tender and the lively. + +The former, at the head of which I place Emily, are infinitely more +capable of happiness; but, to counterbalance this advantage, they are +also capable of misery in the same degree. We of the other class, who +feel less keenly, are perhaps upon the whole as happy, at least I would +fain think so. + +For example, if Emily and I marry our present lovers, she will +certainly be more exquisitely happy than I shall; but if they should +change their minds, or any accident prevent our coming together, I am +inclined to fancy my situation would be much the most agreable. + +I should pout a month, and then look about for another lover; whilst +the tender Emily would + + "Sit like patience on a monument," + +and pine herself into a consumption. + +Adieu! They wait for me. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + +Tuesday, midnight. + +We have had a very agreable day, Lucy, a pretty enough kind of a +ball, and every body in good humor: I danced with Fitzgerald, whom I +never knew so agreable. + +Happy love is gay, I find; Emily is all sprightliness, your +brother's eyes have never left her one moment, and her blushes seemed +to shew her sense of the distinction; I never knew her look so handsome +as this day. + +Do you know I felt for Madame Des Roches? Emily was excessively +complaisant to her: she returned her civility, but I could perceive a +kind of constraint in her manner, very different from the ease of her +behaviour when we saw her before: she felt the attention of Rivers to +Emily very strongly: in short, the ladies seemed to have changed +characters for the day. + +We supped with your brother on our return, and from his windows, +which look on the river St. Charles, had the pleasure of observing one +of the most beautiful objects imaginable, which I never remember to +have seen before this evening. + +You are to observe the winter method of fishing here, is to break +openings like small fish ponds on the ice, to which the fish coming for +air, are taken in prodigious quantities on the surface. + +To shelter themselves from the excessive cold of the night, the +fishermen build small houses of ice on the river, which are arranged in +a semicircular form, and extend near a quarter of a mile, and which, +from the blazing fires within, have a brilliant transparency and vivid +lustre, not easy either to imagine or to describe: the starry +semicircle looks like an immense crescent of diamonds, on which the sun +darts his meridian rays. + +Absolutely, Lucy, you see nothing in Europe: you are cultivated, you +have the tame beauties of art; but to see nature in her lovely wild +luxuriance, you must visit your brother when he is prince of the +Kamaraskas. + + Adieu! + Your faithful + A. Fermor. + + +The variety, as well of grand objects, as of amusements, in this +country, confirms me in an opinion I have always had, that Providence +had made the conveniences and inconveniences of life nearly equal every +where. + +We have pleasures here even in winter peculiar to the climate, which +counterbalance the evils we suffer from its rigor. + +Good night, my dear Lucy! + + + +LETTER 115. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Quebec, April 2. + +I have this moment, my dear, a letter from Montreal, describing some +lands on Lake Champlain, which my friend thinks much better worth my +taking than those near the Kamaraskas: he presses me to come up +immediately to see them, as the ice on the rivers will in a few days be +dangerous to travel on. + +I am strongly inclined to go, and for this reason; I am convinced my +wish of bringing about a friendship between Emily and Madame Des +Roches, the strongest reason I had for fixing at the Kamaraskas, was an +imprudent one: gratitude and (if the expression is not impertinent) +compassion give me a softness in my behaviour to the latter, which a +superficial observer would take for love, and which her own tenderness +may cause even her to misconstrue; a circumstance which must retard her +resolution of changing the affection with which she has honored me, +into friendship. + +I am also delicate in my love, and cannot bear to have it one moment +supposed, my heart can know a wish but for my Emily. + +Shall I say more? The blush on Emily's cheek on her first seeing +Madame Des Roches convinced me of my indiscretion, and that vanity +alone carried me to desire to bring together two women, whose affection +for me is from their extreme merit so very flattering. + +I shall certainly now fix in Canada; I can no longer doubt of +Emily's tenderness, though she refuses me her hand, from motives which +make her a thousand times more dear to me, but which I flatter myself +love will over-rule. + +I am setting off in an hour for Montreal, and shall call at Silleri +to take Emily's commands. + +Seven in the evening, Des Chambeaux. + +I asked her advice as to fixing the place of my settlement; she said +much against my staying in America at all; but, if I was determined, +recommended Lake Champlain rather than the Kamaraskas, on account of +climate. Bell smiled; and a blush, which I perfectly understood, +over-spread the lovely cheek of my sweet Emily. Nothing could be more +flattering than this circumstance; had she seen Madame Des Roches with +a calm indifference, had she not been alarmed at the idea of fixing +near her, I should have doubted of the degree of her affection; a +little apprehension is inseparable from real love. + +My courage has been to-day extremely put to the proof: had I staid +three days longer, it would have been impossible to have continued my +journey. + +The ice cracks under us at every step the horses set, a rather +unpleasant circumstance on a river twenty fathom deep: I should not +have attempted the journey had I been aware of this particular. I hope +no man meets inevitable danger with more spirit, but no man is less +fond of seeking it where it is honorably to be avoided. + +I am going to sup with the seigneur of the village, who is, I am +told, married to one of the handsomest women in the province. + +Adieu! my dear! I shall write to you from Montreal. + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 116. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Montreal, April 3. + +I am arrived, my dear, after a very disagreable and dangerous +journey; I was obliged to leave the river soon after I left Des +Chambeaux, and to pursue my way on the land over melting snow, into +which the horses feet sunk half a yard every step. + +An officer just come from New York has given me a letter from you, +which came thither by a private ship: I am happy to hear of your +health, and that Temple's affection for you seems rather to increase +than lessen since your marriage. + +You ask me, my dear Lucy, how to preserve this affection, on the +continuance of which, you justly say, your whole happiness depends. + +The question is perhaps the most delicate and important which +respects human life; the caprice, the inconstancy, the injustice of +men, makes the task of women in marriage infinitely difficult. + +Prudence and virtue will certainly secure esteem; but, +unfortunately, esteem alone will not make a happy marriage; passion +must also be kept alive, which the continual presence of the object +beloved is too apt to make subside into that apathy, so insupportable +to sensible minds. + +The higher your rank, and the less your manner of life separates you +from each other, the more danger there will be of this indifference. + +The poor, whose necessary avocations divide them all day, and whose +sensibility is blunted by the coarseness of their education, are in no +danger of being weary of each other; and, unless naturally vicious, you +will see them generally happy in marriage; whereas even the virtuous, +in more affluent situations, are not secure from this unhappy cessation +of tenderness. + +When I received your letter, I was reading Madame De Maintenon's +advice to the Dutchess of Burgundy, on this subject. I will transcribe +so much of it as relates to _the woman_, leaving her advice +to _the princess_ to those whom it may concern. + +"Do not hope for perfect happiness; there is no such thing in this +sublunary state. + +"Your sex is the more exposed to suffer, because it is always in +dependence: be neither angry nor ashamed of this dependence on a +husband, nor of any of those which are in the order of Providence. + +"Let your husband be your best friend and your only confidant. + +"Do not hope that your union will procure you perfect peace: the +best marriages are those where with softness and patience they bear by +turns with each other; there are none without some contradiction and +disagreement. + +"Do not expect the same degree of friendship that you feel: men are +in general less tender than women; and you will be unhappy if you are +too delicate in friendship. + +"Beg of God to guard your heart from jealousy: do not hope to bring +back a husband by complaints, ill humor, and reproaches. The only means +which promise success, are patience and softness: impatience sours and +alienates hearts; softness leads them back to their duty. + +"In sacrificing your own will, pretend to no right over that of a +husband: men are more attached to theirs than women, because educated +with less constraint. + +"They are naturally tyrannical; they will have pleasures and +liberty, yet insist that women renounce both: do not examine whether +their rights are well founded; let it suffice to you, that they are +established; they are masters, we have only to suffer and obey with a +good grace." + +Thus far Madame De Maintenon, who must be allowed to have known the +heart of man, since, after having been above twenty years a widow, she +enflamed, even to the degree of bringing him to marry her, that of a +great monarch, younger than herself, surrounded by beauties, habituated +to flattery, in the plenitude of power, and covered with glory; and +retained him in her chains to the last moment of his life. + +Do not, however, my dear, be alarmed at the picture she has drawn of +marriage; nor fancy with her, that women are only born to suffer and +to obey. + +That we are generally tyrannical, I am obliged to own; but such of +us as know how to be happy, willingly give up the harsh title of +master, for the more tender and endearing one of friend; men of sense +abhor those customs which treat your sex as if created meerly for the +happiness of the other; a supposition injurious to the Deity, though +flattering to our tyranny and self-love; and wish only to bind you in +the soft chains of affection. + +Equality is the soul of friendship: marriage, to give delight, must +join two minds, not devote a slave to the will of an imperious lord; +whatever conveys the idea of subjection necessarily destroys that of +love, of which I am so convinced, that I have always wished the word +obey expunged from the marriage ceremony. + +If you will permit me to add my sentiments to those of a lady so +learned in the art of pleasing; I would wish you to study the taste of +your husband, and endeavor to acquire a relish for those pleasures +which appear most to affect him; let him find amusement at home, but +never be peevish at his going abroad; he will return to you with the +higher gust for your conversation: have separate apartments, since your +fortune makes it not inconvenient; be always elegant, but not too +expensive, in your dress; retain your present exquisite delicacy of +every kind; receive his friends with good-breeding and complacency; +contrive such little parties of pleasure as you know are agreable to +him, and with the most agreable people you can select: be lively even +to playfulness in your general turn of conversation with him; but, at +the same time, spare no pains so to improve your understanding, which +is an excellent one, as to be no less capable of being the companion of +his graver hours: be ignorant of nothing which it becomes your sex to +know, but avoid all affectation of knowledge: let your oeconomy be +exact, but without appearing otherwise than by the effect. + +Do not imitate those of your sex who by ill temper make a husband +pay dear for their fidelity; let virtue in you be drest in smiles; and +be assured that chearfulness is the native garb of innocence. + +In one word, my dear, do not lose the mistress in the wife, but let +your behaviour to him as a husband be such as you would have thought +most proper to attract him as a lover: have always the idea of pleasing +before you, and you cannot fail to please. + +Having lectured you, my dear Lucy, I must say a word to Temple: a +great variety of rules have been given for the conduct of women in +marriage; scarce any for that of men; as if it was not essential to +domestic happiness, that the man should preserve the heart of her with +whom he is to spend his life; or as if bestowing happiness were not +worth a man's attention, so he possessed it: if, however, it is +possible to feel true happiness without giving it. + +You, my dear Temple, have too just an idea of pleasure to think in +this manner: you would be beloved; it has been the pursuit of your +life, though never really attained perhaps before. You at present +possess a heart full of sensibility, a heart capable of loving with +ardor, and from the same cause as capable of being estranged by +neglect: give your whole attention to preserving this invaluable +treasure; observe every rule I have given to her, if you would be +happy; and believe me, the heart of woman is not less delicate than +tender; their sensibility is more keen, they feel more strongly than +we do, their tenderness is more easily wounded, and their hearts are +more difficult to recover if once lost. + +At the same time, they are both by nature and education more +constant, and scarce ever change the object of their affections but +from ill treatment: for which reason there is some excuse for a custom +which appears cruel, that of throwing contempt on the husband for the +ill conduct of the wife. + +Above all things, retain the politeness and attention of a lover; +and avoid that careless manner which wounds the vanity of human nature, +a passion given us, as were all passions, for the wisest ends, and +which never quits us but with life. + +There is a certain attentive tenderness, difficult to be described, +which the manly of our sex feel, and which is peculiarly pleasing to +woman: 'tis also a very delightful sensation to ourselves, as well as +productive of the happiest consequences: regarding them as creatures +placed by Providence under our protection, and depending on us for +their happiness, is the strongest possible tie of affection to a +well-turned mind. + +If I did not know Lucy perfectly, I should perhaps hesitate in the +next advice I am going to give you; which is, to make her the +confidante, and the _only_ confidante, of your gallantries, if you +are so unhappy as to be inadvertently betrayed into any: her heart will +possibly be at first a little wounded by the confession, but this proof +of perfect esteem will increase her friendship for you; she will regard +your error with compassion and indulgence, and lead you gently back by +her endearing tenderness to honor and herself. + +Of all tasks I detest that of giving advice; you are therefore +under infinite obligation to me for this letter. + +Be assured of my tenderest affection; and believe me, + + Yours, &c. + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 117. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +Silleri, April 8. + +Nothing can be more true, my Lord, than that poverty is ever the +inseparable companion of indolence. + +I see proofs of it every moment before me; with a soil fruitful +beyond all belief, the Canadians are poor on lands which are their own +property, and for which they pay only a trifling quit-rent to their +seigneurs. + +This indolence appears in every thing: you scarce see the meanest +peasant walking; even riding on horseback appears to them a fatigue +insupportable; you see them lolling at ease, like their lazy lords, in +carrioles and calashes, according to the season; a boy to guide the +horse on a seat in the front of the carriage, too lazy even to take the +trouble of driving themselves, their hands in winter folded in an +immense muff, though perhaps their families are in want of bread to eat +at home. + +The winter is passed in a mixture of festivity and inaction; dancing +and feasting in their gayer hours; in their graver smoking, and +drinking brandy, by the side of a warm stove: and when obliged to +cultivate the ground in spring to procure the means of subsistence, you +see them just turn the turf once lightly over, and, without manuring +the ground, or even breaking the clods of earth, throw in the seed in +the same careless manner, and leave the event to chance, without +troubling themselves further till it is fit to reap. + +I must, however, observe, as some alleviation, that there is +something in the climate which strongly inclines both the body and +mind, but rather the latter, to indolence: the heat of the summer, +though pleasing, enervates the very soul, and gives a certain lassitude +unfavorable to industry; and the winter, at its extreme, binds up and +chills all the active faculties of the soul. + +Add to this, that the general spirit of amusement, so universal here +in winter, and so necessary to prevent the ill effects of the season, +gives a habit of dissipation and pleasure, which makes labor doubly +irksome at its return. + +Their religion, to which they are extremely bigoted, is another +great bar, as well to industry as population: their numerous festivals +inure them to idleness; their religious houses rob the state of many +subjects who might be highly useful at present, and at the same time +retard the increase of the colony. + +Sloth and superstition equally counterwork providence, and render +the bounty of heaven of no effect. + +I am surprized the French, who generally make their religion +subservient to the purposes of policy, do not discourage convents, and +lessen the number of festivals, in the colonies, where both are so +peculiarly pernicious. + +It is to this circumstance one may in great measure attribute the +superior increase of the British American settlements compared to +those of France: a religion which encourages idleness, and makes a +virtue of celibacy, is particularly unfavorable to colonization. + +However religious prejudice may have been suffered to counterwork +policy under a French government, it is scarce to be doubted that this +cause of the poverty of Canada will by degrees be removed; that these +people, slaves at present to ignorance and superstition, will in time +be enlightened by a more liberal education, and gently led by reason to +a religion which is not only preferable, as being that of the country +to which they are now annexed, but which is so much more calculated to +make them happy and prosperous as a people. + +Till that time, till their prejudices subside, it is equally just, +humane, and wise, to leave them the free right of worshiping the Deity +in the manner which they have been early taught to believe the best, +and to which they are consequently attached. + +It would be unjust to deprive them of any of the rights of citizens +on account of religion, in America, where every other sect of +dissenters are equally capable of employ with those of the established +church; nay where, from whatever cause, the church of England is on a +footing in many colonies little better than a toleration. + +It is undoubtedly, in a political light, an object of consequence +every where, that the national religion, whatever it is, should be as +universal as possible, agreement in religious worship being the +strongest tie to unity and obedience; had all prudent means been used +to lessen the number of dissenters in our colonies, I cannot avoid +believing, from what I observe and hear, that we should have found in +them a spirit of rational loyalty, and true freedom, instead of that +factious one from which so much is to be apprehended. + +It seems consonant to reason, that the religion of every country +should have a relation to, and coherence with, the civil constitution: +the Romish religion is best adapted to a despotic government, the +presbyterian to a republican, and that of the church of England to a +limited monarchy like ours. + +As therefore the civil government of America is on the same plan +with that of the mother country, it were to be wished the religious +establishment was also the same, especially in those colonies where the +people are generally of the national church; though with the fullest +liberty of conscience to dissenters of all denominations. + +I would be clearly understood, my Lord; from all I have observed +here, I am convinced, nothing would so much contribute to diffuse a +spirit of order, and rational obedience, in the colonies, as the +appointment, under proper restrictions, of bishops: I am equally +convinced that nothing would so much strengthen the hands of +government, or give such pleasure to the well-affected in the colonies, +who are by much the most numerous, as such an appointment, however +clamored against by a few abettors of sedition. + +I am called upon for this letter, and must remit to another time +what I wished to say more to your Lordship in regard to this country. + + I have the honor to be, + My Lord, &c. + Wm. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 118. + + +To Mrs. Melmoth, at Montreal. + +Silleri, April 8. + +I am indeed, Madam, this inconsistent creature. I have at once +refused to marry Colonel Rivers, and owned to him all the tenderness of +my soul. + +Do not however think me mad, or suppose my refusal the effect of an +unmeaning childish affectation of disinterestedness: I can form to +myself no idea of happiness equal to that of spending my life with +Rivers, the best, the most tender, the most amiable of mankind; nor can +I support the idea of his marrying any other woman: I would therefore +marry him to-morrow were it possible without ruining him, without +dooming him to a perpetual exile, and obstructing those views of +honest ambition at home, which become his birth, his connexions, his +talents, his time of life; and with which, as his friend, it is my +duty to inspire him. + +His affection for me at present blinds him, he sees no object but me +in the whole universe; but shall I take advantage of that inebriation +of tenderness, to seduce him into a measure inconsistent with his real +happiness and interest? He must return to England, must pursue fortune +in that world for which he was formed: shall his Emily retard him in +the glorious race? shall she not rather encourage him in every laudable +attempt? shall she suffer him to hide that shining merit in the +uncultivated wilds of Canada, the seat of barbarism and ignorance, +which entitles him to hope a happy fate in the dear land of arts and +arms? + +I entreat you to do all you can to discourage his design. Remind him +that his sister's marriage has in some degree removed the cause of his +coming hither; that he can have now no motive for fixing here, but his +tenderness for me; that I shall be justly blamed by all who love him +for keeping him here. Tell him, I will not marry him in Canada; that +his stay makes the best mother in the world wretched; that he owes his +return to himself, nay to his Emily, whose whole heart is set on seeing +him in a situation worthy of him: though without ambition as to myself, +I am proud, I am ambitious for him; if he loves me, he will gratify +that pride, that ambition; and leave Canada to those whose duty +confines them here, or whose interest it is to remain unseen. Let him +not once think of me in his determination: I am content to be beloved, +and will leave all else to time. You cannot so much oblige or serve me, +as by persuading Colonel Rivers to return to England. + + Believe me, my dear Madam, + Your affectionate + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 119. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, April 9. + +Your brother, my dear, is gone to Montreal to look out for a +settlement, and Emily to spend a fortnight at Quebec, with a lady she +knew in England, who is lately arrived from thence by New York. + +I am lost without my friend, though my lover endeavors in some +degree to supply her place; he lays close siege; I know not how long I +shall be able to hold out: this fine weather is exceedingly in his +favor; the winter freezes up all the avenues to the heart; but this +sprightly April sun thaws them again amazingly. I was the cruellest +creature breathing whilst the chilly season lasted, but can answer for +nothing now the sprightly May is approaching. + +I can see papa is vastly in Fitzgerald's interest; but he knows our +sex well enough to keep this to himself. + +I shall, however, for decency's sake, ask his opinion on the affair +as soon as I have taken my resolution; which is the very time at which +all the world ask advice of their friends. + +A letter from Emily, which I must answer: she is extremely absurd, +which your tender lovers always are. + + Adieu! yours, + A. Fermor. + +Sir George Clayton had left Montreal some days before your brother +arrived there; I was pleased to hear it, because, with all your +brother's good sense, and concern for Emily's honor, and Sir George's +natural coldness of temper, a quarrel between them would have been +rather difficult to have been avoided. + + + +LETTER 120. + + +To Miss Fermor. + +Quebec, Thursday morning. + +Do you think, my dear, that Madame Des Roches has heard from Rivers? +I wish you would ask her this afternoon at the governor's: I am +anxious to know, but ashamed to enquire. + +Not, my dear, that I have the weakness to be jealous; but I shall +think his letter to me a higher compliment, if I know he writes to +nobody else. I extremely approve his friendship for Madame Des Roches; +she is very amiable, and certainly deserves it: but you know, Bell, it +would be cruel to encourage an affection, which she must conquer, or be +unhappy: if she did not love him, there would be nothing wrong in his +writing to her; but, as she does, it would be doing her the greatest +injury possible: 'tis as much on her account as my own I am thus +anxious. + +Did you ever read so tender, yet so lively a letter as Rivers's to +me? he is alike in all: there is in his letters, as in his +conversation, + + "All that can softly win, or gaily charm + The heart of woman." + +Even strangers listen to him with an involuntary attention, and hear +him with a pleasure for which they scarce know how to account. + +He charms even without intending it, and in spite of himself; but +when he wishes to please, when he addresses the woman he loves, when +his eyes speak the soft language of his heart, when your Emily reads +in them the dear confession of his tenderness, when that melodious +voice utters the sentiments of the noblest mind that ever animated a +human form--My dearest, the eloquence of angels cannot paint my Rivers +as he is. + +I am almost inclined not to go to the governor's to-night; I am +determined not to dance till Rivers returns, and I know there are too +many who will be ready to make observations on my refusal: I think I +will stay at home, and write to him against Monday's post: I have a +thousand things to say, and you know we are continually interrupted at +Quebec; I shall have this evening to myself, as all the world will be +at the governor's. + + Adieu, your faithful + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 121. + + +To Miss Montague, at Quebec. + +Silleri, Thursday morning. + +I dare say, my dear, Madame Des Roches has not heard from Rivers; +but suppose she had. If he loves you, of what consequence is it to whom +he writes? I would not for the world any friend of yours should ask her +such a question. + +I shall call upon you at six o'clock, and shall expect to find you +determined to go to the governor's this evening, and to dance: +Fitzgerald begs the honor of being your partner. + +Believe me, Emily, these kind of unmeaning sacrifices are childish; +your heart is new to love, and you have all the romance of a girl: +Rivers would, on your account, be hurt to hear you had refused to dance +in his absence, though he might be flattered to know you had for a +moment entertained such an idea. + +I pardon you for having the romantic fancies of seventeen, provided +you correct them with the good sense of four and twenty. + +Adieu! I have engaged myself to Colonel H----, on the presumption +that you are too polite to refuse to dance with Fitzgerald, and too +prudent to refuse to dance at all. + + Your affectionate + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 122. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Quebec, Saturday morning. + +How unjust have I been in my hatred of Madame Des Roches! she spent +yesterday with us, and after dinner desired to converse with me an hour +in my apartment, where she opened to me all her heart on the subject of +her love for Rivers. + +She is the noblest and most amiable of women, and I have been in +regard to her the most capricious and unjust: my hatred of her was +unworthy my character; I blush to own the meanness of my sentiments, +whilst I admire the generosity of hers. + +Why, my dear, should I have hated her? she was unhappy, and deserved +rather my compassion: I had deprived her of all hope of being beloved, +it was too much to wish to deprive her also of his conversation. I +knew myself the only object of Rivers's love; why then should I have +envied her his friendship? she had the strongest reason to hate me, but +I should have loved and pitied her. + +Can there be a misfortune equal to that of loving Rivers without +hope of a return? Yet she has not only born this misfortune without +complaint, but has been the confidante of his passion for another; he +owned to her all his tenderness for me, and drew a picture of me, +which, she told me, ought, had she listened to reason, to have +destroyed even the shadow of hope: but that love, ever ready to flatter +and deceive, had betrayed her into the weakness of supposing it +possible I might refuse him, and that gratitude might, in that case, +touch his heart with tenderness for one who loved him with the most +pure and disinterested affection; that her journey to Quebec had +removed the veil love had placed between her and truth; that she was +now convinced the faint hope she had encouraged was madness, and that +our souls were formed for each other. + +She owned she still loved him with the most lively affection; yet +assured me, since she was not allowed to make the most amiable of +mankind happy herself, she wished him to be so with the woman on earth +she thought most worthy of him. + +She added, that she had on first seeing me, though she thought me +worthy his heart, felt an impulse of dislike which she was ashamed to +own, even now that reason and reflexion had conquered so unworthy a +sentiment; that Rivers's complaisance had a little dissipated her +chagrin, and enabled her to behave to me in the manner she did: that +she had, however, almost hated me at the ball in the country: that the +tenderness in Rivers's eyes that day whenever they met mine, and his +comparative inattention to her, had wounded her to the soul. + +That this preference had, however, been salutary, though painful; +since it had determined her to conquer a passion, which could only make +her life wretched if it continued; that, as the first step to this +conquest, she had resolved to see him no more: that she would return to +her house the moment she could cross the river with safety; and +conjured me, for her sake, to persuade him to give up all thoughts of a +settlement near her; that she could not answer for her own heart if she +continued to see him; that she believed in love there was no safety but +in flight. + +That his absence had given her time to think coolly; and that she +now saw so strongly the amiableness of my character, and was so +convinced of my perfect tenderness for him, that she should hate +herself were she capable of wishing to interrupt our happiness. + +That she hoped I would pardon her retaining a tender remembrance of +a man who, had he never seen me, might have returned her affection; +that she thought so highly of my heart, as to believe I could not hate +a woman who esteemed me, and who solicited my friendship, though a +happy rival. + +I was touched, even to tears, at her behaviour: we embraced; and, if +I know my own weak foolish heart, I love her. + +She talks of leaving Quebec before Rivers's return; she said, her +coming was an imprudence which only love could excuse; and that she +had no motive for her journey but the desire of seeing him, which was +so lively as to hurry her into an indiscretion of which she was afraid +the world took but too much notice. What openness, what sincerity, what +generosity, was there in all she said! + +How superior, my dear, is her character to mine! I blush for myself +on the comparison; I am shocked to see how much she soars above me: +how is it possible Rivers should not have preferred her to me? Yet this +is the woman I fancied incapable of any passion but vanity. + +I am sure, my dear Bell, I am not naturally envious of the merit of +others; but my excess of love for Rivers makes me apprehensive of +every woman who can possibly rival me in his tenderness. + +I was hurt at Madame Des Roches's uncommon merit; I saw with pain +the amiable qualities of her mind; I could scarce even allow her person +to be pleasing: but this injustice is not that of my natural temper, +but of love. + +She is certainly right, my dear, to see him no more; I applaud, I +admire her resolution: do you think, however, she would pursue it if +she loved as I do? she has perhaps loved before, and her heart has lost +something of its native trembling sensibility. + +I wish my heart felt her merit as strongly as my reason: I esteem, I +admire, I even love her at present; but I am convinced Rivers's return +while she continues here would weaken these sentiments of affection: +the least appearance of preference, even for a moment, would make me +relapse into my former weakness. I adore, I idolize her character; but +I cannot sincerely wish to cultivate her friendship. + +Let me see you this afternoon at Quebec; I am told the roads will +not be passable for carrioles above three days longer: let me therefore +see you as often as I can before we are absolutely shut from each +other. + + Adieu! my dear! + Your faithful + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 123. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +Silleri, April 14. + +England, however populous, is undoubtedly, my Lord, too small to +afford very large supplies of people to her colonies: and her people +are also too useful, and of too much value, to be suffered to emigrate, +if they can be prevented, whilst there is sufficient employment for +them at home. + +It is not only our interest to have colonies; they are not only +necessary to our commerce, and our greatest and surest sources of +wealth, but our very being as a powerful commercial nation depends on +them: it is therefore an object of all others most worthy our +attention, that they should be as flourishing and populous as +possible. + +It is however equally our interest to support them at as little +expence of our own inhabitants as possible: I therefore look on the +acquisition of such a number of subjects as we found in Canada, to be a +much superior advantage to that of gaining ten times the immense tract +of land ceded to us, if uncultivated and destitute of inhabitants. + +But it is not only contrary to our interest to spare many of our own +people as settlers in America; it must also be considered, that, if we +could spare them, the English are the worst settlers on new lands in +the universe. + +Their attachment to their native country, especially amongst the +lower ranks of people, is so very strong, that few of the honest and +industrious can be prevailed on to leave it; those therefore who go, +are generally the dissolute and the idle, who are of no use any where. + +The English are also, though industrious, active, and enterprizing, +ill fitted to bear the hardships, and submit to the wants, which +inevitably attend an infant settlement even on the most fruitful lands. + +The Germans, on the contrary, with the same useful qualities, have a +patience, a perseverance, an abstinence, which peculiarly fit them for +the cultivation of new countries; too great encouragement therefore +cannot be given to them to settle in our colonies: they make better +settlers than our own people; and at the same time their numbers are an +acquisition of real strength where they fix, without weakening the +mother country. + +It is long since the populousness of Europe has been the cause of +her sending out colonies: a better policy prevails; mankind are +enlightened; we are now convinced, both by reason and experience, that +no industrious people can be too populous. + +The northern swarms were compelled to leave their respective +countries, not because those countries were unable to support them, but +because they were too idle to cultivate the ground: they were a +ferocious, ignorant, barbarous people, averse to labor, attached to +war, and, like our American savages, believing every employment not +relative to this favorite object, beneath the dignity of man. + +Their emigrations therefore were less owing to their populousness, +than to their want of industry, and barbarous contempt of agriculture +and every useful art. + +It is with pain I am compelled to say, the late spirit of +encouraging the monopoly of farms, which, from a narrow short-sighted +policy, prevails amongst our landed men at home, and the alarming +growth of celibacy amongst the peasantry which is its necessary +consequence, to say nothing of the same ruinous increase of celibacy in +higher ranks, threaten us with such a decrease of population, as will +probably equal that caused by the ravages of those scourges of heaven, +the sword, the famine, and the pestilence. + +If this selfish policy continues to extend itself, we shall in a few +years be so far from being able to send emigrants to America, that we +shall be reduced to solicit their return, and that of their posterity, +to prevent England's becoming in its turn an uncultivated desart. + +But to return to Canada; this large acquisition of people is an +invaluable treasure, if managed, as I doubt not it will be, to the best +advantage; if they are won by the gentle arts of persuasion, and the +gradual progress of knowledge, to adopt so much of our manners as tends +to make them happier in themselves, and more useful members of the +society to which they belong: if with our language, which they should +by every means be induced to learn, they acquire the mild genius of our +religion and laws, and that spirit of industry, enterprize, and +commerce, to which we owe all our greatness. + +Amongst the various causes which concur to render France more +populous than England, notwithstanding the disadvantage of a less +gentle government, and a religion so very unfavorable to the increase +of mankind, the cultivation of vineyards may be reckoned a principal +one; as it employs a much greater number of hands than even agriculture +itself, which has however infinite advantages in this respect above +pasturage, the certain cause of a want of people wherever it prevails +above its due proportion. + +Our climate denies us the advantages arising from the culture of +vines, as well as many others which nature has accorded to France; a +consideration which should awaken us from the lethargy into which the +avarice of individuals has plunged us, and set us in earnest on +improving every advantage we enjoy, in order to secure us by our native +strength from so formidable a rival. + +The want of bread to eat, from the late false and cruel policy of +laying small farms into great ones, and the general discouragement of +tillage which is its consequence, is in my opinion much less to be +apprehended than the want of people to eat it. + +In every country where the inhabitants are at once numerous and +industrious, there will always be a proportionable cultivation. + +This evil is so very destructive and alarming, that, if the great +have not virtue enough to remedy it, it is to be hoped it will in time, +like most great evils, cure itself. + +Your Lordship enquires into the nature of this climate in respect to +health. The air being uncommonly pure and serene, it is favorable to +life beyond any I ever knew: the people live generally to a very +advanced age; and are remarkably free from diseases of every kind, +except consumptions, to which the younger part of the inhabitants are a +good deal subject. + +It is however a circumstance one cannot help observing, that they +begin to look old much sooner than the people in Europe; on which my +daughter observes, that it is not very pleasant for women to come to +reside in a country where people have a short youth, and a long old +age. + +The diseases of cold countries are in general owing to want of +perspiration; for which reason exercise, and even dissipation, are here +the best medicines. + +The Indians therefore shewed their good sense in advising the +French, on their first arrival, to use dancing, mirth, chearfulness, +and content, as the best remedies against the inconveniences of the +climate. + +I have already swelled this letter to such a length, that I must +postpone to another time my account of the peculiar natural +productions of Canada; only observing, that one would imagine heaven +intended a social intercourse between the most distant nations, by +giving them productions of the earth so very different each from the +other, and each more than sufficient for itself, that the exchange +might be the means of spreading the bond of society and brotherhood +over the whole globe. + +In my opinion, the man who conveys, and causes to grow, in any +country, a grain, a fruit, or even a flower, it never possessed before, +deserves more praise than a thousand heroes: he is a benefactor, he is +in some degree a creator. + + I have the honor to be, + My Lord, + Your Lordship's &c. + William Fermor. + + + +LETTER 124. + + +To Miss Montague, at Quebec. + +Montreal, April 14. + +Is it possible, my dear Emily, you can, after all I have said, +persist in endeavoring to disswade me from a design on which my whole +happiness depends, and which I flattered myself was equally essential +to yours? I forgave, I even admired, your first scruple; I thought it +generosity: but I have answered it; and if you had loved as I do, you +would never again have named so unpleasing a subject. + +Does your own heart tell you mine will call a settlement here, with +you, an exile? Examine yourself well, and tell me whether your +aversion to staying in Canada is not stronger than your tenderness for +your Rivers. + +I am hurt beyond all words at the earnestness with which you press +Mrs. Melmoth to disswade me from staying in this country: you press +with warmth my return to England, though it would put an eternal bar +between us: you give reasons which, though the understanding may +approve, the heart abhors: can ambition come in competition with +tenderness? you fancy yourself generous, when you are only indifferent. +Insensible girl! you know nothing of love. + +Write to me instantly, and tell me every emotion of your soul, for I +tremble at the idea that your affection is less lively than mine. + +Adieu! I am wretched till I hear from you. Is it possible, my Emily, +you can have ceased to love him, who, as you yourself own, sees no +other object than you in the universe? + + Adieu! Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + +You know not the heart of your Rivers, if you suppose it capable of +any ambition but that dear one of being beloved by you. + +What have you said, my dear Emily? _You will not marry me in +Canada_. You have passed a hard sentence on me: you know my fortune +will not allow me to marry you in England. + + +END OF VOL. II. + + + + +THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE. + + +Vol. III + + + +LETTER 125. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Montreal. + +Quebec, April 17. + +How different, my Rivers, is your last letter from all your Emily +has ever yet received from you! What have I done to deserve such +suspicions? How unjust are your sex in all their connexions with ours! + +Do I not know love? and does this reproach come from the man on whom +my heart doats, the man, whom to make happy, I would with transport +cease to live? can you one moment doubt your Emily's tenderness? have +not her eyes, her air, her look, her indiscretion, a thousand times +told you, in spite of herself, the dear secret of her heart, long +before she was conscious of the tenderness of yours? + +Did I think only of myself, I could live with you in a desart; all +places, all situations, are equally charming to me, with you: without +you, the whole world affords nothing which could give a moment's +pleasure to your Emily. + +Let me but see those eyes in which the tenderest love is painted, +let me but hear that enchanting voice, I am insensible to all else, I +know nothing of what passes around me; all that has no relation to you +passes away like a morning dream, the impression of which is effaced in +a moment: my tenderness for you fills my whole soul, and leaves no room +for any other idea. Rank, fortune, my native country, my friends, all +are nothing in the balance with my Rivers. + +For your own sake, I once more entreat you to return to England: I +will follow you; I will swear never to marry another; I will see you, +I will allow you to continue the tender inclination which unites us. +Fortune may there be more favorable to our wishes than we now hope; +may join us without destroying the peace of the best of parents. + +But if you persist, if you will sacrifice every consideration to +your tenderness--My Rivers, I have no will but yours. + + + +LETTER 126. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +London, Feb. 17. + +My dear Bell, + +Lucy, being deprived of the pleasure of writing to you, as she +intended, by Lady Anne Melville's dining with her, desires me to make +her apologies. + +Allow me to say something for myself, and to share my joy with one +who will, I am sure, so very sincerely sympathize with me in it. + +I could not have believed, my dear Bell, it had been so very easy a +thing to be constant: I declare, but don't mention this, lest I should +be laughed at, I have never felt the least inclination for any other +woman, since I married your lovely friend. + +I now see a circle of beauties with the same indifference as a bed +of snowdrops: no charms affect me but hers; the whole creation to me +contains no other woman. + +I find her every day, every hour, more lovely; there is in my Lucy a +mixture of modesty, delicacy, vivacity, innocence, and blushing +sensibility, which add a thousand unspeakable graces to the most +beautiful person the hand of nature ever formed. + +There is no describing her enchanting smile, the smile of +unaffected, artless tenderness. How shall I paint to you the sweet +involuntary glow of pleasure, the kindling fire of her eyes, when I +approach; or those thousand little dear attentions of which love alone +knows the value? + +I never, my dear girl, knew happiness till now; my tenderness is +absolutely a species of idolatry; you cannot think what a slave this +lovely girl has made me. + +As a proof of this, the little tyrant insists on my omitting a +thousand civil things I had to say to you, and attending her and Lady +Anne immediately to the opera; she bids me however tell you, she loves +you _passing the love of woman_, at least of handsome women, who +are not generally celebrated for their candor and good will to each +other. + + Adieu, my dearest Bell! + Yours, + J. Temple. + + + +LETTER 127. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Silleri, April 18. + +Indeed? + + "Is this that haughty, gallant, gay Lothario, + That dear perfidious--" + +Absolutely, my dear Temple, the sex ought never to forgive Lucy for +daring to monopolize so very charming a fellow. I had some thoughts of +a little _badinage_ with you myself, if I should return soon to +England; but I now give up the very idea. + +One thing I will, however, venture to say, that love Lucy as much as +you please, you will never love her half so well as she deserves; +which, let me tell you, is a great deal for one woman, especially, as +you well observe, one handsome woman, to say of another. + +I am, however, not quite clear your idea is just: _cattism_, if +I may be allowed the expression, seeming more likely to be the vice of +those who are conscious of wanting themselves the dear power of +pleasing. + +Handsome women ought to be, what I profess myself, who am however +only pretty, too vain to be envious; and yet we see, I am afraid, too +often, some little sparks of this mean passion between rival beauties. + +Impartially speaking, I believe the best natured women, and the most +free from envy, are those who, without being very handsome, have that +_je ne scai quoi_, those nameless graces, which please even without +beauty; and who therefore, finding more attention paid to them by men +than their looking-glass tells them they have a right to expect, are +for that reason in constant good humor with themselves, and of course +with every body else: whereas beauties, claiming universal empire, are +at war with all who dispute their rights; that is, with half the sex. + +I am very good natured myself; but it is, perhaps, because, though a +pretty woman, I am more agreable than handsome, and have an infinity of +the _je ne scai quoi_. + +_A propos_, my dear Temple, I am so pleased with what +Montesquieu says on this subject, that I find it is not in my nature to +resist translating and inserting it; you cannot then say I have sent +you a letter in which there is nothing worth reading. + +I beg you will read this to the misses, for which you cannot fail of +their thanks, and for this reason; there are perhaps a dozen women in +the world who do not think themselves handsome, but I will venture to +say, not one who does not think herself agreable, and that she has this +nameless charm, this so much talked of _I know not what_, which is +so much better than beauty. But to my Montesquieu: + +"There is sometimes, both in persons and things, an invisible charm, +a natural grace, which we cannot define, and which we are therefore +obliged to call the _je ne scai quoi_. + +"It seems to me that this is an effect principally founded on +surprize. + +"We are touched that a person pleases us more than she seemed at +first to have a right to do; and we are agreably surprized that she +should have known how to conquer those defects which our eyes shewed +us, but which our hearts no longer believe: 'tis for this reason that +women, who are not handsome, have often graces or agreablenesses and +that beautiful ones very seldom have. + +"For a beautiful person does generally the very contrary of what we +expected; she appears to us by degrees less amiable, and, after having +surprized us pleasingly, she surprizes us in a contrary manner; but +the agreable impression is old, the disagreable one new: 'tis also +seldom that beauties inspire violent passions, which are almost always +reserved for those who have graces, that is to say, agreablenesses, +which we did not expect, and which we had no reason to expect. + +"Magnificent habits have seldom grace, which the dresses of +shepherdesses often have. + +"We admire the majesty of the draperies of Paul Veronese; but we are +touched with the simplicity of Raphael, and the exactness of Corregio. + +"Paul Veronese promises much, and pays all he promises; Raphael and +Corregio promise little, and pay much, which pleases us more. + +"These graces, these agreablenesses, are found oftener in the mind +than in the countenance: the charms of a beautiful countenance are +seldom hidden, they appear at first view; but the mind does not shew +itself except by degrees, when it pleases, and as much as it pleases; +it can conceal itself in order to appear, and give that species of +surprize to which those graces, of which I speak, owe their existence. + +"This grace, this agreableness, is less in the countenance than in +the manner; the manner changes every instant, and can therefore every +moment give us the pleasure of surprize: in one word, a woman can be +handsome but in one way, but she may be agreable in a hundred +thousand." + +I like this doctrine of Montesquieu's extremely, because it gives +every woman her chance, and because it ranks me above a thousand +handsomer women, in the dear power of inspiring passion. + +Cruel creature! why did you give me the idea of flowers? I now envy +you your foggy climate: the earth with you is at this moment covered +with a thousand lovely children of the spring; with us, it is an +universal plain of snow. + +Our beaux are terribly at a loss for similies: you have lilies of +the valley for comparisons; we nothing but what with the idea of +whiteness gives that of coldness too. + +This is all the quarrel I have with Canada: the summer is delicious, +the winter pleasant with all its severities; but alas! the smiling +spring is not here; we pass from winter to summer in an instant, and +lose the sprightly season of the Loves. + +A letter from the God of my idolatry--I must answer it instantly. + + Adieu! Yours, &c. + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 128. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Yes, I give permission; you may come this afternoon: there is +something amusing enough in your dear nonsense; and, as my father will +be at Quebec, I shall want amusement. + +It will also furnish a little chat for the misses at Quebec; a +_tete a tete_ with a tall Irishman is a subject which cannot escape +their sagacity. + + Adieu! Yours, + A. F. + + + +LETTER 129. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, April 20. + +After my immense letter to your love, my dear, you must not expect +me to say much to your fair ladyship. + +I am glad to find you manage Temple so admirably; the wisest, the +wildest, the gravest, and the gayest, are equally our slaves, when we +have proper ideas of petticoat politics. + +I intend to compose a code of laws for the government of husbands, +and get it translated into all the modern languages; which I apprehend +will be of infinite benefit to the world. + +Do you know I am a greater fool than I imagined? You may remember I +was always extremely fond of sweet waters. I left them off lately, upon +an idea, though a mistaken one, that Fitzgerald did not like them: I +yesterday heard him say the contrary; and, without thinking of it, went +mechanically to my dressing-room, and put lavender water on my +handkerchief. + +This is, I am afraid, rather a strong symptom of my being absurd; +however, I find it pleasant to be so, and therefore give way to it. + +It is divinely warm to-day, though the snow is still on the ground; +it is melting fast however, which makes it impossible for me to get to +Quebec. I shall be confined for at least a week, and Emily not with me: +I die for amusement. Fitzgerald ventures still at the hazard of his own +neck and his horse's legs; for the latter of which animals I have so +much compassion, that I have ordered both to stay at home a few days, +which days I shall devote to study and contemplation, and little pert +chit-chats with papa, who is ten times more fretful at being kept +within doors than I am: I intend to win a little fortune of him at +piquet before the world breaks in upon our solitude. Adieu! I am idle, +but always + + Your faithful + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 130. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +Silleri, April 20. + +'Tis indeed, my Lord, an advantage for which we cannot be too +thankful to the Supreme Being, to be born in a country, whose religion +and laws are such, as would have been the objects of our wishes, had we +been born in any other. + +Our religion, I would be understood to mean Christianity in general, +carries internal conviction by the excellency of its moral precepts, +and its tendency to make mankind happy; and the peculiar mode of it +established in England breathes beyond all others the mild spirit of +the Gospel, and that charity which embraces all mankind as brothers. + +It is equally free from enthusiasm and superstition; its outward +form is decent and respectful, without affected ostentation; and what +shews its excellence above all others is, that every other church +allows it to be the best, except itself: and it is an established rule, +that he has an undoubted right to the first rank of merit, to whom +every man allows the second. + +As to our government, it would be impertinent to praise it; all +mankind allow it to be the master-piece of human wisdom. + +It has the advantage of every other form, with as little of their +inconveniences as the imperfection attendant on all human inventions +will admit: it has the monarchic quickness of execution and stability, +the aristocratic diffusive strength and wisdom of counsel, the +democratic freedom and equal distribution of property. + +When I mention equal distribution of property, I would not be +understood to mean such an equality as never existed, nor can exist but +in idea; but that general, that comparative equality, which leaves to +every man the absolute and safe possession of the fruits of his labors; +which softens offensive distinctions, and curbs pride, by leaving +every order of men in some degree dependent on the other; and admits +of those gentle and almost imperceptible gradations, which the poet so +well calls, + + "Th' according music of a well-mix'd state." + +The prince is here a centre of union; an advantage, the want of +which makes a democracy, which is so beautiful in theory, the very +worst of all possible governments, except absolute monarchy, in +practice. + +I am called upon, my Lord, to go to the citadel, to see the going +away of the ice; an object so new to me, that I cannot resist the +curiosity I have to see it, though my going thither is attended with +infinite difficulty. + +Bell insists on accompanying me: I am afraid for her, but she will +not be refused. + +At our return, I will have the honor of writing again to your +Lordship, by the gentleman who carries this to New York. + + I have the honor to be, my Lord, + Your Lordship's, &c. + Wm. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 131. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +Silleri, April 20, Evening. + +We are returned, my Lord, from having seen an object as beautiful +and magnificent in itself, as pleasing from the idea it gives of +renewing once more our intercourse with Europe. + +Before I saw the breaking up of the vast body of ice, which forms +what is here called _the bridge_, from Quebec to Point Levi, I +imagined there could be nothing in it worth attention; that the ice +would pass away, or dissolve gradually, day after day, as the influence +of the sun, and warmth of the air and earth increased; and that we +should see the river open, without having observed by what degrees it +became so. + +But I found _the great river_, as the savages with much +propriety call it, maintain its dignity in this instance as in all +others, and assert its superiority over those petty streams which we +honor with the names of rivers in England. Sublimity is the +characteristic of this western world; the loftiness of the mountains, +the grandeur of the lakes and rivers, the majesty of the rocks shaded +with a picturesque variety of beautiful trees and shrubs, and crowned +with the noblest of the offspring of the forest, which form the banks +of the latter, are as much beyond the power of fancy as that of +description: a landscape-painter might here expand his imagination, +and find ideas which he will seek in vain in our comparatively little +world. + +The object of which I am speaking has all the American magnificence. + +The ice before the town, or, to speak in the Canadian stile, _the +bridge_, being of a thickness not less than five feet, a league in +length, and more than a mile broad, resists for a long time the rapid +tide that attempts to force it from the banks. + +We are prepared by many previous circumstances to expect something +extraordinary in this event, if I may so call it: every increase of +heat in the weather for near a month before the ice leaves the banks; +every warm day gives you terror for those you see venturing to pass it +in carrioles; yet one frosty night makes it again so strong, that even +the ladies, and the timid amongst them, still venture themselves over +in parties of pleasure; though greatly alarmed at their return, if a +few hours of uncommon warmth intervenes. + +But, during the last fortnight, the alarm grows indeed a very +serious one: the eye can distinguish, even at a considerable distance, +that the ice is softened and detached from the banks; and you dread +every step being death to those who have still the temerity to pass it, +which they will continue always to do till one or more pay their +rashness with their lives. + +From the time the ice is no longer a bridge on which you see crowds +driving with such vivacity on business or pleasure, every one is +looking eagerly for its breaking away, to remove the bar to the +continually wished and expected event, of the arrival of ships from +that world from whence we have seemed so long in a manner excluded. + +The hour is come; I have been with a crowd of both sexes, and all +ranks, hailing the propitious moment: our situation, on the top of Cape +Diamond, gave us a prospect some leagues above and below the town; +above Cape Diamond the river was open, it was so below Point Levi, the +rapidity of the current having forced a passage for the water under the +transparent bridge, which for more than a league continued firm. + +We stood waiting with all the eagerness of expectation; the tide +came rushing with an amazing impetuosity; the bridge seemed to shake, +yet resisted the force of the waters; the tide recoiled, it made a +pause, it stood still, it returned with redoubled fury, the immense +mass of ice gave way. + +A vast plain appeared in motion; it advanced with solemn and +majestic pace: the points of land on the banks of the river for a few +moments stopped its progress; but the immense weight of so prodigious a +body, carried along by a rapid current, bore down all opposition with a +force irresistible. + +There is no describing how beautiful the opening river appears, +every moment gaining on the sight, till, in a time less than can +possibly be imagined, the ice passing Point Levi, is hid in one moment +by the projecting land, and all is once more a clear plain before you; +giving at once the pleasing, but unconnected, ideas of that direct +intercourse with Europe from which we have been so many months +excluded, and of the earth's again opening her fertile bosom, to feast +our eyes and imagination with her various verdant and flowery +productions. + +I am afraid I have conveyed a very inadequate idea of the scene +which has just passed before me; it however struck me so strongly, that +it was impossible for me not to attempt it. + +If my painting has the least resemblance to the original, your +Lordship will agree with me, that the very vicissitudes of season here +partake of the sublimity which so strongly characterizes the country. + +The changes of season in England, being slow and gradual, are but +faintly felt; but being here sudden, instant, violent, afford to the +mind, with the lively pleasure arising from meer change, the very high +additional one of its being accompanied with grandeur. I have the +honor to be, + + My Lord, + Your Lordship's, &c. + William Fermor. + + + +LETTER 132. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +April 22. + +Certainly, my dear, you are so far right; a nun may be in many +respects a less unhappy being than some women who continue in the +world; her situation is, I allow, paradise to that of a married woman, +of sensibility and honor, who dislikes her husband. + +The cruelty therefore of some parents here, who sacrifice their +children to avarice, in forcing or seducing them into convents, would +appear more striking, if we did not see too many in England guilty of +the same inhumanity, though in a different manner, by marrying them +against their inclination. + +Your letter reminds me of what a French married lady here said to me +on this very subject: I was exclaiming violently against convents; and +particularly urging, what I thought unanswerable, the extreme hardship +of one circumstance; that, however unhappy the state was found on +trial, there was no retreat; that it was _for life_. + +Madame De ---- turned quick, "And is not marriage for life?" + +"True, Madam; and, what is worse, without a year of probation. I +confess the force of your argument." + +I have never dared since to mention convents before Madame De ----. + +Between you and I, Lucy, it is a little unreasonable that people +will come together entirely upon sordid principles, and then wonder +they are not happy: in delicate minds, love is seldom the consequence +of marriage. + +It is not absolutely certain that a marriage of which love is the +foundation will be happy; but it is infallible, I believe, that no +other can be so to souls capable of tenderness. + +Half the world, you will please to observe, have no souls; at least +none but of the vegetable and animal kinds: to this species of beings, +love and sentiment are entirely unnecessary; they were made to travel +through life in a state of mind neither quite awake nor asleep; and it +is perfectly equal to them in what company they take the journey. + +You and I, my dear, are something _awakened_; therefore it is +necessary we should love where we marry, and for this reason: our +souls, being of the active kind, can never be totally at rest; +therefore, if we were not to love our husbands, we should be in +dreadful danger of loving somebody else. + +For my part, whatever tall maiden aunts and cousins may say of the +indecency of a young woman's distinguishing one man from another, and +of love coming after marriage; I think marrying, in that expectation, +on sober prudent principles, a man one dislikes, the most deliberate +and shameful degree of vice of which the human mind is capable. + +I cannot help observing here, that the great aim of modern education +seems to be, to eradicate the best impulses of the human heart, love, +friendship, compassion, benevolence; to destroy the social, and +encrease the selfish principle. Parents wisely attempt to root out +those affections which should only be directed to proper objects, and +which heaven gave us as the means of happiness; not considering that +the success of such an attempt is doubtful; and that, if they succeed, +they take from life all its sweetness, and reduce it to a dull unactive +round of tasteless days, scarcely raised above vegetation. + +If my ideas of things are right, the human mind is naturally +virtuous; the business of education is therefore less to give us good +impressions, which we have from nature, than to guard us against bad +ones, which are generally acquired. + +And so ends my sermon. + + Adieu! my dear! + Your faithful + A. Fermor. + + +A letter from your brother; I believe the dear creature is out of +his wits: Emily has consented to marry him, and one would imagine by +his joy that nobody was ever married before. + +He is going to Lake Champlain, to fix on his seat of empire, or +rather Emily's; for I see she will be the reigning queen, and he only +her majesty's consort. + +I am going to Quebec; two or three dry days have made the roads +passable for summer carriages: Fitzgerald is come to fetch me. Adieu! + +Eight o'clock. + +I am come back, have seen Emily, who is the happiest woman existing; +she has heard from your brother, and in such terms--his letter +breathes the very soul of tenderness. I wish they were richer. I don't +half relish their settling in Canada; but, rather than not live +together, I believe they would consent to be set ashore on a desart +island. Good night. + + + +LETTER 133. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +Silleri, April 25. + +The pleasure the mind finds in travelling, has undoubtedly, my Lord, +its source in that love of novelty, that delight in acquiring new +ideas, which is interwoven in its very frame, which shews itself on +every occasion from infancy to age, which is the first passion of the +human mind, and the last. + +There is nothing the mind of man abhors so much as a state of rest: +the great secret of happiness is to keep the soul in continual action, +without those violent exertions, which wear out its powers, and dull +its capacity of enjoyment; it should have exercise, not labor. + +Vice may justly be called the fever of the soul, inaction its +lethargy; passion, under the guidance of virtue, its health. + +I have the pleasure to see my daughter's coquetry giving place to a +tender affection for a very worthy man, who seems formed to make her +happy: his fortune is easy; he is a gentleman, and a man of worth and +honor, and, what perhaps inclines me to be more partial to him, of my +own profession. + +I mention the last circumstance in order to introduce a request, +that your Lordship would have the goodness to employ that interest for +him in the purchase of a majority, which you have so generously offered +to me; I am determined, as there is no prospect of real duty, to quit +the army, and retire to that quiet which is so pleasing at my time of +life: I am privately in treaty with a gentleman for my company, and +propose returning to England in the first ship, to give in my +resignation: in this point, as well as that of serving Mr. Fitzgerald, +I shall without scruple call upon your Lordship's friendship. + +I have settled every thing with Fitzgerald, but without saying a +word to Bell; and he is to seduce her into matrimony as soon as he +can, without my appearing at all interested in the affair: he is to ask +my consent in form, though we have already settled every preliminary. + +All this, as well as my intention of quitting the army, is yet a +secret to my daughter. + +But to the questions your Lordship does me the honor to ask me in +regard to the Americans, I mean those of our old colonies: they appear +to me, from all I have heard and seen of them, a rough, ignorant, +positive, very selfish, yet hospitable people. + +Strongly attached to their own opinions, but still more so to their +interests, in regard to which they have inconceivable sagacity and +address; but in all other respects I think naturally inferior to the +Europeans; as education does so much, it is however difficult to +ascertain this. + +I am rather of opinion they would not have refused submission to the +stamp act, or disputed the power of the legislature at home, had not +their minds been first embittered by what touched their interests so +nearly, the restraints laid on their trade with the French and Spanish +settlements, a trade by which England was an immense gainer; and by +which only a few enormously rich West India planters were hurt. + +Every advantage you give the North Americans in trade centers at +last in the mother country; they are the bees, who roam abroad for that +honey which enriches the paternal hive. + +Taxing them immediately after their trade is restrained, seems like +drying up the source, and expecting the stream to flow. + +Yet too much care cannot be taken to support the majesty of +government, and assert the dominion of the parent country. + +A good mother will consult the interest and happiness of her +children, but will never suffer her authority to be disputed. + +An equal mixture of mildness and spirit cannot fail of bringing +these mistaken people, misled by a few of violent temper and ambitious +views, into a just sense of their duty. + + I have the honor to be, + My Lord, &c. + William Fermor. + + + +LETTER 134. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +May 5. + +I have got my Emily again, to my great joy; I am nobody without her. +As the roads are already very good, we walk and ride perpetually, and +amuse ourselves as well as we can, _en attendant_ your brother, +who is gone a settlement hunting. + +The quickness of vegetation in this country is astonishing; though +the hills are still covered with snow, and though it even continues in +spots in the vallies, the latter with the trees and shrubs in the woods +are already in beautiful verdure; and the earth every where putting +forth flowers in a wild and lovely variety and profusion. + +'Tis amazingly pleasing to see the strawberries and wild pansies +peeping their little foolish heads from beneath the snow. + +Emily and I are prodigiously fond after having been separated; it is +a divine relief to us both, to have again the delight of talking of our +lovers to each other: we have been a month divided; and neither of us +have had the consolation of a friend to be foolish to. + +Fitzgerald dines with us: he comes. + + Adieu! yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 135. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +Silleri, May 5. + +My Lord, + +I have been conversing, if the expression is not improper when I +have not had an opportunity of speaking a syllable, more than two hours +with a French officer, who has declaimed the whole time with the most +astonishing volubility, without uttering one word which could either +entertain or instruct his hearers; and even without starting any thing +that deserved the name of a thought. + +People who have no ideas out of the common road are, I believe, +generally the greatest talkers, because all their thoughts are low +enough for common conversation; whereas those of more elevated +understandings have ideas which they cannot easily communicate except +to persons of equal capacity with themselves. + +This might be brought as an argument of the inferiority of women's +understanding to ours, as they are generally greater talkers, if we did +not consider the limited and trifling educations we give them; men, +amongst other advantages, have that of acquiring a greater variety as +well as sublimity of ideas. + +Women who have conversed much with men are undoubtedly in general +the most pleasing companions; but this only shews of what they are +capable when properly educated, since they improve so greatly by that +accidental and limited opportunity of acquiring knowledge. + +Indeed the two sexes are equal gainers, by conversing with each +other: there is a mutual desire of pleasing, in a mixed conversation, +restrained by politeness, which sets every amiable quality in a +stronger light. + +Bred in ignorance from one age to another, women can learn little of +their own sex. + +I have often thought this the reason why officers daughters are in +general more agreable than other women in an equal rank of life. + +I am almost tempted to bring Bell as an instance; but I know the +blindness and partiality of nature, and therefore check what paternal +tenderness would dictate. + +I am shocked at what your Lordship tells me of Miss H----. I know her +imprudent, I believe her virtuous: a great flow of spirits has been +ever hurrying her into indiscretions; but allow me to say, my Lord, it +is particularly hard to fix the character by our conduct, at a time of +life when we are not competent judges of our own actions; and when the +hurry and vivacity of youth carries us to commit a thousand follies and +indiscretions, for which we blush when the empire of reason begins. + +Inexperience and openness of temper betray us in early life into +improper connexions; and the very constancy, and nobleness of nature, +which characterize the best hearts, continue the delusion. + +I know Miss H---- perfectly; and am convinced, if her father will +treat her as a friend, and with the indulgent tenderness of affection +endeavor to wean her from a choice so very unworthy of her, he will +infallibly succeed; but if he treats her with harshness, she is lost +for ever. + +He is too stern in his behaviour, too rigid in his morals: it is the +interest of virtue to be represented as she is, lovely, smiling, and +ever walking hand in hand with pleasure: we were formed to be happy, +and to contribute to the happiness of our fellow creatures; there are +no real virtues but the social ones. + +'Tis the enemy of human kind who has thrown around us the gloom of +superstition, and taught that austerity and voluntary misery are virtue. + +If moralists would indeed improve human nature, they should endeavor +to expand, not to contract the heart; they should build their system on +the passions and affections, the only foundations of the nobler +virtues. + +From the partial representations of narrow-minded bigots, who paint +the Deity from their own gloomy conceptions, the young are too often +frighted from the paths of virtue; despairing of ideal perfections, +they give up all virtue as unattainable, and start aside from the road +which they falsely suppose strewed with thorns. + +I have studied the heart with some attention; and am convinced +every parent, who will take the pains to gain his children's friendship, +will for ever be the guide and arbiter of their conduct: I speak from a +happy experience. + +Notwithstanding all my daughter says in gaiety of heart, she would +sooner even relinquish the man she loves, than offend a father in whom +she has always found the tenderest and most faithful of friends. I am +interrupted, and have only time to say, I have the honor to be, + + My Lord, &c. + Wm. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 136. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, May 13. + +Madame Des Roches has just left us; she returns to-day to the +Kamaraskas: she came to take leave of us, and shewed a concern at +parting from Emily, which really affected me. She is a most amiable +woman; Emily and she were in tears at parting; yet I think my sweet +friend is not sorry for her return: she loves her, but yet cannot +absolutely forget she has been her rival, and is as well satisfied that +she leaves Quebec before your brother's arrival. + +The weather is lovely; the earth is in all its verdure, the trees in +foliage, and no snow but on the sides of the mountains; we are looking +eagerly out for ships from dear England: I expect by them volumes of +letters from my Lucy. We expect your brother in a week: in short, we +are all hope and expectation; our hearts beat at every rap of the door, +supposing it brings intelligence of a ship, or of the dear man. + +Fitzgerald takes such amazing pains to please me, that I begin to +think it is pity so much attention should be thrown away; and am half +inclined, from meer compassion, to follow the example you have so +heroically set me. + +Absolutely, Lucy, it requires amazing resolution to marry. + + Adieu! yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 137. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Montreal. + +Silleri, May 14. + +I am returned, my Rivers, to my sweet friend, and have again the +dear delight of talking of you without restraint; she bears with, she +indulges me in, all my weakness; if that name ought to be given to a +tenderness of which the object is the most exalted and worthy of his +sex. + +It was impossible I should not have loved you; the soul that spoke +in those eloquent eyes told me, the first moment we met, our hearts +were formed for each other; I saw in that amiable countenance a +sensibility similar to my own, but which I had till then sought in +vain; I saw there those benevolent smiles, which are the marks, and +the emanations of virtue; those thousand graces which ever accompany a +mind conscious of its own dignity, and satisfied with itself; in short, +that mental beauty which is the express image of the Deity. + +What defence had I against you, my Rivers, since your merit was such +that my reason approved the weakness of my heart? + +We have lost Madame Des Roches; we were both in tears at parting; we +embraced, I pressed her to my bosom: I love her, my dear Rivers; I have +an affection for her which I scarce know how to describe. I saw her +every day, I found infinite pleasure in being with her; she talked of +you, she praised you, and my heart was soothed; I however found it +impossible to mention your name to her; a reserve for which I cannot +account; I found pleasure in looking at her from the idea that she was +dear to you, that she felt for you the tenderest friendship: do you +know I think she has some resemblance of you? there is something in her +smile, which gives me an idea of you. + +Shall I, however, own all my folly? I never found this pleasure in +seeing her when you were present: on the contrary, your attention to +her gave me pain: I was jealous of every look; I even saw her amiable +qualities with a degree of envy, which checked the pleasure I should +otherwise have found in her conversation. + +There is always, I fear, some injustice mixed with love, at least +with love so ardent and tender as mine. + +You, my Rivers, will however pardon that injustice which is a proof +of my excess of tenderness. + +Madame Des Roches has promised to write to me: indeed I will love +her; I will conquer this little remain of jealousy, and do justice to +the most gentle and amiable of women. + +Why should I dislike her for seeing you with my eyes, for having a +soul whose feelings resemble my own? + +I have observed her voice is softened, and trembles like mine, when +she names you. + +My Rivers, you were formed to charm the heart of woman; there is +more pleasure in loving you, even without the hope of a return, than in +the adoration of all your sex: I pity every woman who is so insensible +as to see you without tenderness. This is the only fault I ever found +in Bell Fermor: she has the most lively friendship for you, but she has +seen you without love. Of what materials must her heart be composed? + +No other man can inspire the same sentiments with my Rivers; no +other man can deserve them: the delight of loving you appears to me so +superior to all other pleasures, that, of all human beings, if I was +not Emily Montague, I would be Madame Des Roches. + +I blush for what I have written; yet why blush for having a soul to +distinguish perfection, or why conceal the real feelings of my heart? + +I will never hide a thought from you; you shall be at once the +confidant and the dear object of my tenderness. + +In what words--my Rivers, you rule every emotion of my heart; +dispose as you please of your Emily: yet, if you allow her to form a +wish in opposition to yours, indulge her in the transport of returning +you to your friends; let her receive you from the hands of a mother, +whose happiness you ought to prefer even to hers. + +Why will you talk of the mediocrity of your fortune? have you not +enough for every real want? much less, with you, would make your Emily +blest: what have the trappings of life to do with happiness? 'tis only +sacrificing pride to love and filial tenderness; the worst of human +passions to the best. + +I have a thousand things to say, but am forced to steal this moment +to write to you: we have some French ladies here, who are eternally +coming to my apartment. + +They are at the door. Adieu! + + Yours, + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 138. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +Silleri, May 12. + +It were indeed, my Lord, to be wished that we had here schools, at +the expence of the public, to teach English to the rising generation: +nothing is a stronger tie of brotherhood and affection, a greater +cement of union, than speaking one common language. + +The want of attention to this circumstance has, I am told, had the +worst effects possible in the province of New York, where the people, +especially at a distance from the capital, continuing to speak Dutch, +retain their affection for their ancient masters, and still look on +their English fellow subjects as strangers and intruders. + +The Canadians are the more easily to be won to this, or whatever +else their own, or the general good requires, as their noblesse have +the strongest attachment to a court, and that favor is the great object +of their ambition: were English made by degrees the court language, it +would soon be universally spoke. + +Of the three great springs of the human heart, interest, pleasure, +vanity, the last appears to me much the strongest in the Canadians; and +I am convinced the most forcible tie their noblesse have to France, is +their unwillingness to part with their croix de St. Louis: might not +therefore some order of the same kind be instituted for Canada, and +given to all who have the croix, on their sending back the ensigns +they now wear, which are inconsistent with their allegiance as British +subjects? + +Might not such an order be contrived, to be given at the discretion +of the governor, as well to the Canadian gentlemen who merited most of +the government, as to the English officers of a certain rank, and such +other English as purchased estates, and settled in the country? and, to +give it additional lustre, the governor, for the time being, be always +head of the order? + +'Tis possible something of the same kind all over America might be +also of service; the passions of mankind are nearly the same every +where: at least I never yet saw the soil or climate, where vanity did +not grow; and till all mankind become philosophers, it is by their +passions they must be governed. + +The common people, by whom I mean the peasantry, have been great +gainers here by the change of masters; their property is more secure, +their independence greater, their profits much more than doubled: it is +not them therefore whom it is necessary to gain. + +The noblesse, on the contrary, have been in a great degree undone: +they have lost their employs, their rank, their consideration, and many +of them their fortunes. + +It is therefore equally consonant to good policy and to humanity +that they should be considered, and in the way most acceptable to them; +the rich conciliated by little honorary distinctions, those who are +otherwise by sharing in all lucrative employs; and all of them by +bearing a part in the legislature of their country. + +The great objects here seem to be to heal those wounds, which past +unhappy disputes have left still in some degree open; to unite the +French and English, the civil and military, in one firm body; to raise +a revenue, to encourage agriculture, and especially the growth of hemp +and flax; and find a staple, for the improvement of a commerce, which +at present labors under a thousand disadvantages. + +But I shall say little on this or any political subject relating to +Canada, for a reason which, whilst I am in this colony, it would look +like flattery to give: let it suffice to say, that, humanly speaking, +it is impossible that the inhabitants of this province should be +otherwise than happy. + + I have the honor to be, + My Lord, &c. + William Fermor. + + + +LETTER 139. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, May 20. + +I confess the fact, my dear; I am, thanks to papa, amazingly +learned, and all that, for a young lady of twenty-two: yet you will +allow I am not the worse; no creature breathing would ever find it out: +envy itself must confess, I talk of lace and blond like another +christian woman. + +I have been thinking, Lucy, as indeed my ideas are generally a +little pindaric, how entertaining and improving would be the history of +the human heart, if people spoke all the truth, and painted themselves +as they really are: that is to say, if all the world were as sincere +and honest as I am; for, upon my word, I have such a contempt for +hypocrisy, that, upon the whole, I have always appeared to have fewer +good qualities than I really have. + +I am afraid we should find in the best characters, if we withdrew +the veil, a mixture of errors and inconsistencies, which would greatly +lessen our veneration. + +Papa has been reading me a wise lecture, this morning, on playing +the fool: I reminded him, that I was now arrived at years of +_indiscretion_; that every body must have their day; and that those +who did not play the fool young, ran a hazard of doing it when it would +not half so well become them. + +_A propos_ to playing the fool, I am strongly inclined to +believe I shall marry. + +Fitzgerald is so astonishingly pressing--Besides, some how or +other, I don't feel happy without him: the creature has something of a +magnetic virtue; I find myself generally, without knowing it, on the +same side the room with him, and often in the next chair; and lay a +thousand little schemes to be of the same party at cards. + +I write pretty sentiments in my pocket-book, and carve his name on +trees when nobody sees me: did you think it possible I could be such an +ideot? + +I am as absurd as even the gentle love-sick Emily. + +I am thinking, my dear, how happy it is, since most human beings +differ so extremely one from another, that heaven has given us the same +variety in our tastes. + +Your brother is a divine fellow, and yet there is a sauciness about +Fitzgerald which pleases me better; as he has told me a thousand +times, he thinks me infinitely more agreable than Emily. + +Adieu! I am going to Quebec. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 140. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +May 20, Evening. + +_Io triumphe!_ A ship from England! You can have no idea of +the universal transport at the sight; the whole town was on the beach, +eagerly gazing at the charming stranger, who danced gaily on the waves, +as if conscious of the pleasure she inspired. + +If our joy is so great, who preserve a correspondence with Europe, +through our other colonies, during the winter, what must that of the +French have been, who were absolutely shut up six months from the rest +of the world? + +I can scarce conceive a higher delight than they must have felt at +being thus restored to a communication with mankind. + +The letters are not delivered; our servant stays for them at the +post-office; we expect him every moment: if I have not volumes from +you, I shall be very angry. + +He comes. Adieu! I have not patience to wait their being brought up +stairs. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + +They are here; six letters from you; I shall give three of them to +Emily to read, whilst I read the rest: you are very good, Lucy, and I +will never call you lazy again. + + + +LETTER 141. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Pall Mall, April 8. + +Whilst I was sealing my letter, I received yours of the 1st of +February. + +I am excessively alarmed, my dear, at the account it gives me of +Miss Montague's having broke with her lover, and of my brother's +extreme affection for her. + +I did not dare to let my mother see that letter, as I am convinced +the very idea of a marriage which must for ever separate her from a son +she loves to idolatry, would be fatal to her; she is altered since his +leaving England more than you can imagine; she is grown pale and thin, +her vivacity has entirely left her. Even my marriage scarce seemed to +give her pleasure; yet such is her delicacy, her ardor for his +happiness, she will not suffer me to say this to him, lest it should +constrain him, and prevent his making himself happy in his own way. I +often find her in tears in her apartment; she affects a smile when she +sees me, but it is a smile which cannot deceive one who knows her whole +soul as I do. In short, I am convinced she will not live long unless my +brother returns. She never names him without being softened to a +degree not to be expressed. + +Amiable and lovely as you represent this charming woman, and great +as the sacrifice is she has made to my brother, it seems almost cruelty +to wish to break his attachment to her; yet, situated as they are, what +can be the consequence of their indulging their tenderness at present, +but ruin to both? + +At all events, however, my dear, I intreat, I conjure you, to press +my brother's immediate return to England; I am convinced, my mother's +life depends on seeing him. + +I have often been tempted to write to Miss Montague, to use her +influence with him even against herself. + +If she loves him, she will have his true happiness at heart; she +will consider what a mind like his must hereafter suffer, should his +fondness for her be fatal to the best of mothers; she will urge, she +will oblige him to return, and make this step the condition of +preserving her tenderness. + +Read this letter to her; and tell her, it is to her affection for my +brother, to her generosity, I trust for the life of a parent who is +dearer to me than my existence. + +Tell her my heart is hers, that I will receive her as my guardian +angel, that we will never part, that we will be friends, that we will +be sisters, that I will omit nothing possible to make her happy with my +brother in England, and that I have very rational hopes it may be in +time accomplished; but that, if she marries him in Canada, and suffers +him to pursue his present design, she plants a dagger in the bosom of +her who gave him life. + +I scarce know what I would say, my dear Bell; but I am wretched; I +have no hope but in you. Yet if Emily is all you represent her-- + +I am obliged to break off: my mother is here; she must not see this +letter. + + Adieu! your affectionate + Lucy Temple. + + + +LETTER 142. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, May 21. + +Your letter of the 8th of April, my dear, was first read by Emily, +being one of the three I gave her for that purpose, as I before +mentioned. + +She went through it, and melting into tears, left the room without +speaking a word: she has been writing this morning, and I fancy to you, +for she enquired when the mail set out for England, and seemed pleased +to hear it went to-day. + +I am excessively shocked at your account of Mrs. Rivers: assure her, +in my name, of your brother's immediate return; I know both him and +Emily too well to believe they will sacrifice her to their own +happiness: there is nothing, on the contrary, they will not suffer +rather than even afflict her. + +Do not, however, encourage an idea of ever breaking an attachment +like theirs; an attachment founded less in passion than in the +tenderest friendship, in a similarity of character, and a sympathy the +most perfect the world ever saw. + +Let it be your business, my Lucy, to endeavor to make them happy, +and to remove the bars which prevent their union in England; and depend +on seeing them there the very moment their coming is possible. + +From what I know of your brother, I suppose he will insist on +marrying Emily before he leaves Quebec; but, after your letter, which +I shall send him, you may look on his return as infallible. + +I send all yours and Temple's letters for your brother to-day: you +may expect to hear from him by the same mail with this. + + I have only to say, I am, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 143. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec. + +London, April 8. + +My own happiness, my dear Rivers, in a marriage of love, makes me +extremely unwilling to prevent your giving way to a tenderness, which +promises you the same felicity, with so amiable a woman as both you +and Bell Fermor represent Miss Montague to be. + +But, my dear Ned, I cannot, without betraying your friendship, and +hazarding all the quiet of your future days, dispense with myself from +telling you, though I have her express commands to the contrary, that +the peace, perhaps the life, of your excellent mother, depends on your +giving up all thoughts of a settlement in America, and returning +immediately to England. + +I know the present state of your affairs will not allow you to marry +this charming woman here, without descending from the situation you +have ever held, and which you have a right from your birth to hold, in +the world. + +Would you allow me to gratify my friendship for you, and shew, at +the same time, your perfect esteem for me, by commanding, what our +long affection gives you a right to, such a part of my fortune as I +could easily spare without the least inconvenience to myself, we might +all be happy, and you might make your Emily so: but you have already +convinced me, by your refusal of a former request of this kind, that +your esteem for me is much less warm than mine for you; and that you do +not think I merit the delight of making you happy. + +I will therefore say no more on this subject till we meet, than that +I have no doubt this letter will bring you immediately to us. + +If the tenderness you express for Miss Montague is yet conquerable, +it will surely be better for both it should be conquered, as fortune +has been so much less kind to each of you than nature; but if your +hearts are immoveably fixed on each other, if your love is of the kind +which despises every other consideration, return to the bosom of +friendship, and depend on our finding some way to make you happy. + +If you persist in refusing to share my fortune, you can have no +objection to my using all my interest, for a friend and brother so +deservedly dear to me, and in whose happiness I shall ever find my own. + +Allow me now to speak of myself; I mean of my dearer self, your +amiable sister, for whom my tenderness, instead of decreasing, grows +every moment stronger. + +Yes, my friend, my sweet Lucy is every hour more an angel: her +desire of being beloved, renders her a thousand times more lovely; a +countenance animated by true tenderness will always charm beyond all +the dead uninformed features the hand of nature ever framed; love +embellishes the whole form, gives spirit and softness to the eyes, the +most vivid bloom to the complexion, dignity to the air, grace to every +motion, and throws round beauty almost the rays of divinity. + +In one word, my Lucy was always more lovely than any other woman; +she is now more lovely than even her former self. + +You, my Rivers, will forgive the over-flowings of my fondness, +because you know the merit of its object. + +Adieu! We die to embrace you! + + Your faithful + J. Temple. + + + +LETTER 144. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, May 21. + +Your letter, Madam, to Miss Fermor, which, by an accident, was first +read by me, has removed the veil which love had placed before mine +eyes, and shewed me, in one moment, the folly of all those dear hopes I +had indulged. + +You do me but justice in believing me incapable of suffering your +brother to sacrifice the peace, much less the life, of an amiable +mother, to my happiness: I have no doubt of his returning to England +the moment he receives your letters; but, knowing his tenderness, I +will not expose him to a struggle on this occasion: I will myself, +unknown to him, as he is fortunately absent, embark in a ship which has +wintered here, and will leave Quebec in ten days. + +Your invitation is very obliging; but a moment's reflection will +convince you of the extreme impropriety of my accepting it. + +Assure Mrs. Rivers, that her son will not lose a moment, that he +will probably be with her as soon as this letter; assure her also, that +the woman who has kept him from her, can never forgive herself for what +she suffers. + +I am too much afflicted to say more than that + + I am, Madam, + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 145. + + +To Miss Montague, at Silleri. + +Montreal, May 20. + +It is with a pleasure no words can express I tell my sweet Emily, I +have fixed on a situation which promises every advantage we can wish as +to profit, and which has every beauty that nature can give. + +The land is rich, and the wood will more than pay the expence of +clearing it; there is a settlement within a few leagues, on which there +is an extreme agreable family: a number of Acadians have applied to me +to be received as settlers: in short, my dear angel, all seems to smile +on our design. + +I have spent some days at the house of a German officer, lately in +our service, who is engaged in the same design, but a little advanced +in it. I have seen him increasing every hour his little domain, by +clearing the lands; he has built a pretty house in a beautiful rustic +style: I have seen his pleasing labors with inconceivable delight. I +already fancy my own settlement advancing in beauty: I paint to myself +my Emily adorning those lovely shades; I see her, like the mother of +mankind, admiring a new creation which smiles around her: we appear, to +my idea, like the first pair in paradise. + +I hope to be with you the 1st of June: will you allow me to set down +the 2d as the day which is to assure to me a life of happiness? + +My Acadians, your new subjects, are waiting in the next room to +speak with me. + +All good angels guard my Emily. + + Adieu! your + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 146. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, May 24. + +Emily has wrote to you, and appears more composed; she does not +however tell me what she has resolved; she has only mentioned a design +of spending a week at Quebec. I suppose she will take no resolution +till your brother comes down: he cannot be here in less than ten days. + +She has heard from him, and he has fixed on a settlement: depend +however on his return to England, even if it is not to stay. I wish he +could prevail on Mrs. Rivers to accompany him back. The advantages of +his design are too great to lose; the voyage is nothing; the climate +healthy beyond all conception. + +I fancy he will marry as soon as he comes down from Montreal, set +off in the first ship for England, leave Emily with me, and return to +us next year: at least, this is the plan my heart has formed. + +I wish Mrs. Rivers had born his absence better; her impatience to +see him has broken in on all our schemes; Emily and I had in fancy +formed a little Eden on Lake Champlain: Fitzgerald had promised me to +apply for lands near them; we should have been so happy in our little +new world of friendship. + +There is nothing certain in this vile state of existence: I could +philosophize extremely well this morning. + +All our little plans of amusement too for this summer are now at an +end; your brother was the soul of all our parties. This is a trifle, +but my mind to-day seeks for every subject of chagrin. + +Let but my Emily be happy, and I will not complain, even if I lose +her: I have a thousand fears, a thousand uneasy reflections: if you +knew her merit, you would not wish to break the attachment. + +My sweet Emily is going this morning to Quebec; I have promised to +accompany her, and she now waits for me. + +I cannot write: I have a heaviness about my heart, which has never +left me since I read your letter. 'Tis the only disagreable one I ever +received from my dear Lucy: I am not sure I love you so well as before +I saw this letter. There is something unfeeling in the style of it, +which I did not expect from you. + + Adieu! your faithful + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 147. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, May 25. + +I am unhappy beyond all words; my sweet Emily is gone to England; +the ship sailed this morning: I am just returned from the beach, after +conducting her on board. + +I used every art, every persuasion, in the power of friendship, to +prevent her going till your brother came down; but all I said was in +vain. She told me, she knew too well her own weakness to hazard seeing +him; that she also knew his tenderness, and was resolved to spare him +the struggle between his affection and his duty; that she was +determined never to marry him but with the consent of his mother; that +their meeting at Quebec, situated as they were, could only be the +source of unhappiness to both; that her heart doated on him, but that +she would never be the cause of his acting in a manner unworthy his +character: that she would see his family the moment she got to London, +and then retire to the house of a relation in Berkshire, where she +would wait for his arrival. + +That she had given you her promise, which nothing should make her +break, to embark in the first ship for England. + +She expressed no fears for herself as to the voyage, but trembled at +the idea of her Rivers's danger. + +She sat down several times yesterday to write to him, but her tears +prevented her: she at last assumed courage enough to tell him her +design; but it was in such terms as convinced me she could not have +pursued it, had he been here. + +She went to the ship with an appearance of calmness that astonished +me; but the moment she entered, all her resolution forsook her: she +retired with me to her room, where she gave way to all the agony of her +soul. + +The word was given to sail; I was summoned away; she rose hastily, +she pressed me to her bosom, "Tell him, said she, his Emily"--she +could say no more. + +Never in my life did I feel any sorrow equal to this separation. +Love her, my Lucy; you can never have half the tenderness for her she +merits. + +She stood on the deck till the ship turned Point Levi, her eyes +fixed passionately on our boat. + +Twelve o'clock. + +I have this moment a letter from your brother to Emily, which she +directed me to open, and send to her; I inclose it to you, as the +safest way of conveyance: there is one in it from Temple to him, on the +same subject with yours to me. + +Adieu! I will write again when my mind is more composed. + + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 148. + + +To Miss Montague, at Silleri. + +Montreal, May 28. + +It was my wish, my hope, my noblest ambition, my dear Emily, to see +you in a situation worthy of you; my sanguine temper flattered me with +the idea of seeing this wish accomplished in Canada, though fortune +denied it me in England. + +The letter which I inclose has put an end to those fond delusive +hopes: I must return immediately to England; did not my own heart +dictate this step, I know too well the goodness of yours, to expect the +continuance of your esteem, were I capable of purchasing happiness, +even the happiness of calling you mine, at the expence of my mother's +life, or even of her quiet. + +I must now submit to see my Emily in an humbler situation; to see +her want those pleasures, those advantages, those honors, which fortune +gives, and which she has so nobly sacrificed to true delicacy of mind, +and, if I do not flatter myself, to her generous and disinterested +affection for me. + +Be assured, my dearest angel, the inconveniencies attendant on a +narrow fortune, the only one I have to offer, shall be softened by all +which the most lively esteem, the most perfect friendship, the +tenderest love, can inspire; by that attention, that unwearied +solicitude to please, of which the heart alone knows the value. + +Fortune has no power over minds like ours; we possess a treasure to +which all she has to give is nothing, the dear exquisite delight of +loving, and of being beloved. + +Awake to all the finer feelings of tender esteem and elegant desire, +we have every real good in each other. + +I shall hurry down, the moment I have settled my affairs here; and +hope soon to have the transport of presenting the most charming of +friends, of mistresses, allow me to add, of wives, to a mother whom I +love and revere beyond words, and to whom she will soon be dearer than +myself. + +My going to England will detain me at Montreal a few days longer +than I intended; a delay I can very ill support. + +Adieu! my Emily! no language can express my tenderness or my +impatience. + + Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 149. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Montreal, May 28. + +I cannot enough, my dear Temple, thank you for your last, though it +destroys my air-built scheme of happiness. + +Could I have supposed my mother would thus severely have felt my +absence, I had never left England; to make her easier, was my only +motive for that step. + +I with pleasure sacrifice my design of settling here to her peace of +mind; no consideration, however, shall ever make me give up that of +marrying the best and most charming of women. + +I could have wished to have had a fortune worthy of her; this was my +wish, not that of my Emily; she will with equal pleasure share with me +poverty or riches: I hope her consent to marry me before I leave +Canada. I know the advantages of affluence, my dear Temple, and am too +reasonable to despise them; I would only avoid rating them above their +worth. + +Riches undoubtedly purchase a variety of pleasures which are not +otherwise to be obtained; they give power, they give honors, they give +consequence; but if, to enjoy these subordinate goods, we must give up +those which are more essential, more real, more suited to our natures, +I can never hesitate one moment to determine between them. + +I know nothing fortune has to bestow, which can equal the transport +of being dear to the most amiable, most lovely of womankind. + +The stream of life, my dear Temple, stagnates without the gentle +gale of love; till I knew my Emily, till the dear moment which assured +me of her tenderness, I could scarce be said to live. + + Adieu! Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 150. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, June 1. + +I can write, I can talk, of nothing but Emily; I never knew how much +I loved her till she was gone: I run eagerly to every place where we +have been together; every spot reminds me of her; I remember a +thousand conversations, endeared by confidence and affection: a tender +tear starts in spite of me: our walks, our airings, our pleasing little +parties, all rush at once on my memory: I see the same lovely scenes +around me, but they have lost half their power of pleasing. + +I visit every grove, every thicket, that she loved; I have a +redoubled fondness for every object in which she took pleasure. + +Fitzgerald indulges me in this enthusiasm of friendship; he leads me +to every place which can recall my Emily's idea; he speaks of her with +a warmth which shews the sensibility and goodness of his own heart; he +endeavors to soothe me by the most endearing attention. + +What infinite pleasure, my dear Lucy, there is in being truly +beloved! Fond as I have ever been of general admiration, that of all +mankind is nothing to the least mark of Fitzgerald's tenderness. + +Adieu! it will be some days before I can send this letter. + +June 4. + +The governor gives a ball in honor of the day; I am dressing to go, +but without my sweet companion: every hour I feel more sensibly her +absence. + +5th. + +We had last night, during the ball, the most dreadful storm I ever +heard; it seemed to shake the whole habitable globe. + +Heaven preserve my Emily from its fury: I have a thousand fears on +her account. + +Twelve o'clock. + +Your brother is arrived; he has been here about an hour: he flew to +Silleri, without going at all to Quebec; he enquired for Emily; he +would not believe she was gone. + +There is no expressing how much he was shocked when convinced she +had taken this voyage without him; he would have followed her in an +open boat, in hopes of overtaking her at Coudre, if my father had not +detained him almost by force, and at last convinced him of the +impossibility of overtaking her, as the winds, having been constantly +fair, must before this have carried them out of the river. + +He has sent his servant to Quebec, with orders to take passage for +him in the first ship that sails; his impatience is not to be +described. + +He came down in the hope of marrying her here, and conducting her +himself to England; he forms to himself a thousand dangers to her, +which he fondly fancies his presence could have averted: in short, he +has all the unreasonableness of a man in love. + +I propose sending this, and a large packet more, by your brother, +unless some unexpected opportunity offers before. + + Adieu! my dear! + Yours, + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 151. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +6th. + +Your brother has taken his passage in a very fine ship, which will +sail the 10th; you may expect him every hour after you receive this; +which I send, with what I wrote yesterday, by a small vessel which +sails a week sooner then was intended. + +Rivers persuades Fitzgerald to apply for the lands which he had +fixed upon on Lake Champlain, as he has no thoughts of ever returning +hither. + +I will prevent this, however, if I have any influence: I cannot +think with patience of continuing in America, when my two amiable +friends have left it; I had no motive for wishing a settlement here, +but to form a little society of friends, of which they made the +principal part. + +Besides, the spirit of emulation would have kept up my courage, and +given fire and brilliancy to my fancy. + +Emily and I should have been trying who had the most lively genius +at creation; who could have produced the fairest flowers; who have +formed the woods and rocks into the most beautiful arbors, vistoes, +grottoes; have taught the streams to flow in the most pleasing +meanders; have brought into view the greatest number and variety of +those lovely little falls of water with which this fairy land abounds; +and shewed nature in the fairest form. + +In short, we should have been continually endeavoring, following the +luxuriancy of female imagination, to render more charming the sweet +abodes of love and friendship; whilst our heroes, changing their +swords into plough-shares, and engaged in more substantial, more +profitable labors, were clearing land, raising cattle and corn, and +doing every thing becoming good farmers; or, to express it more +poetically, + + "Taming the genius of the stubborn plain, + Almost as quickly as they conquer'd Spain:" + +By which I would be understood to mean the Havannah, where, vanity +apart, I am told both of them did their duty, and a little more, if a +man can in such a case be said to do more. + +In one word, they would have been studying the useful, to support +us; we the agreable, to please and amuse them; which I take to be +assigning to the two sexes the employments for which nature intended +them, notwithstanding the vile example of the savages to the contrary. + +There are now no farmeresses in Canada worth my contending with; +therefore the whole pleasure of the thing would be at an end, even on +the supposition that friendship had not been the soul of our design. + +Say every thing for me to Temple and Mrs. Rivers; and to my dearest +Emily, if arrived. + + Adieu! your faithful + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 152. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +Silleri, June 6, 1767. + +It is very true, my Lord, that the Jesuit missionaries still +continue in the Indian villages in Canada; and I am afraid it is no +less true, that they use every art to instill into those people an +aversion to the English; at least I have been told this by the Indians +themselves, who seem equally surprized and piqued that we do not send +missionaries amongst them. + +Their ideas of christianity are extremely circumscribed, and they +give no preference to one mode of our faith above another; they regard +a missionary of any nation as a kind father, who comes to instruct them +in the best way of worshiping the Deity, whom they suppose more +propitious to the Europeans than to themselves; and as an ambassador +from the prince whose subject he is: they therefore think it a mark of +honor, and a proof of esteem, to receive missionaries; and to our +remissness, and the French wise attention on this head, is owing the +extreme attachment the greater part of the savage nations have ever had +to the latter. + +The French missionaries, by studying their language, their manners, +their tempers, their dispositions; by conforming to their way of life, +and using every art to gain their esteem, have acquired an influence +over them which is scarce to be conceived; nor would it be difficult +for ours to do the same, were they judiciously chose, and properly +encouraged. + +I believe I have said, that there is a striking resemblance between +the manners of the Canadians and the savages; I should have explained +it, by adding, that this resemblance has been brought about, not by the +French having won the savages to receive European manners, but by the +very contrary; the peasants having acquired the savage indolence in +peace, their activity and ferocity in war; their fondness for field +sports, their hatred of labor; their love of a wandering life, and of +liberty; in the latter of which they have been in some degree indulged, +the laws here being much milder, and more favorable to the people, than +in France. + +Many of the officers also, and those of rank in the colony troops, +have been adopted into the savage tribes; and there is stronger +evidence than, for the honor of humanity, I would wish there was, that +some of them have led the death dance at the execution of English +captives, have even partook the horrid repast, and imitated them in all +their cruelties; cruelties, which to the eternal disgrace, not only of +our holy religion, but even of our nature, these poor people, whose +ignorance is their excuse, have been instigated to, both by the French +and English colonies, who, with a fury truly diabolical, have offered +rewards to those who brought in the scalps of their enemies. Rousseau +has taken great pains to prove that the most uncultivated nations are +the most virtuous: I have all due respect for this philosopher, of +whose writings I am an enthusiastic admirer; but I have a still greater +respect for truth, which I believe is not in this instance on his side. + +There is little reason to boast of the virtues of a people, who are +such brutal slaves to their appetites as to be unable to avoid +drinking brandy to an excess scarce to be conceived, whenever it falls +in their way, though eternally lamenting the murders and other +atrocious crimes of which they are so perpetually guilty when under its +influence. + +It is unjust to say we have corrupted them, that we have taught them +a vice to which we are ourselves not addicted; both French and English +are in general sober: we have indeed given them the means of +intoxication, which they had not before their intercourse with us; but +he must be indeed fond of praising them, who makes a virtue of their +having been sober, when water was the only liquor with which they were +acquainted. + +From all that I have observed, and heard of these people, it appears +to me an undoubted fact, that the most civilized Indian nations are +the most virtuous; a fact which makes directly against Rousseau's ideal +system. + +Indeed all systems make against, instead of leading to, the +discovery of truth. + +Pere Lafitau has, for this reason, in his very learned comparison of +the manners of the savages with those of the first ages, given a very +imperfect account of Indian manners; he is even so candid as to own, he +tells you nothing but what makes for the system he is endeavoring to +establish. + +My wish, on the contrary, is not to make truth subservient to any +favorite sentiment or idea, any child of my fancy; but to discover it, +whether agreable or not to my own opinion. + +My accounts may therefore be false or imperfect from mistake or +misinformation, but will never be designedly warped from truth. + +That the savages have virtues, candor must own; but only a love of +paradox can make any man assert they have more than polished nations. + +Your Lordship asks me what is the general moral character of the +Canadians; they are simple and hospitable, yet extremely attentive to +interest, where it does not interfere with that laziness which is their +governing passion. + +They are rather devout than virtuous; have religion without +morality, and a sense of honor without very strict honesty. + +Indeed I believe wherever superstition reigns, the moral sense is +greatly weakened; the strongest inducement to the practice of morality +is removed, when people are brought to believe that a few outward +ceremonies will compensate for the want of virtue. + +I myself heard a man, who had raised a large fortune by very +indirect means, confess his life had been contrary to every precept of +the Gospel; but that he hoped the pardon of Heaven for all his sins, as +he intended to devote one of his daughters to a conventual life as an +expiation. + +This way of being virtuous by proxy, is certainly very easy and +convenient to such sinners as have children to sacrifice. + +By Colonel Rivers, who leaves us in a few days, I intend myself the +honor of addressing your Lordship again. + + I have the honor to be + Your Lordship's, &c. + Wm. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 153. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +Silleri, June 9. + +Your Lordship will receive this from the hands of one of the most +worthy and amiable men I ever knew, Colonel Rivers, whom I am +particularly happy in having the honor to introduce to your Lordship, +as I know your delicacy in the choice of friends, and that there are so +few who have your perfect esteem and confidence, that the acquaintance +of one who merits both, at his time of life, will be regarded, even by +your Lordship, as an acquisition. + +'Tis to him I shall say the advantage I procure him, by making him +known to a nobleman, who, with the wisdom and experience of age, has +all the warmth of heart, the generosity, the noble confidence, the +enthusiasm, the fire, and vivacity of youth. + +Your Lordship's idea, in regard to Protestant convents here, on the +footing of that we visited together at Hamburgh, is extremely well +worth the consideration of those whom it may concern; especially if the +Romish ones are abolished, as will most probably be the case. + +The noblesse have numerous families, and, if there are no convents, +will be at a loss where to educate their daughters, as well as where to +dispose of those who do not marry in a reasonable time: the convenience +they find in both respects from these houses, is one strong motive to +them to continue in their ancient religion. + +As I would however prevent the more useful, by which I mean the +lower, part of the sex from entering into this state, I would wish only +the daughters of the seigneurs to have the privilege of becoming nuns: +they should be obliged, on taking the vow, to prove their noblesse for +at least three generations; which would secure them respect, and, at +the same time, prevent their becoming too numerous. + +They should take the vow of obedience, but not of celibacy; and +reserve the power, as at Hamburgh, of going out to marry, though on no +other consideration. + +Your Lordship may remember, every nun at Hamburgh has a right of +marrying, except the abbess; and that, on your Lordship's telling the +lady who then presided, and who was young and very handsome, you +thought this a hardship, she answered with great spirit, "O, my Lord, +you know it is in my power to resign." + +I refer your Lordship to Colonel Rivers for that farther information +in regard to this colony, which he is much more able to give you than I +am, having visited every part of Canada in the design of settling in +it. + + I have the honor to be, + My Lord, &c. + Wm. Fermor. + + +Your Lordship's mention of nuns has brought to my memory a little +anecdote on this subject, which I will tell you. + +I was, a few mornings ago, visiting a French lady, whose very +handsome daughter, of almost sixteen, told me, she was going into a +convent. I enquired which she had made choice of: she said, "The +General Hospital." + +"I am glad, Mademoiselle, you have not chose the Ursulines; the +rules are so very severe, you would have found them hard to conform +to." + +"As to the rules, Sir, I have no objection to their severity; but +the habit of the General Hospital--" + +I smiled. + +"Is so very light--" + +"And so becoming, Mademoiselle." + +She smiled in her turn, and I left her fully convinced of the +sincerity of her vocation, and the great propriety and humanity of +suffering young creatures to chuse a kind of life so repugnant to human +nature, at an age when they are such excellent judges of what will make +them happy. + + + +LETTER 154. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, June 9. + +I send this by your brother, who sails to-morrow. + +Time, I hope, will reconcile me to his and Emily's absence; but at +present I cannot think of losing them without a dejection of mind which +takes from me the very idea of pleasure. + +I conjure you, my dear Lucy, to do every thing possible to +facilitate their union; and remember, that to your request, and to Mrs. +Rivers's tranquillity, they have sacrificed every prospect they had of +happiness. + +I would say more; but my spirits are so affected, I am incapable of +writing. + +Love my sweet Emily, and let her not repent the generosity of her +conduct. + + Adieu! your affectionate + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 155. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, June 10, Evening. + +My poor Rivers! I think I felt more from his going than even from +Emily's: whilst he was here, I seemed not quite to have lost her: I now +feel doubly the loss of both. + +He begged me to shew attention to Madame Des Roches, who he assured +me merited my tenderest friendship; he wrote to her, and has left the +letter open in my care: it is to thank her, in the most affectionate +terms, for her politeness and friendship, as well to himself as to his +Emily; and to offer her his best services in England in regard to her +estate, part of which some people here have very ungenerously applied +for a grant of, on pretence of its not being all settled according to +the original conditions. + +He owned to me, he felt some regret at leaving this amiable woman in +Canada, and at the idea of never seeing her more. + +I love him for this sensibility; and for his delicate attention to +one whose disinterested affection for him most certainly deserves it. + +Fitzgerald is below, he does all possible to console me for the loss +of my friends; but indeed, Lucy, I feel their absence most severely. + +I have an opportunity of sending your brother's letter to Madame Des +Roches, which I must not lose, as they are not very frequent: 'tis by +a French gentleman who is now with my father. + + Adieu! your faithful, + A. Fermor. + +Twelve at night. + +We have been talking of your brother; I have been saying, there is +nothing I so much admire in him as that tenderness of soul, and almost +female sensibility, which is so uncommon in a sex, whose whole +education tends to harden their hearts. + +Fitzgerald admires his spirit, his understanding, his generosity, +his courage, the warmth of his friendship. + +My father his knowledge of the world; not that indiscriminate +suspicion of mankind which is falsely so called; but that clearness of +mental sight, and discerning faculty, which can distinguish virtue as +well as vice, wherever it resides. + +"I also love in him," said my father, "that noble sincerity, that +integrity of character, which is the foundation of all the virtues." + +"And yet, my dear papa, you would have had Emily prefer to him, that +_white curd of asses milk_, Sir George Clayton, whose highest +claim to virtue is the constitutional absence of vice, and who never +knew what it was to feel for the sorrows of another." + +"You mistake, Bell: such a preference was impossible; but she was +engaged to Sir George; and he had also a fine fortune. Now, in these +degenerate days, my dear, people must eat; we have lost all taste for +the airy food of romances, when ladies rode behind their enamored +knights, dined luxuriously on a banquet of haws, and quenched their +thirst at the first stream." + +"But, my dear papa--" + +"But my dear Bell--" + +I saw the sweet old man look angry, so chose to drop the subject; +but I do aver, now he is out of sight, that haws and a pillion, with +such a noble fellow as your brother, are preferable to ortolans and a +coach and six, with such a piece of still life and insipidity as Sir +George. + +Good night! my dear Lucy. + + + +LETTER 156. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, June 17. + +I have this moment received a packet of letters from my dear Lucy; I +shall only say, in answer to what makes the greatest part of them, that +in a fortnight I hope you will have the pleasure of seeing your +brother, who did not hesitate one moment in giving up to Mrs. Rivers's +peace of mind, all his pleasing prospects here, and the happiness of +being united to the woman he loved. + +You will not, I hope, my dear, forget his having made such a +sacrifice: but I think too highly of you to say more on this subject. +You will receive Emily as a friend, as a sister, who merits all your +esteem and tenderness, and who has lost all the advantages of fortune, +and incurred the censure of the world, by her disinterested attachment +to your brother. + +I am extremely sorry, but not surprized, at what you tell me of poor +Lady H----. I knew her intimately; she was sacrificed at eighteen, by +the avarice and ambition of her parents, to age, disease, ill-nature, +and a coronet; and her death is the natural consequence of her regret: +she had a soul formed for friendship; she found it not at home; her +elegance of mind, and native probity, prevented her seeking it abroad; +she died a melancholy victim to the tyranny of her friends, the +tenderness of her heart, and her delicate sense of honor. + +If her father has any of the feelings of humanity left, what must he +not suffer on this occasion? + +It is a painful consideration, my dear, that the happiness or misery +of our lives are generally determined before we are proper judges of +either. + +Restrained by custom, and the ridiculous prejudices of the world, we +go with the crowd, and it is late in life before we dare to think. + +How happy are you and I, Lucy, in having parents, who, far from +forcing our inclinations, have not even endeavored to betray us into +chusing from sordid motives! They have not labored to fill our young +hearts with vanity or avarice; they have left us those virtues, those +amiable qualities, we received from nature. They have painted to us the +charms of friendship, and not taught us to value riches above their +real price. + +My father, indeed, checks a certain excess of romance which there is +in my temper; but, at the same time, he never encouraged my receiving +the addresses of any man who had only the gifts of fortune to recommend +him; he even advised me, when very young, against marrying an officer +in his regiment, of a large fortune, but an unworthy character. + +If I have any knowledge of the human heart, it will be my own fault +if I am not happy with Fitzgerald. + +I am only afraid, that when we are married, and begin to settle into +a calm, my volatile disposition will carry me back to coquetry: my +passion for admiration is naturally strong, and has been increased by +indulgence; for without vanity I have been extremely the taste of the +men. + +I have a kind of an idea it won't be long before I try the strength +of my resolution, for I heard papa and Fitzgerald in high consultation +this morning. + +Do you know, that, having nobody to love but Fitzgerald, I am ten +times more enamored of the dear creature than ever? My love is now like +the rays of the sun collected. + +He is so much here, I wonder I don't grow tired of him; but somehow +he has the art of varying himself beyond any man I ever knew: it was +that agreable variety of character that first struck me; I considered +that with him I should have all the sex in one; he says the same of me; +and indeed, it must be owned we have both an infinity of agreable +caprice, which in love affairs is worth all the merit in the world. + +Have you never observed, Lucy, that the same person is seldom +greatly the object of both love and friendship? + +Those virtues which command esteem do not often inspire passion. + +Friendship seeks the more real, more solid virtues; integrity, +constancy, and a steady uniformity of character: love, on the contrary, +admires it knows not what; creates itself the idol it worships; finds +charms even in defects; is pleased with follies, with inconsistency, +with caprice: to say all in one line, + + "Love is a child, and like a child he plays." + +The moment Emily arrives, I entreat that one of you will write to +me: no words can speak my impatience: I am equally anxious to hear of +my dear Rivers. Heaven send them prosperous gales! + + Adieu! + Your faithful + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 157. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, June 30. + +You are extremely mistaken, my dear, in your idea of the society +here; I had rather live at Quebec, take it for all in all, than in any +town in England, except London; the manner of living here is uncommonly +agreable; the scenes about us are lovely, and the mode of amusements +make us taste those scenes in full perfection. + +Whilst your brother and Emily were here, I had not a wish to leave +Canada; but their going has left a void in my heart, which will not +easily be filled up: I have loved Emily almost from childhood, and +there is a peculiar tenderness in those friendships, which + + "Grow with our growth, and strengthen with our strength." + +There was also something romantic and agreable in finding her here, +and unexpectedly, after we had been separated by Colonel Montague's +having left the regiment in which my father served. + +In short, every thing concurred to make us dear to each other, and +therefore to give a greater poignancy to the pain of parting a second +time. + +As to your brother, I love him so much, that a man who had less +candor and generosity than Fitzgerald, would be almost angry at my very +lively friendship. + +I have this moment a letter from Madame Des Roches; she laments the +loss of our two amiable friends; begs me to assure them both of her +eternal remembrance: says, "she congratulates Emily on possessing the +heart of the man on earth most worthy of being beloved; that she cannot +form an idea of any human felicity equal to that of the woman, the +business of whose life it is to make Colonel Rivers happy. That, heaven +having denied her that happiness, she will never marry, nor enter into +an engagement which would make it criminal in her to remember him with +tenderness: that it is, however, she believes, best for her he has +left the country, for that it is impossible she should ever have seen +him with indifference." + +It is perhaps as prudent not to mention these circumstances either +to your brother or Emily; I thought of sending her letter to them, but +there is a certain fire in her style, mixed with tenderness, when she +speaks of Rivers, which would only have given them both regret, by +making them see the excess of her affection for him; her expressions +are much stronger than those in which I have given you the sense of +them. + +I intend to be very intimate with her, because she loves my dear +Rivers; she loves Emily too, at least she fancies she does, but I am a +little doubtful as to the friendships between rivals: at this distance, +however, I dare say, they will always continue on the best terms +possible, and I would have Emily write to her. + +Do you know she has desired me to contrive to get her a picture of +your brother, without his knowing it? I am not determined whether I +shall indulge her in this fancy or not; if I do, I must employ you as +my agent. It is madness in her to desire it; but, as there is a +pleasure in being mad, I am not sure my morality will let me refuse +her, since pleasures are not very thick sown in this world. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + A. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 158. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, July 10. + +By this time, my dear Lucy, I hope you are happy with your brother +and my sweet Emily: I am all impatience to know this from yourselves; +but it will be five or six weeks, perhaps much more, before I can have +that satisfaction. + +As to me--to be plain, my dear, I can hold no longer; I have been +married this fortnight. My father wanted to keep it a secret, for some +very foolish reasons; but it is not in my nature; I hate secrets, they +are only fit for politicians, and people whose thoughts and actions +will not bear the light. + +For my part, I am convinced the general loquacity of human kind, and +our inability to keep secrets without a natural kind of uneasiness, +were meant by Providence to guard against our laying deep schemes of +treachery against each other. + +I remember a very sensible man, who perfectly knew the world, used +to say, there was no such thing in nature as a secret; a maxim as true, +at least I believe so, as it is salutary, and which I would advise all +good mammas, aunts, and governesses, to impress strongly on the minds +of young ladies. + +So, as I was saying, _voila Madame Fitzgerald!_ + +This is, however, yet a secret here; but, according to my present +doctrine, and following the nature of things, it cannot long continue +so. + +You never saw so polite a husband, but I suppose they are all so the +first fortnight, especially when married in so interesting and romantic +a manner; I am very fond of the fancy of being thus married _as it +were_; but I have a notion I shall blunder it out very soon: we were +married on a party to Three Rivers, nobody with us but papa and Madame +Villiers, who have not yet published the mystery. I hear some misses at +Quebec are scandalous about Fitzgerald's being so much here; I will +leave them in doubt a little, I think, merely to gratify their love of +scandal; every body should be amused in their way. + + Adieu! yours, + A. Fitzgerald. + + +Pray let Emily be married; every body marries but poor little Emily. + + + +LETTER 159. + + +To the Earl of ----. + +Silleri, July 10. + +I have the pleasure to tell your Lordship I have married my daughter +to a gentleman with whom I have reason to hope she will be happy. + +He is the second son of an Irish baronet of good fortune, and has +himself about five hundred pounds a year, independent of his +commission; he is a man of an excellent sense, and of honor, and has a +very lively tenderness for my daughter. + +It will, I am afraid, be some time before I can leave this country, +as I chuse to take my daughter and Mr. Fitzgerald with me, in order to +the latter's soliciting a majority, in which pursuit I shall without +scruple tax your Lordship's friendship to the utmost. + +I am extremely happy at this event, as Bell's volatile temper made +me sometimes afraid of her chusing inconsiderately: their marriage is +not yet declared, for some family reasons, not worth particularizing to +your Lordship. + +As soon as leave of absence comes from New York, for me and Mr. +Fitzgerald, we shall settle things for taking leave of Canada, which I +however assure your Lordship I shall do with some reluctance. + +The climate is all the year agreable and healthy, in summer divine; +a man at my time of life cannot leave this chearing, enlivening sun +without reluctance; the heat is very like that of Italy or the South of +France, without that oppressive closeness which generally attends our +hot weather in England. + +The manner of life here is chearful; we make the most of our fine +summers, by the pleasantest country parties you can imagine. Here are +some very estimable persons, and the spirit of urbanity begins to +diffuse itself from the centre: in short, I shall leave Canada at the +very time when one would wish to come to it. + +It is astonishing, in a small community like this, how much depends +on the personal character of him who governs. + +I am obliged to break off abruptly, the person who takes this to +England being going immediately on board. + + I have the honor to be, + My Lord, + Your Lordship's, &c. + Wm. Fermor. + + + +LETTER 160. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall. + +Silleri, July 13. + +I agree with you, my dear Temple, that nothing can be more pleasing +than an _awakened_ English woman; of which you and my _caro sposo_ +have, I flatter myself, the happy experience; and wish with you that +the character was more common: but I must own, and I am sorry to own +it, that my fair countrywomen and fellow citizens (I speak of the +nation in general, and not of the capital) have an unbecoming kind of +reserve, which prevents their being the agreable companions, and +amiable wives, which nature meant them. + +From a fear, and I think a prudish one, of being thought too +attentive to please your sex, they have acquired a certain distant +manner to men, which borders on ill-breeding: they take great pains to +veil, under an affected appearance of disdain, that winning sensibility +of heart, that delicate tenderness, which renders them doubly lovely. + +They are even afraid to own their friendships, if not according to +the square and rule; are doubtful whether a modest woman may own she +loves even her husband; and seem to think affections were given them +for no purpose but to hide. + +Upon the whole, with at least as good a native right to charm as any +women on the face of the globe, the English have found the happy secret +of pleasing less. + +Is my Emily arrived? I can say nothing else. + +Twelve o'clock. + +I am the happiest woman in the creation: papa has just told me, we +are to go home in six or seven weeks. + +Not but this is a divine country, and our farm a terrestrial +paradise; but we have lived in it almost a year, and one grows tired of +every thing in time, you know, Temple. + +I shall see my Emily, and flirt with Rivers; to say nothing of you +and my little Lucy. + +Adieu! I am grown very lazy since I married; for the future, I shall +make Fitzgerald write all my letters, except billet-doux, in which I +think I excel him. + + Yours, + A. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 161. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Dover, July 8. + +I am this moment arrived, my dear Bell, after a very agreable +passage, and am setting out immediately for London, from whence I shall +write to you the moment I have seen Mrs. Rivers; I will own to you I +tremble at the idea of this interview, yet am resolved to see her, and +open all my soul to her in regard to her son; after which, I shall +leave her the mistress of my destiny; for, ardently as I love him, I +will never marry him but with her approbation. + +I have a thousand anxious fears for my Rivers's safety: may heaven +protect him from the dangers his Emily has escaped! + +I have but a moment to write, a ship being under way which is bound +to Quebec; a gentleman, who is just going off in a boat to the ship, +takes the care of this. + +May every happiness attend my dear girl. Say every thing +affectionate for me to Captain Fermor and Mr. Fitzgerald. + + Adieu! Yours, + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 162. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +London, July 19. + +I got to town last night, my dear, and am at a friend's, from whence +I have this morning sent to Mrs. Rivers; I every moment expect her +answer; my anxiety of mind is not to be expressed; my heart sinks; I +almost dread the return of my messenger. + +If the affections, my dear friend, give us the highest happiness of +which we are capable, they are also the source of our keenest misery; +what I feel at this instant, is not to be described: I have been near +resolving to go into the country without seeing or sending to Mrs. +Rivers. If she should receive me with coldness--why should I have +exposed myself to the chance of such a reception? It would have been +better to have waited for Rivers's arrival; I have been too +precipitate; my warmth of temper has misled me: what had I to do to +seek his family? I would give the world to retract my message, though +it was only to let her know I was arrived; that her son was well, and +that she might every hour expect him in England. + +There is a rap at the door: I tremble I know not why; the servant +comes up, he announces Mr. and Mrs. Temple: my heart beats, they are at +the door. + +One o'clock. + +They are gone, and return for me in an hour; they insist on my +dining with them, and tell me Mrs. Rivers is impatient to see me. +Nothing was ever so polite, so delicate, so affectionate, as the +behaviour of both; they saw my confusion, and did every thing to +remove it: they enquired after Rivers, but without the least hint of +the dear interest I take in him: they spoke of the happiness of knowing +me: they asked my friendship, in a manner the most flattering that can +be imagined. How strongly does Mrs. Temple, my dear, resemble her +amiable brother! her eyes have the same sensibility, the same pleasing +expression; I think I scarce ever saw so charming a woman; I love her +already; I feel a tenderness for her, which is inconceivable; I caught +myself two or three times looking at her, with an attention for which I +blushed. + +How dear to me is every friend of my Rivers! + +I believe, there was something very foolish in my behaviour; but +they had the good-breeding and humanity not to seem to observe it. + +I had almost forgot to tell you, they said every thing obliging and +affectionate of you and Captain Fermor. + +My mind is in a state not to be described; I feel joy, I feel +anxiety, I feel doubt, I feel a timidity I cannot conquer, at the +thought of seeing Mrs. Rivers. + +I have to dress; therefore must finish this when I return. + +Twelve at night. + +I am come back, my dearest Bell; I have gone through the scene I so +much dreaded, and am astonished I should ever think of it but with +pleasure. How much did I injure this most amiable of women! Her +reception of me was that of a tender parent, who had found a long-lost +child; she kissed me, she pressed me to her bosom; her tears flowed +in abundance; she called me her daughter, her other Lucy: she asked me +a thousand questions of her son; she would know all that concerned him, +however minute: how he looked, whether he talked much of her, what were +his amusements; whether he was as handsome as when he left England. + +I answered her with some hesitation, but with a pleasure that +animated my whole soul; I believe, I never appeared to such advantage +as this day. + +You will not ascribe it to an unmeaning vanity, when I tell you, I +never took such pains to please; I even gave a particular attention to +my dress, that I might, as much as possible, justify my Rivers's +tenderness: I never was vain for myself; but I am so for him: I am +indifferent to admiration as Emily Montague; but as the object of his +love, I would be admired by all the world; I wish to be the first of +my sex in all that is amiable and lovely, that I might make a sacrifice +worthy of my Rivers, in shewing to all his friends, that he only can +inspire me with tenderness, that I live for him alone. + +Mrs. Rivers pressed me extremely to pass a month with her: my heart +yielded too easily to her request; but I had courage to resist my own +wishes, as well as her solicitations; and shall set out in three days +for Berkshire: I have, however, promised to go with them to-morrow, on +a party to Richmond, which Mr. Temple was so obliging as to propose on +my account. + +Late as the season is, there is one more ship going to Quebec, which +sails to-morrow. + +You shall hear from me again in a few days by the packet. + + Adieu! my dearest friend! + Your faithful + Emily Montague. + +Surely it will not be long before Rivers arrives; you, my dear +Bell, will judge what must be my anxiety till that moment. + + + +LETTER 163. + + +To Captain Fermor, at Silleri. + +Dover, July 24, eleven o'clock. + +I am arrived, my dear friend, after a passage agreable in itself; +but which my fears for Emily made infinitely anxious and painful: every +wind that blew, I trembled for her; I formed to myself ideal dangers +on her account, which reason had not power to dissipate. + +We had a very tumultuous head-sea a great part of the voyage, though +the wind was fair; a certain sign there had been stormy weather, with a +contrary wind. I fancied my Emily exposed to those storms; there is no +expressing what I suffered from this circumstance. + +On entering the channel of England, we saw an empty boat, and some +pieces of a wreck floating; I fancied it part of the ship which +conveyed my lovely Emily; a sudden chillness seized my whole frame, my +heart died within me at the sight: I had scarce courage, when I landed, +to enquire whether she was arrived. + +I asked the question with a trembling voice, and had the transport +to find the ship had passed by, and to hear the person of my Emily +described amongst the passengers who landed; it was not easy to mistake +her. + +I hope to see her this evening: what do I not feel from that dear +hope! + +Chance gives me an opportunity of forwarding this by New York; I +write whilst my chaise is getting ready. + + Adieu! yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + +I shall write to my dear little Bell as soon as I get to town. There +is no describing what I felt at first seeing the coast of England: I +saw the white cliffs with a transport mixed with veneration; a +transport, which, however, was checked by my fears for the dearer part +of myself. + +My chaise is at the door. + + Adieu! + Your faithful, &c. + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 164. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Rochester, July 24. + +I am obliged to wait ten minutes for a Canadian gentleman who is +with me, and has some letters to deliver here: how painful is this +delay! But I cannot leave a stranger alone on the road, though I lose +so many minutes with my charming Emily. + +To soften this moment as much as possible, I will begin a letter to +my dear Bell: our sweet Emily is safe; I wrote to Captain Fermor this +morning. + +My heart is gay beyond words: my fellow-traveller is astonished at +the beauty and riches of England, from what he has seen of Kent: for my +part, I point out every fine prospect, and am so proud of my country, +that my whole soul seems to be dilated; for which perhaps there are +other reasons. The day is fine, the numerous herds and flocks on the +side of the hills, the neatness of the houses, of the people, the +appearance of plenty; all exhibit a scene which must strike one who has +been used only to the wild graces of nature. + +Canada has beauties; but they are of another kind. + +This unreasonable man; he has no mistress to see in London; he is +not expected by the most amiable of mothers, by a family he loves as I +do mine. + +I will order another chaise, and leave my servant to attend him. + +He comes. Adieu! my dear little Bell! at this moment a gentleman is +come into the inn, who is going to embark at Dover for New York; I will +send this by him. Once more adieu! + + + +LETTER 165. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Clarges Street, July 25. + +I am the only person here, my dear Bell, enough composed to tell you +Rivers is arrived in town. He stopped in his post chaise, at the end of +the street, and sent for me, that I might prepare my mother to see him, +and prevent a surprize which might have hurried her spirits too much. + +I came back, and told her I had seen a gentleman, who had left him +at Dover, and that he would soon be here; he followed me in a few +minutes. + +I am not painter enough to describe their meeting; though prepared, +it was with difficulty we kept my mother from fainting; she pressed +him in her arms, she attempted to speak, her voice faltered, tears +stole softly down her cheeks: nor was Rivers less affected, though in a +different manner; I never saw him look so handsome; the manly +tenderness, the filial respect, the lively joy, that were expressed in +his countenance, gave him a look to which it is impossible to do +justice: he hinted going down to Berkshire to-night; but my mother +seemed so hurt at the proposal, that he wrote to Emily, and told her +his reason for deferring it till to-morrow, when we are all to go in my +coach, and hope to bring her back with us to town. + +You judge rightly, my dear Bell, that they were formed for each +other; never were two minds so similar; we must contrive some method of +making them happy: nothing but a too great delicacy in Rivers prevents +their being so to-morrow; were our situations changed, I should not +hesitate a moment to let him make me so. + +Lucy has sent for me. Adieu! + + Believe me, + Your faithful and devoted, + J. Temple. + + + +LETTER 166. + + +To Miss Fermor, at Silleri. + +Pall Mall, July 29. + +I am the happiest of human beings: my Rivers is arrived, he is well, +he loves me; I am dear to his family; I see him without restraint; I +am every hour more convinced of the excess of his affection; his +attention to me is inconceivable; his eyes every moment tell me, I am +dearer to him than life. + +I am to be for some time on a visit to his sister; he is at Mrs. +Rivers's, but we are always together: we go down next week to Mr. +Temple's, in Rutland; they only stayed in town, expecting Rivers's +arrival. His seat is within six miles of Rivers's little paternal +estate, which he settled on his mother when he left England; she +presses him to resume it, but he peremptorily refuses: he insists on +her continuing her house in town, and being perfectly independent, and +mistress of herself. + +I love him a thousand times more for this tenderness to her; though +it disappoints my dear hope of being his. Did I think it possible, my +dear Bell, he could have risen higher in my esteem? + +If we are never united, if we always live as at present, his +tenderness will still make the delight of my life; to see him, to hear +that voice, to be his friend, the confidante of all his purposes, of +all his designs, to hear the sentiments of that generous, that exalted +soul--I would not give up this delight, to be empress of the world. + +My ideas of affection are perhaps uncommon; but they are not the less +just, nor the less in nature. + +A blind man may as well judge of colors as the mass of mankind of +the sentiments of a truly enamored heart. + +The sensual and the cold will equally condemn my affection as +romantic: few minds, my dear Bell, are capable of love; they feel +passion, they feel esteem; they even feel that mixture of both which is +the best counterfeit of love; but of that vivifying fire, that lively +tenderness which hurries us out of ourselves, they know nothing; that +tenderness which makes us forget ourselves, when the interest, the +happiness, the honor, of him we love is concerned; that tenderness +which renders the beloved object all that we see in the creation. + +Yes, my Rivers, I live, I breathe, I exist, for you alone: be happy, +and your Emily is so. + +My dear friend, you know love, and will therefore bear with all the +impertinence of a tender heart. + +I hope you have by this time made Fitzgerald happy; he deserves you, +amiable as you are, and you cannot too soon convince him of your +affection: you sometimes play cruelly with his tenderness: I have been +astonished to see you torment a heart which adores you. + +I am interrupted. + + Adieu! my dear Bell. + Your affectionate + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 167. + + +To Captain Fermor, at Silleri. + +Clarges Street, Aug. 1. + +Lord ---- not being in town, I went to his villa at Richmond, to +deliver your letter. + +I cannot enough, my dear Sir, thank you for this introduction; I +passed part of the day at Richmond, and never was more pleasingly +entertained. + +His politeness, his learning, his knowledge of the world, however +amiable, are in character at his season of life; but his vivacity is +astonishing. + +What fire, what spirit, there is in his conversation! I hardly +thought myself a young man near him. What must he have been at five and +twenty? + +He desired me to tell you, all his interest should be employed for +Fitzgerald, and that he wished you to come to England as soon as +possible. + +We are just setting off for Temple's house in Rutland. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 168. + + +To Captain Fermor, at Silleri. + +Temple-house, Aug. 4. + +I enjoy, my dear friend, in one of the pleasantest houses, and most +agreable situations imaginable, the society of the four persons in the +world most dear to me; I am in all respects as much at home as if +master of the family, without the cares attending that station; my +wishes, my desires, are prevented by Temple's attention and friendship, +and my mother and sister's amiable anxiety to oblige me; I find an +unspeakable softness in seeing my lovely Emily every moment, in seeing +her adored by my family, in seeing her without restraint, in being in +the same house, in living in that easy converse which is born from +friendship alone: yet I am not happy. + +It is that we lose the present happiness in the pursuit of greater: +I look forward with impatience to that moment which will make Emily +mine; and the difficulties, which I see on every side arising, embitter +hours which would otherwise be exquisitely happy. + +The narrowness of my fortune, which I see in a much stronger light +in this land of luxury, and the apparent impossibility of placing the +most charming of women in the station my heart wishes, give me +anxieties which my reason cannot conquer. + +I cannot live without her, I flatter myself our union is in some +degree necessary to her happiness; yet I dread bringing her into +distresses, which I am doubly obliged to protect her from, because she +would with transport meet them all, from tenderness to me. + +I have nothing which I can call my own, but my half-pay, and four +thousand pounds: I have lived amongst the first company in England; all +my connexions have been rather suited to my birth than fortune. My +mother presses me to resume my estate, and let her live with us +alternately; but against this I am firmly determined; she shall have +her own house, and never change her manner of living. + +Temple would share his estate with me, if I would allow him; but I +am too fond of independence to accept favors of this kind even from +him. + +I have formed a thousand schemes, and as often found them abortive; +I go to-morrow to see our little estate, with my mother; it is a +private party of our own, and nobody is in the secret; I will there +talk over every thing with her. + +My mind is at present in a state of confusion not to be expressed; I +must determine on something; it is improper Emily should continue long +with my sister in her present situation; yet I cannot live without +seeing her. + +I have never asked about Emily's fortune; but I know it is a small +one; perhaps two thousand pounds; I am pretty certain, not more. + +We can live on little, but we must live in some degree on a genteel +footing: I cannot let Emily, who refused a coach and six for me, pay +visits on foot; I will be content with a post-chaise, but cannot with +less; I have a little, a very little pride, for my Emily. + +I wish it were possible to prevail on my mother to return with us to +Canada: I could then reconcile my duty and happiness, which at present +seem almost incompatible. + +Emily appears perfectly happy, and to look no further than to the +situation in which we now are; she seems content with being my friend +only, without thinking of a nearer connexion; I am rather piqued at a +composure which has the air of indifference: why should not her +impatience equal mine? + +The coach is at the door, and my mother waits for me. + +Every happiness attend my friend, and all connected with him, in +which number I hope I may, by this time, include Fitzgerald. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 169. + + +To Captain Fermor, at Silleri. + +Aug. 6. + +I have been taking an exact survey of the house and estate with my +mother, in order to determine on some future plan of life. + +'Tis inconceivable what I felt on returning to a place so dear to +me, and which I had not seen for many years; I ran hastily from one +room to another; I traversed the garden with inexpressible eagerness: +my eye devoured every object; there was not a tree, not a bush, which +did not revive some pleasing, some soft idea. + +I felt, to borrow a very pathetic expression of Thomson's, + + "A thousand little tendernesses throb," + +on revisiting those dear scenes of infant happiness; which were +increased by having with me that estimable, that affectionate mother, +to whose indulgence all my happiness had been owing. + +But to return to the purpose of our visit: the house is what most +people would think too large for the estate, even had I a right to call +it all my own; this is, however, a fault, if it is one, which I can +easily forgive. + +There is furniture enough in it for my family, including my mother; +it is unfashionable, but some of it very good: and I think Emily has +tenderness enough for me to live with me in a house, the furniture of +which is not perfectly in taste. + +In short, I know her much above having the slightest wish of vanity, +where it comes in competition with love. + +We can, as to the house, live here commodiously enough; and our only +present consideration is, on what we are to live: a consideration, +however, which as lovers, I believe in strictness we ought to be much +above! + +My mother again solicits me to resume this estate; and has proposed +my making over to her my half-pay instead of it, though of much less +value, which, with her own two hundred pounds a year, will, she says, +enable her to continue her house in town, a point I am determined never +to suffer her to give up; because she loves London; and because I +insist on her having her own house to go to, if she should ever chance +to be displeased with ours. + +I am inclined to like this proposal: Temple and I will make a +calculation; and, if we find it will answer every necessary purpose to +my mother, I owe it to Emily to accept of it. + +I endeavor to persuade myself, that I am obliging my mother, by +giving her an opportunity of shewing her generosity, and of making me +happy: I have been in spirits ever since she mentioned it. + +I have already projected a million of improvements; have taught new +streams to flow, planted ideal groves, and walked, fancy-led, in shades +of my own raising. + +The situation of the house is enchanting; and with all my passion +for the savage luxuriance of America, I begin to find my taste return +for the more mild and regular charms of my native country. + +We have no Chaudieres, no Montmorencis, none of those magnificent +scenes on which the Canadians have a right to pride themselves; but we +excel them in the lovely, the smiling; in enameled meadows, in waving +corn-fields, in gardens the boast of Europe; in every elegant art which +adorns and softens human life; in all the riches and beauty which +cultivation can give. + +I begin to think I may be blest in the possession of my Emily, +without betraying her into a state of want; we may, I begin to flatter +myself, live with decency, in retirement; and, in my opinion, there +are a thousand charms in retirement with those we love. + +Upon the whole, I believe we shall be able to live, taking the word +_live_ in the sense of lovers, not of the _beau monde_, who will +never allow a little country squire of four hundred pounds a year to +_live_. + +Time may do more for us; at least, I am of an age and temper to +encourage hope. + +All here are perfectly yours. + + Adieu! my dear friend, + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 170. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, Aug. 6. + +The leave of absence for my father and Fitzgerald being come some +weeks sooner than we expected, we propose leaving Canada in five or six +days. + +I am delighted with the idea of revisiting dear England, and seeing +friends whom I so tenderly love: yet I feel a regret, which I had no +idea I should have felt, at leaving the scenes of a thousand past +pleasures; the murmuring rivulets to which Emily and I have sat +listening, the sweet woods where I have walked with my little circle of +friends: I have even a strong attachment to the scenes themselves, +which are infinitely lovely, and speak the inimitable hand of nature +which formed them: I want to transport this fairy ground to England. + +I sigh when I pass any particularly charming spot; I feel a +tenderness beyond what inanimate objects seem to merit. + +I must pay one more visit to the naiads of Montmorenci. + +Eleven at night. + +I am just come from the general's assembly; where, I should have +told you, I was this day fortnight announced _Madame Fitzgerald_, +to the great mortification of two or three cats, who had very +sagaciously determined, that Fitzgerald had too much understanding ever +to think of such a flirting, coquetish creature as a wife. + +I was grave at the assembly to-night, in spite of all the pains I +took to be otherwise: I was hurt at the idea it would probably be +_the last_ at which I should be; I felt a kind of concern at parting, +not only with the few I loved, but with those who had till to-night +been indifferent to me. + +There is something affecting in the idea of _the last time_ of +seeing even those persons or places, for which we have no particular +affection. + +I go to-morrow to take leave of the nuns, at the Ursuline convent; I +suppose I shall carry this melancholy idea with me there, and be hurt +at seeing them too _for the last time_. + +I pay visits every day amongst the peasants, who are very fond of +me. I talk to them of their farms, give money to their children, and +teach their wives to be good huswives: I am the idol of the country +people five miles round, who declare me the most amiable, most generous +woman in the world, and think it a thousand pities I should be damned. + +Adieu! say every thing for me to my sweet friends, if arrived. + +7th, Eleven o'clock. + +I have this moment a large packet of letters for Emily from Mrs. +Melmoth, which I intend to take the care of myself, as I hope to be in +England almost as soon as this. + + Good morrow! + Yours ever, &c. + A. Fitzgerald. + +Three o'clock. + +I am just come from visiting the nuns; they expressed great concern +at my leaving Canada, and promised me their prayers on my voyage; for +which proof of affection, though a good protestant, I thanked them very +sincerely. + +I wished exceedingly to have brought some of them away with me; my +nun, as they call the amiable girl I saw take the veil, paid me the +flattering tribute of a tear at parting; her fine eyes had a concern in +them, which affected me extremely. + +I was not less pleased with the affection the late superior, my good +old countrywoman, expressed for me, and her regret at seeing me _for +the last time_. + +Surely there is no pleasure on earth equal to that of being beloved! +I did not think I had been such a favorite in Canada: it is almost a +pity to leave it; perhaps nobody may love me in England. + +Yes, I believe Fitzgerald will; and I have a pretty party enough of +friends in your family. + +Adieu! I shall write a line the day we embark, by another ship, +which may possibly arrive before us. + + + +LETTER 171. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Silleri, Aug. 11. + +We embark to-morrow, and hope to see you in less than a month, if +this fine wind continues. + +I am just come from Montmorenci, where I have been paying my +devotions to the tutelary deities of the place _for the last time_. + +I had only Fitzgerald with me; we visited every grotto on the lovely +banks, where we dined; kissed every flower, raised a votive altar on +the little island, poured a libation of wine to the river goddess; and, +in short, did every thing which it became good heathens to do. + +We stayed till day-light began to decline, which, with the idea of +_the last time_, threw round us a certain melancholy solemnity; a +solemnity which + + "Deepen'd the murmur of the falling floods, + And breath'd a browner horror on the woods." + +I have twenty things to do, and but a moment to do them in. Adieu! + +I am called down; it is to Madame Des Roches: she is very obliging +to come thus far to see me. + +12th. + +We go on board at one; Madame Des Roches goes down with us as far as +her estate, where her boat is to fetch her on shore. She has made me a +present of a pair of extreme pretty bracelets; has sent your brother an +elegant sword-knot, and Emily a very beautiful cross of diamonds. + +I don't believe she would be sorry if we were to run away with her +to England: I protest I am half inclined; it is pity such a woman +should be hid all her life in the woods of Canada: besides, one might +convert her you know; and, on a religious principle, a little +deviation from rules is allowable. + +Your brother is an admirable missionary amongst unbelieving ladies: +I really think I shall carry her off; if it is only for the good of her +soul. + +I have but one objection; if Fitzgerald should take a fancy to +prefer the tender to the lively, I should be in some danger: there is +something very seducing in her eyes, I assure you. + + + +LETTER 172. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Kamaraskas, Aug. 14. + +By Madame Des Roches, who is going on shore, I write two or three +lines, to tell you we have got thus far, and have a fair wind; she will +send it immediately to Quebec, to be put on board any ship going, that +you may have the greater variety of chances to hear of me. + +There is a French lady on board, whose superstition bids fair to +amuse us; she has thrown half her little ornaments over-board for a +wind, and has promised I know not how many votive offerings of the same +kind to St. Joseph, the patron of Canada, if we get safe to land; on +which I shall only observe, that there is nothing so like ancient +absurdity as modern: she has classical authority for this manner of +playing the fool. Horace, when afraid on a voyage, having, if my memory +quotes fair, vowed + + "His dank and dropping weeds + To the stern god of sea." + +The boat is ready, and Madame Des Roches going; I am very unwilling +to part with her; and her present concern at leaving me would be very +flattering, if I did not think the remembrance of your brother had the +greatest share in it. + +She has wrote four or five letters to him, since she came on board, +very tender ones I fancy, and destroyed them; she has at last wrote a +meer complimentary kind of card, only thanking him for his offers of +service; yet I see it gives her pleasure to write even this, however +cold and formal; because addressed to him: she asked me, if I thought +there was any impropriety in her writing to him, and whether it would +not be better to address herself to Emily. I smiled at her simplicity, +and she finished her letter; she blushed and looked down when she gave +it me. + +She is less like a sprightly French widow, than a foolish English +girl, who loves for the first time. + +But I suppose, when the heart is really touched, the feelings of all +nations have a pretty near resemblance: it is only that the French +ladies are generally more coquets, and less inclined to the romantic +style of love, than the English; and we are, therefore, surprized when +we find in them this trembling sensibility. + +There are exceptions, however, to all rules; and your little Bell +seems, in point of love, to have changed countries with Madame Des +Roches. + +The gale encreases, it flutters in the sails; my fair friend is +summoned; the captain chides our delay. + +Adieu! _ma chere Madame Des Roches_. I embrace her; I feel the +force of its being _for the last time_. I am afraid she feels it +yet more strongly than I do: in parting with the last of his friends, +she seems to part with her Rivers for ever. + +One look more at the wild graces of nature I leave behind. + +Adieu! Canada! adieu! sweet abode of the wood-nymphs! never shall I +cease to remember with delight the place where I have passed so many +happy hours. + +Heaven preserve my dear Lucy, and give prosperous gales to her +friends! + + Your faithful + A. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 173. + + +To Miss Montague. + +Isle of Bic, Aug. 16. + +You are little obliged to me, my dear, for writing to you on +ship-board; one of the greatest miseries here, being the want of +employment: I therefore write for my own amusement, not yours. + +We have some French ladies on board, but they do not resemble Madame +Des Roches. I am weary of them already, though we have been so few +days together. + +The wind is contrary, and we are at anchor under this island; +Fitzgerald has proposed going to dine on shore: it looks excessively +pretty from the ship. + +Seven in the evening. + +We are returned from Bic, after passing a very agreable day. + +We dined on the grass, at a little distance from the shore, under +the shelter of a very fine wood, whose form, the trees rising above +each other in the same regular confusion, brought the dear shades of +Silleri to our remembrance. + +We walked after dinner, and picked rasberries, in the wood; and in +our ramble came unexpectedly to the middle of a visto, which, whilst +some ships of war lay here, the sailors had cut through the island. + +From this situation, being a rising ground, we could see directly +through the avenue to both shores: the view of each was wildly +majestic; the river comes finely in, whichever way you turn your sight; +but to the south, which is more sheltered, the water just trembling to +the breeze, our ship which had put all her streamers out, and to which +the tide gave a gentle motion, with a few scattered houses, faintly +seen amongst the trees at a distance, terminated the prospect, in a +manner which was inchanting. + +I die to build a house on this island; it is pity such a sweet spot +should be uninhabited: I should like excessively to be Queen of Bic. + +Fitzgerald has carved my name on a maple, near the shore; a pretty +piece of gallantry in a husband, you will allow: perhaps he means it as +taking possession for me of the island. + +We are going to cards. Adieu! for the present. + +Aug. 18. + +'Tis one of the loveliest days I ever saw: we are fishing under the +Magdalen islands; the weather is perfectly calm, the sea just dimpled, +the sun-beams dance on the waves, the fish are playing on the surface +of the water: the island is at a proper distance to form an agreable +point of view; and upon the whole the scene is divine. + +There is one house on the island, which, at a distance, seems so +beautifully situated, that I have lost all desire of fixing at Bic: I +want to land, and go to the house for milk, but there is no good +landing place on this side; the island seems here to be fenced in by a +regular wall of rock. + +A breeze springs up; our fishing is at an end for the present: I am +afraid we shall not pass many days so agreably as we have done this. I +feel horror at the idea of so soon losing sight of land, and launching +on the _vast Atlantic_. + + Adieu! yours, + A. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 174. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Aug. 26, at Sea. + +We have just fallen in with a ship from New York to London, and, as +it is a calm, the master of it is come on board; whilst he is drinking +a bottle of very fine madeira, which Fitzgerald has tempted him with on +purpose to give me this opportunity, as it is possible he may arrive +first, I will write a line, to tell my dear Lucy we are all well, and +hope soon to have the happiness of telling her so in person; I also +send what I scribbled before we lost sight of land; for I have had no +spirits to write or do any thing since. + +There is inexpressible pleasure in meeting a ship at sea, and +renewing our commerce with the human kind, after having been so +absolutely separated from them. I feel strongly at this moment the +inconstancy of the species: we naturally grow tired of the company on +board our own ship, and fancy the people in every one we meet more +agreable. + +For my part, this spirit is so powerful in me, that I would gladly, +if I could have prevailed on my father and Fitzgerald, have gone on +board with this man, and pursued our voyage in the New York ship. I +have felt the same thing on land in a coach, on seeing another pass. + +We have had a very unpleasant passage hitherto, and weather to +fright a better sailor than your friend: it is to me astonishing, that +there are men found, and those men of fortune too, who can fix on a sea +life as a profession. + +How strong must be the love of gain, to tempt us to embrace a life +of danger, pain, and misery; to give up all the beauties of nature and +of art, all the charms of society, and separate ourselves from mankind, +to amass wealth, which the very profession takes away all possibility +of enjoying! + +Even glory is a poor reward for a life passed at sea. + +I had rather be a peasant on a sunny bank, with peace, safety, +obscurity, bread, and a little garden of roses, than lord high admiral +of the British fleet. + +Setting aside the variety of dangers at sea, the time passed there +is a total suspension of one's existence: I speak of the best part of +our time there, for at least a third of every voyage is positive +misery. + +I abhor the sea, and am peevish with every creature about me. + +If there were no other evil attending this vile life, only think of +being cooped up weeks together in such a space, and with the same +eternal set of people. + +If cards had not a little relieved me, I should have died of meer +vexation before I had finished half the voyage. + +What would I not give to see the dear white cliffs of Albion! + +Adieu! I have not time to say more. + + Your affectionate + A. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 175. + + +To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall. + +Dover, Sept. 8. + +We are this instant landed, my dear, and shall be in town to-morrow. + +My father stops one day on the road, to introduce Mr. Fitzgerald to +a relation of ours, who lives a few miles from Canterbury. + +I am wild with joy at setting foot once more on dry land. + +I am not less happy to have traced your brother and Emily, by my +enquiries here, for we left Quebec too soon to have advice there of +their arrival. + +Adieu! If in town, you shall see us the moment we get there; if in +the country, write immediately, to the care of the agent. + +Let me know where to find Emily, whom I die to see: is she still +Emily Montague? + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + A. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 176. + + +To Mrs. Fitzgerald. + +Temple-house, Sept. 11. + +Your letter, my dear Bell, was sent by this post to the country. + +It is unnecessary to tell you the pleasure it gives us all to hear +of your safe arrival. + +All our argosies have now landed their treasures: you will believe +us to have been more anxious about friends so dear to us, than the +merchant for his gold and spices; we have suffered the greater +anxiety, by the circumstance of your having returned at different +times. + +I flatter myself, the future will pay us for the past. + +You may now, my dear Bell, revive your coterie, with the addition of +some friends who love you very sincerely. + +Emily (still Emily Montague) is with a relation in Berkshire, +settling some affairs previous to her marriage with my brother, to +which we flatter ourselves there will be no further objections. + +I assure you, I begin to be a little jealous of this Emily of yours; +she rivals me extremely with my mother, and indeed with every body +else. + +We all come to town next week, when you will make us very unhappy if +you do not become one of our family in Pall Mall, and return with us +for a few months to the country. + +My brother is at his little estate, six miles from hence, where he +is making some alterations, for the reception of Emily; he is fitting +up her apartment in a style equally simple and elegant, which, however, +you must not tell her, because she is to be surprized: her dressing +room, and a little adjoining closet of books, will be enchanting; yet +the expence of all he has done is a mere trifle. + +I am the only person in the secret; and have been with him this +morning to see it: there is a gay, smiling air in the whole apartment, +which pleases me infinitely; you will suppose he does not forget jars +of flowers, because you know how much they are Emily's taste: he has +forgot no ornament which he knew was agreable to her. + +Happily for his fortune, her pleasures are not of the expensive +kind; he would ruin himself if they were. + +He has bespoke a very handsome post chaise, which is also a secret +to Emily, who insists on not having one. + +Their income will be about five hundred pounds a year: it is not +much; yet, with their dispositions, I think it will make them happy. + +My brother will write to Mr. Fitzgerald next post: say every thing +affectionate for us all to him and Captain Fermor. + + Adieu! Yours, + Lucy Temple. + + + +LETTER 177. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Sept. 13. + +I congratulate you, my dear friend, on your safe arrival, and on +your marriage. + +You have got the start of me in happiness; I love you, however, too +sincerely to envy you. + +Emily has promised me her hand, as soon as some little family +affairs are settled, which I flatter myself will not take above another +week. + +When she gave me this promise, she begged me to allow her to return +to Berkshire till our marriage took place; I felt the propriety of +this step, and therefore would not oppose it: she pleaded having some +business also to settle with her relation there. + +My mother has given back the deed of settlement of my estate, and +accepted of an assignment on my half pay: she is greatly a loser; but +she insisted on making me happy, with such an air of tenderness, that I +could not deny her that satisfaction. + +I shall keep some land in my own hands, and farm; which will enable +me to have a post chaise for Emily, and my mother, who will be a good +deal with us; and a constant decent table for a friend. + +Emily is to superintend the dairy and garden; she has a passion for +flowers, with which I am extremely pleased, as it will be to her a +continual source of pleasure. + +I feel such delight in the idea of making her happy, that I think +nothing a trifle which can be in the least degree pleasing to her. + +I could even wish to invent new pleasures for her gratification. + +I hope to be happy; and to make the loveliest of womankind so, +because my notions of the state, into which I am entering, are I hope +just, and free from that romantic turn so destructive to happiness. + +I have, once in my life, had an attachment nearly resembling +marriage, to a widow of rank, with whom I was acquainted abroad; and +with whom I almost secluded myself from the world near a twelvemonth, +when she died of a fever, a stroke I was long before I recovered. + +I loved her with tenderness; but that love, compared to what I feel +for Emily, was as a grain of sand to the globe of earth, or the weight +of a feather to the universe. + +A marriage where not only esteem, but passion is kept awake, is, I +am convinced, the most perfect state of sublunary happiness: but it +requires great care to keep this tender plant alive; especially, I +blush to say it, on our side. + +Women are naturally more constant, education improves this happy +disposition: the husband who has the politeness, the attention, and +delicacy of a lover, will always be beloved. + +The same is generally, but not always, true on the other side: I +have sometimes seen the most amiable, the most delicate of the sex, +fail in keeping the affection of their husbands. + +I am well aware, my friend, that we are not to expect here a life of +continual rapture; in the happiest marriage there is danger of some +languid moments: to avoid these, shall be my study; and I am certain +they are to be avoided. + +The inebriation, the tumult of passion, will undoubtedly grow less +after marriage, that is, after peaceable possession; hopes and fears +alone keep it in its first violent state: but, though it subsides, it +gives place to a tenderness still more pleasing, to a soft, and, if you +will allow the expression, a voluptuous tranquillity: the pleasure does +not cease, does not even lessen; it only changes its nature. + +My sister tells me, she flatters herself, you will give a few months +to hers and Mr. Temple's friendship; I will not give up the claim I +have to the same favor. + +My little farm will induce only friends to visit us; and it is not +less pleasing to me for that circumstance: one of the misfortunes of a +very exalted station, is the slavery it subjects us to in regard to the +ceremonial world. + +Upon the whole, I believe, the most agreable, as well as most free +of all situations, to be that of a little country gentleman, who lives +upon his income, and knows enough of the world not to envy his richer +neighbours. + +Let me hear from you, my dear Fitzgerald, and tell me, if, little as +I am, I can be any way of the least use to you. + +You will see Emily before I do; she is more lovely, more enchanting, +than ever. + +Mrs. Fitzgerald will make me happy if she can invent any commands +for me. + + Adieu! Believe me, + Your faithful, &c. + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 178. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland. + +London, Sept. 15. + +Every mark of your friendship, my dear Rivers, must be particularly +pleasing to one who knows your worth as I do: I have, therefore, to +thank you as well for your letter, as for those obliging offers of +service, which I shall make no scruple of accepting, if I have occasion +for them. + +I rejoice in the prospect of your being as happy as myself: nothing +can be more just than your ideas of marriage; I mean, of a marriage +founded on inclination: all that you describe, I am so happy as to +experience. + +I never loved my sweet girl so tenderly as since she has been mine; +my heart acknowledges the obligation of her having trusted the future +happiness or misery of her life in my hands. She is every hour more +dear to me; I value as I ought those thousand little attentions, by +which a new softness is every moment given to our affection. + +I do not indeed feel the same tumultuous emotion at seeing her; but +I feel a sensation equally delightful: a joy more tranquil, but not +less lively. + +I will own to you, that I had strong prejudices against marriage, +which nothing but love could have conquered; the idea of an +indissoluble union deterred me from thinking of a serious engagement: I +attached myself to the most seducing, most attractive of women, +without thinking the pleasure I found in seeing her of any consequence; +I thought her lovely, but never suspected I loved; I thought the +delight I tasted in hearing her, merely the effects of those charms +which all the world found in her conversation; my vanity was gratified +by the flattering preference she gave me to the rest of my sex; I +fancied this all, and imagined I could cease seeing the little syren +whenever I pleased. + +I was, however, mistaken; love stole upon me imperceptibly, and +_en badinant_; I was enslaved, when I only thought myself amused. + +We have not yet seen Miss Montague; we go down on Friday to +Berkshire, Bell having some letters for her, which she was desired to +deliver herself. + +I will write to you again the moment I have seen her. + +The invitation Mr. and Mrs. Temple have been so obliging as to give +us, is too pleasing to ourselves not to be accepted; we also expect +with impatience the time of visiting you at your farm. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + J. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 179. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Stamford, Sept. 16, Evening. + +Being here on some business, my dear friend, I receive your letter +in time to answer it to-night. + +We hope to be in town this day seven-night; and I flatter myself, +my dearest Emily will not delay my happiness many days longer: I grudge +you the pleasure of seeing her on Friday. + +I triumph greatly in your having been seduced into matrimony, +because I never knew a man more of a turn to make an agreable husband; +it was the idea that occurred to me the first moment I saw you. + +Do you know, my dear Fitzgerald, that, if your little syren had not +anticipated my purpose, I had designs upon you for my sister? + +Through that careless, inattentive look of yours, I saw so much +right sense, and so affectionate a heart, that I wished nothing so much +as that she might have attached you; and had laid a scheme to bring you +acquainted, hoping the rest from the merit so conspicuous in you both. + +Both are, however, so happily disposed of elsewhere, that I have no +reason to regret my scheme did not succeed. + +There is something in your person, as well as manner, which I am +convinced must be particularly pleasing to women; with an extremely +agreable form, you have a certain manly, spirited air, which promises +them a protector; a look of understanding, which is the indication of a +pleasing companion; a sensibility of countenance, which speaks a friend +and a lover; to which I ought to add, an affectionate, constant +attention to women, and a polite indifference to men, which above all +things flatters the vanity of the sex. + +Of all men breathing, I should have been most afraid of you as a +rival; Mrs. Fitzgerald has told me, you have said the same thing of me. + +Happily, however, our tastes were different; the two amiable +objects of our tenderness were perhaps equally lovely; but it is not +the meer form, it is the character that strikes: the fire, the spirit, +the vivacity, the awakened manner, of Miss Fermor won you; whilst my +heart was captivated by that bewitching languor, that seducing +softness, that melting sensibility, in the air of my sweet Emily, which +is, at least to me, more touching than all the sprightliness in the +world. + +There is in true sensibility of soul, such a resistless charm, that +we are even affected by that of which we are not ourselves the object: +we feel a degree of emotion at being witness to the affection which +another inspires. + +'Tis late, and my horses are at the door. + + Adieu! Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 180. + + +To Miss Montague, Rose-hill, Berkshire. + +Temple-house, Sept. 16. + +I have but a moment, my dearest Emily, to tell you heaven favors +your tenderness: it removes every anxiety from two of the worthiest and +most gentle of human hearts. + +You and my brother have both lamented to me the painful necessity +you were under, of reducing my mother to a less income than that to +which she had been accustomed. + +An unexpected event has restored to her more than what her +tenderness for my brother had deprived her of. + +A relation abroad, who owed every thing to her father's friendship, +has sent her, as an acknowledgement of that friendship, a deed of gift, +settling on her four hundred pounds a year for life. + +My brother is at Stamford, and is yet unacquainted with this +agreable event. + +You will hear from him next post. + + Adieu! my dear Emily! + Your affectionate + L. Temple. + + +END OF VOL. III. + + + + +THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE. + + +Vol. IV + + + +LETTER 181. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland. + +Rose-hill, Sept. 17. + +Can you in earnest ask such a question? can you suppose I ever felt +the least degree of love for Sir George? No, my Rivers, never did your +Emily feel tenderness till she saw the loveliest, the most amiable of +his sex, till those eyes spoke the sentiments of a soul every idea of +which was similar to her own. + +Yes, my Rivers, our souls have the most perfect resemblance: I never +heard you speak without finding the feelings of my own heart developed; +your conversation conveyed your Emily's ideas, but cloathed in the +language of angels. + +I thought well of Sir George; I saw him as the man destined to be my +husband; I fancied he loved me, and that gratitude obliged me to a +return; carried away by the ardor of my friends for this marriage, I +rather suffered than approved his addresses; I had not courage to +resist the torrent, I therefore gave way to it; I loved no other, I +fancied my want of affection a native coldness of temper. I felt a +languid esteem, which I endeavored to flatter myself was love; but the +moment I saw you, the delusion vanished. + +Your eyes, my Rivers, in one moment convinced me I had a heart; you +staid some weeks with us in the country: with what transport do I +recollect those pleasing moments! how did my heart beat whenever you +approached me! what charms did I find in your conversation! I heard you +talk with a delight of which I was not mistress. I fancied every woman +who saw you felt the same emotions: my tenderness increased +imperceptibly without my perceiving the consequences of my indulging +the dear pleasure of seeing you. + +I found I loved, yet was doubtful of your sentiments; my heart, +however, flattered me yours was equally affected; my situation +prevented an explanation; but love has a thousand ways of making +himself understood. + +How dear to me were those soft, those delicate attentions, which +told me all you felt for me, without communicating it to others! + +Do you remember that day, my Rivers, when, sitting in the little +hawthorn grove, near the borders of the river, the rest of the company, +of which Sir George was one, ran to look at a ship that was passing: I +would have followed; you asked me to stay, by a look which it was +impossible to mistake; nothing could be more imprudent than my stay, +yet I had not resolution to refuse what I saw gave you pleasure: I +stayed; you pressed my hand, you regarded me with a look of unutterable +love. + +My Rivers, from that dear moment your Emily vowed never to be +another's: she vowed not to sacrifice all the happiness of her life to +a romantic parade of fidelity to a man whom she had been betrayed into +receiving as a lover; she resolved, if necessary, to own to him the +tenderness with which you had inspired her, to entreat from his esteem, +from his compassion, a release from engagements which made her +wretched. + +My heart burns with the love of virtue, I am tremblingly alive to +fame: what bitterness then must have been my portion had I first seen +you when the wife of another! + +Such is the powerful sympathy that unites us, that I fear, that +virtue, that strong sense of honor and fame, so powerful in minds most +turned to tenderness, would only have served to make more poignant the +pangs of hopeless, despairing love. + +How blest am I, that we met before my situation made it a crime to +love you! I shudder at the idea how wretched I might have been, had I +seen you a few months later. + +I am just returned from a visit at a few miles distance. I find a +letter from my dear Bell, that she will be here to-morrow; how do I +long to see her, to talk to her of my Rivers! + +I am interrupted. + + Adieu! Yours, + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 182. + + +To Mrs. Temple. + +Rose-hill, Sept. 18, Morning. + +I have this moment, my dear Mrs. Temple's letter: she will imagine +my transport at the happy event she mentions; my dear Rivers has, in +some degree, sacrificed even filial affection to his tenderness for me; +the consciousness of this has ever cast a damp on the pleasure I should +otherwise have felt, at the prospect of spending my life with the most +excellent of mankind: I shall now be his, without the painful +reflection of having lessened the enjoyments of the best parent that +ever existed. + +I should be blest indeed, my amiable friend, if I did not suffer +from my too anxious tenderness; I dread the possibility of my becoming +in time less dear to your brother; I love him to such excess that I +could not survive the loss of his affection. + +There is no distress, no want, I could not bear with delight for +him; but if I lose his heart, I lose all for which life is worth +keeping. + +Could I bear to see those looks of ardent love converted into the +cold glances of indifference! + +You will, my dearest friend, pity a heart, whose too great +sensibility wounds itself: why should I fear? was ever tenderness equal +to that of my Rivers? can a heart like his change from caprice? It +shall be the business of my life to merit his tenderness. + +I will not give way to fears which injure him, and, indulged, would +destroy all my happiness. + +I expect Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald every moment. Adieu! + + Your affectionate + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 183. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Sept. 17. + +You say true, my dear Fitzgerald: friendship, like love, is more the +child of sympathy than of reason; though inspired by qualities very +opposite to those which give love, it strikes like that in a moment: +like that, it is free as air, and, when constrained, loses all its +spirit. + +In both, from some nameless cause, at least some cause to us +incomprehensible, the affections take fire the instant two persons, +whose minds are in unison, observe each other, which, however, they may +often meet without doing. + +It is therefore as impossible for others to point out objects of our +friendship as love; our choice must be uninfluenced, if we wish to find +happiness in either. + +Cold, lifeless esteem may grow from a long tasteless acquaintance; +but real affection makes a sudden and lively impression. + +This impression is improved, is strengthened by time, and a more +intimate knowledge of the merit of the person who makes it; but it is, +it must be, spontaneous, or be nothing. + +I felt this sympathy powerfully in regard to yourself; I had the +strongest partiality for you before I knew how very worthy you were of +my esteem. + +Your countenance and manner made an impression on me, which inclined +me to take your virtues upon trust. + +It is not always safe to depend on these preventive feelings; but in +general the face is a pretty faithful index of the mind. + +I propose being in town in four or five days. + +Twelve o'clock. + +My mother has this moment a second letter from her relation, who is +coming home, and proposes a marriage between me and his daughter, to +whom he will give twenty thousand pounds now, and the rest of his +fortune at his death. + +As Emily's fault, if love can allow her one, is an excess of +romantic generosity, the fault of most uncorrupted female minds, I am +very anxious to marry her before she knows of this proposal, lest she +should think it a proof of tenderness to aim at making me wretched, in +order to make me rich. + +I therefore entreat you and Mrs. Fitzgerald to stay at Rose-hill, +and prevent her coming to town, till she is mine past the power of +retreat. + +Our relation may have mentioned his design to persons less prudent +than our little party; and she may hear of it, if she is in London. + +But, independently of my fear of her spirit of romance, I feel that +it would be an indelicacy to let her know of this proposal at present, +and look like attempting to make a merit of my refusal. + +It is not to you, my dear friend, I need say the gifts of fortune +are nothing to me without her for whose sake alone I wish to possess +them: you know my heart, and you also know this is the sentiment of +every man who loves. + +But I can with truth say much more; I do not even wish an increase +of fortune, considering it abstractedly from its being incompatible +with my marriage with the loveliest of women; I am indifferent to all +but independence; wealth would not make me happier; on the contrary, it +might break in on my present little plan of enjoyment, by forcing me to +give to common acquaintance, of whom wealth will always attract a +crowd, those precious hours devoted to friendship and domestic +pleasure. + +I think my present income just what a wise man would wish, and very +sincerely join in the philosophical prayer of the royal prophet, "Give +me neither poverty nor riches." + +I love the vale, and had always an aversion to very extensive +prospects. + +I will hasten my coming as much as possible, and hope to be at +Rose-hill on Monday next: I shall be a prey to anxiety till Emily is +irrevocably mine. + +Tell Mrs. Fitzgerald, I am all impatience to kiss her hand. + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 184. + + +To Captain Fermor. + +Richmond, Sept. 18. + +I am this moment returned to Richmond from a journey: I am rejoiced +at your arrival, and impatient to see you; for I am so happy as not to +have out-lived my impatience. + +How is my little Bell? I am as much in love with her as ever; this +you will conceal from Captain Fitzgerald, lest he should be alarmed, +for I am as formidable a rival as a man of fourscore can be supposed to +be. + +I am extremely obliged to you, my dear Fermor, for having introduced +me to a very amiable man, in your friend Colonel Rivers. + +I begin to be so sensible I am an old fellow, that I feel a very +lively degree of gratitude to the young ones who visit me; and look on +every agreable new acquaintance under thirty as an acquisition I had no +right to expect. + +You know I have always thought personal advantages of much more real +value than accidental ones; and that those who possessed the former had +much the greatest right to be proud. + +Youth, health, beauty, understanding, are substantial goods; wealth +and title comparatively ideal ones; I therefore think a young man who +condescends to visit an old one, the healthy who visit the sick, the +man of sense who spends his time with a fool, and even a handsome +fellow with an ugly one, are the persons who confer the favor, +whatever difference there may be in rank or fortune. + +Colonel Rivers did me the honor to spend a day with me here, and I +have not often lately passed a pleasanter one: the desire I had not to +discredit your partial recommendation, and my very strong inclinations +to seduce him to come again, made me intirely discard the old man; and +I believe your friend will tell you the hours did not pass on leaden +wings. + +I expect you, with Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald, to pass some time with +me at Richmond. + +I have the best claret in the universe, and as lively a relish for +it as at five and twenty. + + Adieu! Your affectionate + H---- + + + +LETTER 185. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland. + +Rose-hill, Sept. 18. + +Since I sent away my letter, I have your last. + +You tell me, my dear Rivers, the strong emotion I betrayed at seeing +Sir George, when you came together to Montreal, made you fear I loved +him; that you were jealous of the blush which glowed on my cheek, when +he entered the room: that you still remember it with regret; that you +still fancy I had once some degree of tenderness for him, and beg me to +account for the apparent confusion I betrayed at his sight. + +I own that emotion; my confusion was indeed too great to be +concealed: but was he alone, my Rivers? can you forget that he had with +him the most lovely of mankind? + +Sir George was handsome; I have often regarded his person with +admiration, but it was the admiration we give to a statue. + +I listened coldly to his love, I felt no emotion at his sight; but +when you appeared, my heart beat, I blushed, I turned pale by turns, my +eyes assumed a new softness, I trembled, and every pulse confessed the +master of my soul. + +My friends are come: I am called down. Adieu! Be assured your Emily +never breathed a sigh but for her Rivers! + + Adieu! Yours, + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 186. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland. + +London, Sept. 18. + +I have this moment your letter; we are setting out in ten minutes +for Rose-hill, where I will finish this, and hope to give you a +pleasing account of your Emily. + +You are certainly right in keeping this proposal secret at present; +depend on our silence; I could, however, wish you the fortune, were it +possible to have it without the lady. + +Were I to praise your delicacy on this occasion, I should injure +you; it was not in your power to act differently; you are only +consistent with yourself. + +I am pleased with your idea of a situation: a house embosomed in the +grove, where all the view is what the eye can take in, speaks a happy +master, content at home; a wide-extended prospect, one who is looking +abroad for happiness. + +I love the country: the taste for rural scenes is the taste born +with us. After seeking pleasure in vain amongst the works of art, we +are forced to come back to the point from whence we set out, and find +our enjoyment in the lovely simplicity of nature. + +Rose-hill, Evening. + +I am afraid Emily knows your secret; she has been in tears almost +ever since we came; the servant is going to the post-office, and I have +but a moment to tell you we will stay here till your arrival, which +you will hasten as much as possible. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + J. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 187. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland. + +Rose-hill, Sept. 18. + +If I was not certain of your esteem and friendship, my dear Rivers, +I should tremble at the request I am going to make you. + +It is to suspend our marriage for some time, and not ask me the +reason of this delay. + +Be assured of my tenderness; be assured my whole soul is yours, that +you are dearer to me than life, that I love you as never woman loved; +that I live, I breathe but for you; that I would die to make you happy. + +In what words shall I convey to the most beloved of his sex, the +ardent tenderness of my soul? how convince him of what I suffer from +being forced to make a request so contrary to the dictates of my heart? + +He cannot, will not doubt his Emily's affection: I cannot support +the idea that it is possible he should for one instant. What I suffer +at this moment is inexpressible. + +My heart is too much agitated to say more. + +I will write again in a few days. + +I know not what I would say; but indeed, my Rivers, I love you; you +yourself can scarce form an idea to what excess! + + Adieu! Your faithful + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 188. + + +To Miss Montague, Rose-hill, Berkshire. + +Bellfield, Sept. 20. + +No, Emily, you never loved; I have been long hurt by your +tranquillity in regard to our marriage; your too scrupulous attention +to decorum in leaving my sister's house might have alarmed me, if love +had not placed a bandage before my eyes. + +Cruel girl! I repeat it; you never loved; I have your friendship, +but you know nothing of that ardent passion, that dear enthusiasm, +which makes us indifferent to all but itself: your love is from the +imagination, not the heart. + +The very professions of tenderness in your last, are a proof of your +consciousness of indifference; you repeat too often that you love me; +you say too much; that anxiety to persuade me of your affection, shews +too plainly you are sensible I have reason to doubt it. + +You have placed me on the rack; a thousand fears, a thousand doubts, +succeed each other in my soul. Has some happier man-- + +No, my Emily, distracted as I am, I will not be unjust: I do not +suspect you of inconstancy; 'tis of your coldness only I complain: you +never felt the lively impatience of love; or you would not condemn a +man, whom you at least esteem, to suffer longer its unutterable +tortures. + +If there is a real cause for this delay, why conceal it from me? +have I not a right to know what so nearly interests me? but what cause? +are you not mistress of yourself? + +My Emily, you blush to own to me the insensibility of your heart: +you once fancied you loved; you are ashamed to say you were mistaken. + +You cannot surely have been influenced by any motive relative to our +fortune; no idle tale can have made you retract a promise, which +rendered me the happiest of mankind: if I have your heart, I am richer +than an oriental monarch. + +Short as life is, my dearest girl, is it of consequence what part we +play in it? is wealth at all essential to happiness? + +The tender affections are the only sources of true pleasure; the +highest, the most respectable titles, in the eye of reason, are the +tender ones of friend, of husband, and of father: it is from the dear +soft ties of social love your Rivers expects his felicity. + +You have but one way, my dear Emily, to convince me of your +tenderness: I shall set off for Rose-hill in twelve hours; you must +give me your hand the moment I arrive, or confess your Rivers was never +dear to you. + +Write, and send a servant instantly to meet me at my mother's house +in town: I cannot support the torment of suspense. + +There is not on earth so wretched a being as I am at this moment; I +never knew till now to what excess I loved: you must be mine, my Emily, +or I must cease to live. + + + +LETTER 189. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald, Rose-hill, Berkshire. + +Bellfield, Sept. 20. + +All I feared has certainly happened; Emily has undoubtedly heard of +this proposal, and, from a parade of generosity, a generosity however +inconsistent with love, wishes to postpone our marriage till my +relation arrives. + +I am hurt beyond words, at the manner in which she has wrote to me +on this subject; I have, in regard to Sir George, experienced that +these are not the sentiments of a heart truly enamored. + +I therefore fear this romantic step is the effect of a coldness of +which I thought her incapable; and that her affection is only a more +lively degree of friendship, with which, I will own to you, my heart +will not be satisfied. + +I would engross, I would employ, I would absorb, every faculty of +that lovely mind. + +I have too long suffered prudence to delay my happiness: I cannot +longer live without her: if she loves me, I shall on Tuesday call her +mine. + +Adieu! I shall be with you almost as soon as this letter. + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 190. + + +To Colonel Rivers, Clarges Street. + +Rose-hill, Sept. 21. + +Is it then possible? can my Rivers doubt his Emily's tenderness? + +Do I only esteem you, my Rivers? can my eyes have so ill explained +the feelings of my heart? + +You accuse me of not sharing your impatience: do you then allow +nothing to the modesty, the blushing delicacy, of my sex? + +Could you see into my soul, you would cease to call me cold and +insensible. + +Can you forget, my Rivers, those moments, when, doubtful of the +sentiments of your heart, mine every instant betrayed its weakness? +when every look spoke the resistless fondness of my soul! when, lost in +the delight of seeing you, I forgot I was almost the wife of another? + +But I will say no more; my Rivers tells me I have already said too +much: he is displeased with his Emily's tenderness; he complains, that +I tell him too often I love him. + +You say I can give but one certain proof of my affection. + +I will give you that proof: I will be yours whenever you please, +though ruin should be the consequence to both; I despise every other +consideration, when my Rivers's happiness is at stake: is there any +request he is capable of making, which his Emily will refuse? + +You are the arbiter of my fate: I have no will but yours; yet I +entreat you to believe no common cause could have made me hazard giving +a moment's pain to that dear bosom: you will one time know to what +excess I have loved you. + +Were the empire of the world or your affection offered me, I should +not hesitate one moment on the choice, even were I certain never to see +you more. + +I cannot form an idea of happiness equal to that of being beloved by +the most amiable of mankind. + +Judge then, if I would lightly wish to defer an event, which is to +give me the transport of passing my life in the dear employment of +making him happy. + +I only entreat that you will decline asking me, till I judge proper +to tell you, why I first begged our marriage might be deferred: let it +be till then forgot I ever made such a request. + +You will not, my dear Rivers, refuse this proof of complaisance to +her who too plainly shews she can refuse you nothing. + + Adieu! Yours, + Emily Montague. + + + +LETTER 191. + + +To Miss Montague, Rose-hill, Berkshire. + +Clarges Street, Sept. 21, Two o'clock. + +Can you, my angel, forgive my insolent impatience, and attribute it +to the true cause, excess of love? + +Could I be such a monster as to blame my sweet Emily's dear +expressions of tenderness? I hate myself for being capable of writing +such a letter. + +Be assured, I will strictly comply with all she desires: what +condition is there on which I would not make the loveliest of women +mine? + +I will follow the servant in two hours; I shall be at Rose-hill by +eight o'clock. + + Adieu! my dearest Emily! + Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 192. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Temple-house, Rutland. + +Sept. 21, Nine at night. + +The loveliest of women has consented to make me happy: she +remonstrated, she doubted; but her tenderness conquered all her +reluctance. To-morrow I shall call her mine. + +We shall set out immediately for your house, where we hope to be the +next day to dinner: you will therefore postpone your journey to town a +week, at the end of which we intend going to Bellfield. Captain Fermor +and Mrs. Fitzgerald accompany us down. Emily's relation, Mrs. H----, has +business which prevents her; and Fitzgerald is obliged to stay another +month in town, to transact the affair of his majority. + +Never did Emily look so lovely as this evening: there is a sweet +confusion, mixed with tenderness, in her whole look and manner, which +is charming beyond all expression. + +Adieu! I have not a moment to spare: even this absence from her is +treason to love. Say every thing for me to my mother and Lucy. + + Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 193. + + +To John Temple, Esq. Temple-house, Rutland. + +Rose-hill, Sept. 22, Ten o'clock. + +She is mine, my dear Temple; and I am happy almost above mortality. + +I cannot paint to you her loveliness; the grace, the dignity, the +mild majesty of her air, is softened by a smile like that of angels: +her eyes have a tender sweetness, her cheeks a blush of refined +affection, which must be seen to be imagined. + +I envy Captain Fermor the happiness of being in the same chaise with +her; I shall be very bad company to Bell, who insists on my being her +cecisbeo for the journey. + +Adieu! The chaises are at the door. + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 194. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Temple-house, Sept. 29. + +I regret your not being with us, more than I can express. + +I would have every friend I love a witness of my happiness. + +I thought my tenderness for Emily as great as man could feel, yet +find it every moment increase; every moment she is more dear to my +soul. + +The angel delicacy of that lovely mind is inconceivable; had she no +other charm, I should adore her: what a lustre does modesty throw round +beauty! + +We remove to-morrow to Bellfield: I am impatient to see my sweet +girl in her little empire: I am tired of the continual crowd in which +we live at Temple's: I would not pass the life he does for all his +fortune; I sigh for the power of spending my time as I please, for the +dear shades of retirement and friendship. + +How little do mankind know their own happiness! every pleasure worth +a wish is in the power of almost all mankind. + +Blind to true joy, ever engaged in a wild pursuit of what is always +in our power, anxious for that wealth which we falsely imagine +necessary to our enjoyments, we suffer our best hours to pass +tastelessly away; we neglect the pleasures which are suited to our +natures; and, intent on ideal schemes of establishments at which we +never arrive, let the dear hours of social delight escape us. + +Hasten to us, my dear Fitzgerald: we want only you, to fill our +little circle of friends. + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 195. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Oct. 3. + +What delight is there in obliging those we love! + +My heart dilated with joy at seeing Emily pleased with the little +embellishments of her apartment, which I had made as gay and smiling +as the morn; it looked, indeed, as if the hand of love had adorned it: +she has a dressing room and closet of books, into which I shall never +intrude: there is a pleasure in having some place which we can say is +peculiarly our own, some _sanctum sanctorum_, whither we can +retire even from those most dear to us. + +This is a pleasure in which I have been indulged almost from +infancy, and therefore one of the first I thought of procuring for my +sweet Emily. + +I told her I should, however, sometimes expect to be amongst her +guests in this little retirement. + +Her look, her tender smile, the speaking glance of grateful love, +gave me a transport, which only minds turned to affection can conceive. +I never, my dear Fitzgerald, was happy before: the attachment I once +mentioned was pleasing; but I felt a regret, at knowing the object of +my tenderness had forfeited the good opinion of the world, which +embittered all my happiness. + +She possessed my esteem, because I knew her heart; but I wanted to +see her esteemed by others. + +With Emily I enjoy this pleasure in its utmost extent: she is the +adoration of all who see her; she is equally admired, esteemed, +respected. + +She seems to value the admiration she excites, only as it appears to +gratify the pride of her lover; what transport, when all eyes are fixed +on her, to see her searching around for mine, and attentive to no other +object, as if insensible to all other approbation! + +I enjoy the pleasures of friendship as well as those of love: were +you here, my dear Fitzgerald, we should be the happiest groupe on the +globe; but all Bell's sprightliness cannot preserve her from an air of +chagrin in your absence. + +Come as soon as possible, my dear friend, and leave us nothing to +wish for. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 196. + + +To Colonel Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland. + +London, Oct. 8. + +You are very cruel, my dear Rivers, to tantalize me with your +pictures of happiness. + +Notwithstanding this spite, I am sorry I must break in on your +groupe of friends; but it is absolutely necessary for Bell and my +father to return immediately to town, in order to settle some family +business, previous to my purchase of the majority. + +Indeed, I am not very fond of letting Bell stay long amongst you; +for she gives me such an account of your attention and complaisance to +Mrs. Rivers, that I am afraid she will think me a careless fellow when +we meet again. + +You seem in the high road, not only to spoil your own wife, but mine +too; which it is certainly my affair to prevent. + +Say every thing for me to the ladies of your family. + + Adieu! Your affectionate + J. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 197. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Oct. 10. + +You are a malicious fellow, Fitzgerald, and I am half inclined to +keep the sweet Bell by force; take all the men away if you please, but +I cannot bear the loss of a woman, especially of such a woman. + +If I was not more a lover than a husband, I am not sure I should not +wish to take my revenge. + +To make me happy, you must place me in a circle of females, all as +pleasing as those now with me, and turn every male creature out of the +house. + +I am a most intolerable monopolizer of the sex; in short, I have +very little relish for any conversation but theirs: I love their sweet +prattle beyond all the sense and learning in the world. + +Not that I would insinuate they have less understanding than we, or +are less capable of learning, or even that it less becomes them. + +On the contrary, all such knowledge as tends to adorn and soften +human life and manners, is, in my opinion, peculiarly becoming in +women. + +You don't deserve a longer letter. + + Adieu! Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 198. + + +To Mrs. Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Oct. 12. + +I am very conscious, my dear Bell, of not meriting the praises my +Rivers lavishes on me, yet the pleasure I receive from them is not the +less lively for that consideration; on the contrary, the less I deserve +these praises, the more flattering they are to me, as the stronger +proofs of his love; of that love which gives ideal charms, which +adorns, which embellishes its object. + +I had rather be lovely in his eyes, than in those of all mankind; +or, to speak more exactly, if I continue to please him, the admiration +of all the world is indifferent to me: it is for his sake alone I wish +for beauty, to justify the dear preference he has given me. + +How pleasing are these sweet shades! were they less so, my Rivers's +presence would give them every charm: every object has appeared to me +more lovely since the dear moment when I first saw him; I seem to have +acquired a new existence from his tenderness. + +You say true, my dear Bell: heaven doubtless formed us to be happy, +even in this world; and we obey its dictates in being so, when we can +without encroaching on the happiness of others. + +This lesson is, I think, plain from the book providence has spread +before us: the whole universe smiles, the earth is clothed in lively +colors, the animals are playful, the birds sing: in being chearful with +innocence, we seem to conform to the order of nature, and the will of +that beneficent Power to whom we owe our being. + +If the Supreme Creator had meant us to be gloomy, he would, it seems +to me, have clothed the earth in black, not in that lively green, which +is the livery of chearfulness and joy. + +I am called away. + + Adieu! my dearest Bell. + Your faithful + Emily Rivers. + + + +LETTER 199. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Oct. 14. + +You flatter me most agreably, my dear Fitzgerald, by praising Emily; +I want you to see her again; she is every hour more charming: I am +astonished any man can behold her without love. + +Yet, lovely as she is, her beauty is her least merit; the finest +understanding, the most pleasing kind of knowledge; tenderness, +sensibility, modesty, and truth, adorn her almost with rays of +divinity. + +She has, beyond all I ever saw in either sex, the polish of the +world, without having lost that sweet simplicity of manner, that +unaffected innocence, and integrity of heart, which are so very apt to +evaporate in a crowd. + +I ride out often alone, in order to have the pleasure of returning +to her: these little absences give new spirit to our tenderness. Every +care forsakes me at the sight of this temple of real love; my sweet +Emily meets me with smiles; her eyes brighten when I approach; she +receives my friends with the most lively pleasure, because they are my +friends; I almost envy them her attention, though given for my sake. + +Elegant in her dress and house, she is all transport when any little +ornament of either pleases me; but what charms me most, is her +tenderness for my mother, in whose heart she rivals both me and Lucy. + +My happiness, my friend, is beyond every idea I had formed; were I a +little richer, I should not have a wish remaining. Do not, however, +imagine this wish takes from my felicity. + +I have enough for myself, I have even enough for Emily; love makes +us indifferent to the parade of life. + +But I have not enough to entertain my friends as I wish, nor to +enjoy the god-like pleasure of beneficence. + +We shall be obliged, in order to support the little appearance +necessary to our connexions, to give an attention rather too strict to +our affairs; even this, however, our affection for each other will make +easy to us. + +My whole soul is so taken up with this charming woman, I am afraid I +shall become tedious even to you; I must learn to restrain my +tenderness, and write on common subjects. + +I am more and more pleased with the way of life I have chose; and, +were my fortune ever so large, would pass the greatest part of the year +in the country: I would only enlarge my house, and fill it with +friends. + +My situation is a very fine one, though not like the magnificent +scenes to which we have been accustomed in Canada: the house stands on +the sunny side of a hill, at the foot of which, the garden intervening, +runs a little trout stream, which to the right seems to be lost in an +island of oziers, and over which is a rustic bridge into a very +beautiful meadow, where at present graze a numerous flock of sheep. + +Emily is planning a thousand embellishments for the garden, and will +next year make it a wilderness of sweets, a paradise worthy its lovely +inhabitant: she is already forming walks and flowery arbors in the +wood, and giving the whole scene every charm which taste, at little +expence, can bestow. + +I, on my side, am selecting spots for plantations of trees; and +mean, like a good citizen, to serve at once myself and the public, by +raising oaks, which may hereafter bear the British thunder to distant +lands. + +I believe we country gentlemen, whilst we have spirit to keep +ourselves independent, are the best citizens, as well as subjects, in +the world. + +Happy ourselves, we wish not to destroy the tranquillity of others; +intent on cares equally useful and pleasing, with no views but to +improve our fortunes by means equally profitable to ourselves and to +our country, we form no schemes of dishonest ambition; and therefore +disturb no government to serve our private designs. + +It is the profuse, the vicious, the profligate, the needy, who are +the Clodios and Catilines of this world. + +That love of order, of moral harmony, so natural to virtuous minds, +to minds at ease, is the strongest tie of rational obedience. + +The man who feels himself prosperous and happy, will not easily be +perswaded by factious declamation that he is undone. + +Convinced of the excellency of our constitution, in which liberty +and prerogative are balanced with the steadiest hand, he will not +endeavor to remove the boundaries which secure both: he will not +endeavor to root it up, whilst he is pretending to give it +nourishment: he will not strive to cut down the lovely and venerable +tree under whose shade he enjoys security and peace. + +In short, and I am sure you will here be of my opinion, the man who +has competence, virtue, true liberty, and the woman he loves, will +chearfully obey the laws which secure him these blessings, and the +prince under whose mild sway he enjoys them. + + Adieu! + Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 200. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Oct. 17. + +I every hour see more strongly, my dear Fitzgerald, the wisdom, as +to our own happiness, of not letting our hearts be worn out by a +multitude of intrigues before marriage. + +Temple loves my sister, he is happy with her; but his happiness is +by no means of the same kind with yours and mine; she is beautiful, and +he thinks her so; she is amiable, and he esteems her; he prefers her to +all other women, but he feels nothing of that trembling delicacy of +sentiment, that quick sensibility, which gives to love its most +exquisite pleasures, and which I would not give up for the wealth of +worlds. + +His affection is meer passion, and therefore subject to change; ours +is that heartfelt tenderness, which time renders every moment more +pleasing. + +The tumult of desire is the fever of the soul; its health, that +delicious tranquillity where the heart is gently moved, not violently +agitated; that tranquillity which is only to be found where friendship +is the basis of love, and where we are happy without injuring the +object beloved: in other words, in a marriage of choice. + +In the voyage of life, passion is the tempest, love the gentle gale. + +Dissipation, and a continued round of amusements at home, will +probably secure my sister all of Temple's heart which remains; but his +love would grow languid in that state of retirement, which would have a +thousand charms for minds like ours. + +I will own to you, I have fears for Lucy's happiness. + +But let us drop so painful a subject. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 201. + + +To Colonel Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland. + +Oct. 19. + +Nothing, my dear Rivers, shews the value of friendship more than the +envy it excites. + +The world will sooner pardon us any advantage, even wealth, genius, +or beauty, than that of having a faithful friend; every selfish bosom +swells with envy at the sight of those social connexions, which are the +cordials of life, and of which our narrow prejudices alone prevent our +enjoyment. + +Those who have neither hearts to feel this generous affection, nor +merit to deserve it, hate all who are in this respect happier than +themselves; they look on a friend as an invaluable blessing, and a +blessing out of their reach; and abhor all who possess the treasure for +which they sigh in vain. + +For my own part, I had rather be the dupe of a thousand false +professions of friendship, than, for fear of being deceived, give up +the pursuit. + +Dupes are happy at least for a time; but the cold, narrow, +suspicious heart never knows the glow of social pleasure. + +In the same proportion as we lose our confidence in the virtues of +others, we lose our proper happiness. + +The observation of this mean jealousy, so humiliating to human +nature, has influenced Lord Halifax, in his Advice to a Daughter, the +school of art, prudery, and selfish morals, to caution her against all +friendships, or, as he calls them, _dearnesses_, as what will make +the world envy and hate her. + +After my sweet Bell's tenderness, I know no pleasure equal to your +friendship; nor would I give it up for the revenue of an eastern +monarch. + +I esteem Temple, I love his conversation; he is gay and amusing; +but I shall never have for him the affection I feel for you. + +I think you are too apprehensive in regard to your sister's +happiness: he loves her, and there is a certain variety in her manner, +a kind of agreable caprice, that I think will secure the heart of a man +of his turn, much more than her merit, or even the loveliness of her +person. + +She is handsome, exquisitely so; handsomer than Bell, and, if you +will allow me to say so, than Emily. + +I mean, that she is so in the eye of a painter; for in that of a +lover his mistress is the only beautiful object on earth. + +I allow your sister to be very lovely, but I think Bell more +desirable a thousand times; and, rationally speaking, she who has, +_as to me_, the art of inspiring the most tenderness is, _as to me_, +to all intents and purposes the most beautiful woman. + +In which faith I chuse to live and die. + +I have an idea, Rivers, that you and I shall continue to be happy: a +real sympathy, a lively taste, mixed with esteem, led us to marry; the +delicacy, tenderness, and virtue, of the two most charming of women, +promise to keep our love alive. + +We have both strong affections: both love the conversation of women; +and neither of our hearts are depraved by ill-chosen connexions with the +sex. + +I am broke in upon, and must bid you adieu! + + Your affectionate + J. Fitzgerald. + +Bell is writing to you. I shall be jealous. + + + +LETTER 202. + + +To Colonel Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland. + +London, Oct. 19. + +I die to come to Bellfield again, my dear Rivers; I have a passion +for your little wood; it is a mighty pretty wood for an English wood, +but nothing to your Montmorencis; the dear little Silleri too-- + +But to return to the shades of Bellfield: your little wood is +charming indeed; not to particularize detached pieces of your scenery, +the _tout ensemble_ is very inviting; observe, however, I have no +notion of paradise without an Adam, and therefore shall bring +Fitzgerald with me next time. + +What could induce you, with this sweet little retreat, to cross that +vile ocean to Canada? I am astonished at the madness of mankind, who +can expose themselves to pain, misery, and danger; and range the world +from motives of avarice and ambition, when the rural cot, the fanning +gale, the clear stream, and flowery bank, offer such delicious +enjoyments at home. + +You men are horrid, rapacious animals, with your spirit of +enterprize, and your nonsense: ever wanting more land than you can +cultivate, and more money than you can spend. + +That eternal pursuit of gain, that rage of accumulation, in which +you are educated, corrupts your hearts, and robs you of half the +pleasures of life. + +I should not, however, make so free with the sex, if you and my +_caro sposo_ were not exceptions. + +You two have really something of the sensibility and generosity of +women. + +Do you know, Rivers, I have a fancy you and Fitzgerald will always +be happy husbands? this is something owing to yourselves, and something +to us; you have both that manly tenderness, and true generosity, which +inclines you to love creatures who have paid you the compliment of +making their happiness or misery depend entirely on you, and partly to +the little circumstance of your being married to two of the most +agreable women breathing. + +To speak _en philosophe_, my dear Rivers, you are not to be +told, that the fire of love, like any other fire, is equally put out +by too much or too little fuel. + +Now Emily and I, without vanity, besides our being handsome and +amazingly sensible, to say nothing of our pleasing kind of sensibility, +have a certain just idea of causes and effects, with a natural blushing +reserve, and bridal delicacy, which I am apt to flatter myself-- + +Do you understand me, Rivers? I am not quite clear I understand +myself. + +All that I would insinuate is, that Emily and I are, take us for all +in all, the two most charming women in the world, and that, whoever +leaves us, must change immensely for the worse. + +I believe Lucy equally pleasing, but I think her charms have not so +good a subject to work upon. + +Temple is a handsome fellow, and loves her; but he has not the +tenderness of heart that I so much admire in two certain youths of my +acquaintance. + +He is rich indeed; but who cares? + +Certainly, my dear Rivers, nothing can be more absurd, or more +destructive to happiness, than the very wrong turn we give our +children's imaginations about marriage. + +If miss and master are good, she is promised a rich husband, and a +coach and six, and he a wife with a monstrous great fortune. + +Most of these fine promises must fail; and where they do not, the +poor things have only the consolation of finding, when too late to +retreat, that the objects to which all their wishes were pointed have +really nothing to do with happiness. + +Is there a nabobess on earth half as happy as the two foolish little +girls about whom I have been writing, though married to such poor +devils as you and Fitzgerald? _Certainement_ no. + +And so ends my sermon. + + Adieu! + Your most obedient, + A. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 203. + + +To John Temple, Esq; Temple-house, Rutland. + +Bellfield, Oct. 21. + +You ridicule my enthusiasm, my dear Temple, without considering +there is no exertion of the human mind, no effort of the understanding, +imagination, or heart, without a spark of this divine fire. + +Without enthusiasm, genius, virtue, pleasure, even love itself, +languishes; all that refines, adorns, softens, exalts, ennobles life, +has its source in this animating principle. + +I glory in being an enthusiast in every thing; but in nothing so +much as in my tenderness for this charming woman. + +I am a perfect Quixote in love, and would storm enchanted castles, +and fight giants, for my Emily. + +Coldness of temper damps every spring that moves the human heart; it +is equally an enemy to pleasure, riches, fame, to all which is worth +living for. + +I thank you for your wishes that I was rich, but am by no means +anxious myself on the subject. + +You sons of fortune, who possess your thousands a year, and find +them too little for your desires, desires which grow from that very +abundance, imagine every man miserable who wants them; in which you are +greatly mistaken. + +Every real pleasure is within the reach of my little fortune, and I +am very indifferent about those which borrow their charms, not from +nature, but from fashion and caprice. + +My house is indeed less than yours; but it is finely situated, and +large enough for my fortune: that part of it which belongs peculiarly +to my Emily is elegant. + +I have an equipage, not for parade but use; and the loveliest of +women prefers it with me to all that luxury and magnificence could +bestow with another. + +The flowers in my garden bloom as fair, the peach glows as deep, as +in yours: does a flower blush more lovely, or smell more sweet; a peach +look more tempting than its fellows, I select it for my Emily, who +receives it with delight, as the tender tribute of love. + +In some respects, we are the more happy for being less rich: the +little avocations, which our mediocrity of fortune makes necessary to +both, are the best preventives of that languor, from being too +constantly together, which is all that love founded on taste and +friendship has to fear. + +Had I my choice, I should wish for a very small addition only to my +income, and that for the sake of others, not myself. + +I love pleasure, and think it our duty to make life as agreable as +is consistent with what we owe to others; but a true pleasurable +philosopher seeks his enjoyments where they are really to be found; not +in the gratifications of a childish pride, but of those affections +which are born with us, and which are the only rational sources of +enjoyment. + +When I am walking in these delicious shades with Emily; when I see +those lovely eyes, softened with artless fondness, and hear the music +of that voice; when a thousand trifles, unobserved but by the prying +sight of love, betray all the dear sensations of that bosom, where +truth and delicate tenderness have fixed their seat, I know not the +Epicurean of whom I do not deserve to be the envy. + +Does your fortune, my dear Temple, make you more than happy? if not, +why so very earnestly wish an addition to mine? believe me, there is +nothing about which I am more indifferent. I am ten times more anxious +to get the finest collection of flowers in the world for my Emily. + +You observe justly, that there is nothing so insipid as women who +have conversed with women only; let me add, nor so brutal as men who +have lived only amongst men. + +The desire of pleasing on each side, in an intercourse enlivened by +taste, and governed by delicacy and honor, calls forth all the graces +of the person and understanding, all the amiable sentiments of the +heart: it also gives good-breeding, ease, and a certain awakened +manner, which is not to be acquired but in mixed conversation. + +Remember, you and my dear Lucy dine with us to-morrow; it is to be a +little family party, to indulge my mother in the delight of seeing her +children about her, without interruption: I have saved all my best +fruit for this day; we are to drink tea and sup in Emily's apartment. + + Adieu! Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + +I will to-morrow shew you better grapes than any you have at +Temple-house: you rich men fancy nobody has any thing good but +yourselves; but I hope next year to shew you that you are mistaken in a +thousand instances. I will have such roses and jessamines, such bowers +of intermingled sweets--you shall see what astonishing things Emily's +taste and my industry can do. + + + +LETTER 204. + + +To Mrs. Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Oct. 22. + +Finish your business, my dear girl, and let us see you again at +Bellfield. I need not tell you the pleasure Mr. Fitzgerald's +accompanying you will give us. + +I die to see you, my dear Bell; it is not enough to be happy, unless +I have somebody to tell every moment that I am so: I want a confidante +of my tenderness, a friend like my Bell, indulgent to all my follies, +to talk to of the loveliest and most beloved of mankind. I want to tell +you a thousand little instances of that ardent, that refined affection, +which makes all the happiness of my life! I want to paint the +flattering attention, the delicate fondness of that dear lover, who is +only the more so for being a husband. + +You are the only woman on earth to whom I can, without the +appearance of insult, talk of my Rivers, because you are the only one I +ever knew as happy as myself. + +Fitzgerald, in the tenderness and delicacy of his mind, resembles +strongly-- + +I am interrupted: adieu! for a moment. + +It was my Rivers, he brought me a bouquet; I opened the door, +supposing it was my mother; conscious of what I had been writing, I was +confused at seeing him; he smiled, and guessing the reason of my +embarrassment, "I must leave you, Emily; you are writing, and, by your +blushes, I know you have been talking of your lover." + +I should have told you, he insists on never seeing the letters I +write, and gives this reason for it, That he should be a great loser by +seeing them, as it would restrain my pen when I talk of him. + +I believe, I am very foolish in my tenderness; but you will forgive +me. + +Rivers yesterday was throwing flowers at me and Lucy, in play, as we +were walking in the garden; I catched a wallflower, and, by an +involuntary impulse, kissed it, and placed it in my bosom. + +He observed me, and his look of pleasure and affection is impossible +to be described. What exquisite pleasure there is in these agreable +follies! + +He is the sweetest trifler in the world, my dear Bell: but in what +does he not excel all mankind! + +As the season of autumnal flowers is almost over, he is sending for +all those which blow early in the spring: he prevents every wish his +Emily can form. + +Did you ever, my dear, see so fine an autumn as this? you will, +perhaps, smile when I say, I never saw one so pleasing; such a season +is more lovely than even the spring: I want you down before this +agreable weather is all over. + +I am going to air with my mother; my Rivers attends us on horseback; +you cannot think how amiable his attention is to both. + +Adieu! my dear; my mother has sent to let me know she is ready. + + Your affectionate + Emily Rivers. + + + +LETTER 205. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Oct. 24. + +Some author has said, "The happiness of the next world, to the +virtuous, will consist in enjoying the society of minds like their +own." + +Why then should we not do our best to possess as much as possible of +this happiness here? + +You will see this is a preface to a very earnest request to see +Captain Fitzgerald and the lovely Bell immediately at our farm: take +notice, I will not admit even business as an excuse much longer. + +I am just come from a walk in the wood behind the house, with my +mother and Emily; I want you to see it before it loses all its charms; +in another fortnight, its present variegated foliage will be literally +_humbled in the dust_. + +There is something very pleasing in this season, if it did not give +us the idea of the winter, which is approaching too fast. + +The dryness of the air, the soft western breeze, the tremulous +motion of the falling leaves, the rustling of those already fallen +under our feet, their variety of lively colors, give a certain spirit +and agreable fluctuation to the scene, which is unspeakably pleasing. + +By the way, we people of warm imaginations have vast advantages over +others; we scorn to be confined to present scenes, or to give +attention to such trifling objects as times and seasons. + +I already anticipate the spring; see the woodbines and wild roses +bloom in my grove, and almost catch the gale of perfume. + +Twelve o'clock. + +I have this moment received your letter. + +I am sorry for what you tell me of Miss H----; whose want of art has +led her into indiscretions. + +'Tis too common to see the most innocent, nay, even the most +laudable actions censured by the world; as we cannot, however, +eradicate the prejudices of others, it is wisdom to yield to them in +things which are indifferent. + +One ought to conform to, and respect the customs, as well as the +laws and religion of our country, where they are not contrary to +virtue, and to that moral sense which heaven has imprinted on our +souls; where they are contrary, every generous mind will despise them. + +I agree with you, my dear friend, that two persons who love, not +only _seem_, but really are, handsomer to each other than to the +rest of the world. + +When we look at those we ardently love, a new softness steals +unperceived into the eyes, the countenance is more animated, and the +whole form has that air of tender languor which has such charms for +sensible minds. + +To prove the truth of this, my Emily approaches, fair as the rising +morn, led by the hand of the Graces; she sees her lover, and every +charm is redoubled; an involuntary smile, a blush of pleasure, speak a +passion, which is the pride of my soul. + +Even her voice, melodious as it is by nature, is softened when she +addresses her happy Rivers. + +She comes to ask my attendance on her and my mother; they are going +to pay a morning visit a few miles off. + +Adieu! tell the little Bell I kiss her hand. + + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 206. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Three o'clock. + +We are returned, and have met with an adventure, which I must tell +you. + +About six miles from home, at the entrance of a small village, as I +was riding very fast, a little before the chaise, a boy about four +years old, beautiful as a Cupid, came out of a cottage on the +right-hand, and, running cross the road, fell almost under my horse's +feet. + +I threw myself off in a moment; and snatching up the child, who was, +however, unhurt, carried him to the house. + +I was met at the door by a young woman, plainly drest; but of a form +uncommonly elegant: she had seen the child fall, and her terror for him +was plainly marked in her countenance; she received him from me, +pressed him to her bosom, and, without speaking, melted into tears. + +My mother and Emily had by this time reached the cottage; the +humanity of both was too much interested to let them pass: they +alighted, came into the house, and enquired about the child, with an +air of tenderness which was not lost on the young person, whom we +supposed his mother. + +She appeared about two and twenty, was handsome, with an air of the +world, which the plainness of her dress could not hide; her countenance +was pensive, with a mixture of sensibility which instantly prejudiced +us all in her favor; her look seemed to say, she was unhappy, and that +she deserved to be otherwise. + +Her manner was respectful, but easy and unconstrained; polite, +without being servile; and she acknowledged the interest we all seemed +to take in what related to her, in a manner that convinced us she +deserved it. + +Though every thing about us, the extreme neatness, the elegant +simplicity of her house and little garden, her own person, that of the +child, both perfectly genteel, her politeness, her air of the world, in +a cottage like that of the meanest laborer, tended to excite the most +lively curiosity; neither good-breeding, humanity, nor the respect due +to those who appear unfortunate, would allow us to make any enquiries: +we left the place full of this adventure, convinced of the merit, as +well as unhappiness, of its fair inhabitant, and resolved to find out, +if possible, whether her misfortunes were of a kind to be alleviated, +and within our little power to alleviate. + +I will own to you, my dear Fitzgerald, I at that moment felt the +smallness of my fortune: and I believe Emily had the same sensations, +though her delicacy prevented her naming them to me, who have made her +poor. + +We can talk of nothing but the stranger; and Emily is determined to +call on her again to-morrow, on pretence of enquiring after the health +of the child. + +I tremble lest her story, for she certainly has one, should be such +as, however it may entitle her to compassion, may make it impossible +for Emily to shew it in the manner she seems to wish. + + Adieu! + Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 207. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Oct. 24. + +We have been again at the cottage; and are more convinced than +ever, that this amiable girl is not in the station in which she was +born; we staid two hours, and varied the conversation in a manner +which, in spite of her extreme modesty, made it impossible for her to +avoid shewing she had been educated with uncommon care: her style is +correct and elegant; her sentiments noble, yet unaffected; we talked +of books, she said little on the subject; but that little shewed a +taste which astonished us. + +Anxious as we are to know her true situation, in order, if she +merits it, to endeavor to serve her, yet delicacy made it impossible +for us to give the least hint of a curiosity which might make her +suppose we entertained ideas to her prejudice. + +She seemed greatly affected with the humane concern Emily expressed +for the child's danger yesterday, as well as with the polite and even +affectionate manner in which she appeared to interest herself in all +which related to her; Emily made her general offers of service with a +timid kind of softness in her air, which seemed to speak rather a +person asking a favor than wishing to confer an obligation. + +She thanked my sweet Emily with a look of surprize and gratitude to +which it is not easy to do justice; there was, however, an +embarrassment in her countenance at those offers, which a little alarms +me; she absolutely declined coming to Bellfield: I know not what to +think. + +Emily, who has taken a strong prejudice in her favor, will answer +for her conduct with her life; but I will own to you, I am not without +my doubts. + +When I consider the inhuman arts of the abandoned part of one sex, +and the romantic generosity and too unguarded confidence, of the most +amiable of the other; when I reflect that where women love, they love +without reserve; that they fondly imagine the man who is dear to them +possessed of every virtue; that their very integrity of mind prevents +their suspicions; when I think of her present retirement, so +apparently ill suited to her education; when I see her beauty, her +elegance of person, with that tender and melancholy air, so strongly +expressive of the most exquisite sensibility; when, in short, I see the +child, and observe her fondness for him, I have fears for her, which I +cannot conquer. + +I am as firmly convinced as Emily of the goodness of her heart; but +I am not so certain that even that very goodness may not have been, +from an unhappy concurrence of circumstances, her misfortune. + +We have company to dine. + +Adieu! till the evening. + +Ten at night. + +About three hours ago, Emily received the inclosed, from our fair +cottager. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + +"To Mrs. Rivers. + +"Madam, + +"Though I have every reason to wish the melancholy event which +brought me here, might continue unknown; yet your generous concern for +a stranger, who had no recommendation to your notice but her appearing +unhappy, and whose suspicious situation would have injured her in a +mind less noble than yours, has determined me to lay before you a +story, which it was my resolution to conceal for ever. + +"I saw, Madam, in your countenance, when you honored me by calling +at my house this morning, and I saw with an admiration no words can +speak, the amiable struggle between the desire of knowing the nature of +my distress in order to soften it, and the delicacy which forbad your +enquiries, lest they should wound my sensibility and self-love. + +"To such a heart I run no hazard in relating what in the world +would, perhaps, draw on me a thousand reproaches; reproaches, however, +I flatter myself, undeserved. + +"You have had the politeness to say, there is something in my +appearance which speaks my birth above my present situation: in this, +Madam, I am so happy as not to deceive your generous partiality. + +"My father, who was an officer of family and merit, had the +misfortune to lose my mother whilst I was an infant. + +"He had the goodness to take on himself the care of directing my +education, and to have me taught whatever he thought becoming my sex, +though at an expence much too great for his income. + +"As he had little more than his commission, his parental tenderness +got so far the better of his love for his profession, that, when I was +about fifteen, he determined on quitting the army, in order to provide +better for me; but, whilst he was in treaty for this purpose, a fever +carried him off in a few days, and left me to the world, with little +more than five hundred pounds, which, however, was, by his will, +immediately in my power. + +"I felt too strongly the loss of this excellent parent to attend to +any other consideration; and, before I was enough myself to think what +I was to do for a subsistence, a friend of my own age, whom I tenderly +loved, who was just returning from school to her father's, in the north +of England, insisted on my accompanying her, and spending some time +with her in the country. + +"I found in my dear Sophia, all the consolation my grief could +receive; and, at her pressing solicitation, and that of her father, who +saw his daughter's happiness depended on having me with her, I +continued there three years, blest in the calm delights of friendship, +and those blameless pleasures, with which we should be too happy, if +the heart could content itself, when a young baronet, whose form was +as lovely as his soul was dark, came to interrupt our felicity. + +"My Sophia, at a ball, had the misfortune to attract his notice; she +was rather handsome, though without regular features; her form was +elegant and feminine, and she had an air of youth, of softness, of +sensibility, of blushing innocence, which seemed intended to inspire +delicate passions alone, and which would have disarmed any mind less +depraved than that of the man, who only admired to destroy. + +"She was the rose-bud yet impervious to the sun. + +"Her heart was tender, but had never met an object which seemed +worthy of it; her sentiments were disinterested, and romantic to +excess. + +"Her father was, at that time, in Holland, whither the death of a +relation, who had left him a small estate, had called him: we were +alone, unprotected, delivered up to the unhappy inexperience of youth, +mistresses of our own conduct; myself, the eldest of the two, but just +eighteen, when my Sophia's ill-fate conducted Sir Charles Verville to +the ball where she first saw him. + +"He danced with her, and endeavored to recommend himself by all +those little unmeaning, but flattering attentions, by which our +credulous sex are so often misled; his manner was tender, yet timid, +modest, respectful; his eyes were continually fixed on her, but when he +met hers, artfully cast down, as if afraid of offending. + +"He asked permission to enquire after her health the next day; he +came, he was enchanting; polite, lively, soft, insinuating, adorned +with every outward grace which could embellish virtue, or hide vice +from view, to see and to love him was almost the same thing. + +"He entreated leave to continue his visits, which he found no +difficulty in obtaining: during two months, not a day passed without +our seeing him; his behaviour was such as would scarce have alarmed the +most suspicious heart; what then could be expected of us, young, +sincere, totally ignorant of the world, and strongly prejudiced in +favor of a man, whose conversation spoke his soul the abode of every +virtue? + +"Blushing I must own, nothing but the apparent preference he gave to +my lovely friend, could have saved my heart from being a prey to the +same tenderness which ruined her. + +"He addressed her with all the specious arts which vice could invent +to seduce innocence; his respect, his esteem, seemed equal to his +passion; he talked of honor, of the delight of an union where the +tender affections alone were consulted; wished for her father's +return, to ask her of him in marriage; pretended to count impatiently +the hours of his absence, which delayed his happiness: he even +prevailed on her to write her father an account of his addresses. + +"New to love, my Sophia's young heart too easily gave way to the +soft impression; she loved, she idolized this most base of mankind; +she would have thought it a kind of sacrilege to have had any will in +opposition to his. + +"After some months of unremitted assiduity, her father being +expected in a few days, he dropped a hint, as if by accident, that he +wished his fortune less, that he might be the more certain he was loved +for himself alone; he blamed himself for this delicacy, but charged it +on excess of love; vowed he would rather die than injure her, yet +wished to be convinced her fondness was without reserve. + +"Generous, disinterested, eager to prove the excess and sincerity of +her passion, she fell into the snare; she agreed to go off with him, +and live some time in a retirement where she was to see only himself, +after which he engaged to marry her publicly. + +"He pretended extasies at this proof of affection, yet hesitated to +accept it; and, by piquing the generosity of her soul, which knew no +guile, and therefore suspected none, led her to insist on devoting +herself to wretchedness. + +"In order, however, that this step might be as little known as +possible, as he pretended the utmost concern for that honor he was +contriving to destroy, it was agreed between them, that he should go +immediately to London, and that she should follow him, under pretence +of a visit to a relation at some distance; the greatest difficulty was, +how to hide this design from me. + +"She had never before concealed a thought from her beloved Fanny; +nor could he now have prevailed on her to deceive me, had he not +artfully perswaded her I was myself in love with him; and that, +therefore, it would be cruel, as well as imprudent, to trust me with +the secret. + +"Nothing shews so strongly the power of love, in absorbing every +faculty of the soul, as my dear Sophia's being prevailed on to use art +with the friend most dear to her on earth. + +"By an unworthy piece of deceit, I was sent to a relation for some +weeks; and the next day Sophia followed her infamous lover, leaving +letters for me and her father, calculated to perswade us, they were +privately married. + +"My distress, and that of the unhappy parent, may more easily be +conceived than described; severe by nature, he cast her from his heart +and fortune for ever, and settled his estate on a nephew, then at the +university. + +"As to me, grief and tenderness were the only sensations I felt: I +went to town, and took every private method to discover her retreat, +but in vain; till near a year after, when, being in London, with a +friend of my mother's, a servant, who had lived with my Sophia, saw me +in the street, and knew me: by her means, I discovered that she was in +distress, abandoned by her lover, in that moment when his tenderness +was most necessary. + +"I flew to her, and found her in a miserable apartment, in which +nothing but an extreme neatness would have made me suppose she had ever +seen happier days: the servant who brought me to her attended her. + +"She was in bed, pale, emaciated; the lovely babe you saw with me in +her arms. + +"Though prepared for my visit, she was unable to bear the shock of +seeing me; I ran to her, she raised herself in the bed, and, throwing +her feeble arms round my neck, could only say, 'My Fanny! is this +possible!' and fainted away. + +"Our cares having recovered her, she endeavored to compose herself; +her eyes were fixed tenderly on me, she pressed my hand between hers, +the tears stole silently down her cheeks; she looked at her child, then +at me; she would have spoke, but the feelings of her heart were too +strong for expression. + +"I begged her to be calm, and promised to spend the day with her; +I did not yet dare, lest the emotion should be too much for her weak +state, to tell her we would part no more. + +"I took a room in the house, and determined to give all my attention +to the restoration of her health; after which, I hoped to contrive to +make my little fortune, with industry, support us both. + +"I sat up with her that night; she got a little rest, she seemed +better in the morning; she told me the particulars I have already +related; she, however, endeavored to soften the cruel behaviour of the +wretch, whose name I could not hear without horror. + +"She had in the afternoon a little fever; I sent for a physician, +he thought her in danger; what did not my heart feel from this +information? she grew worse, I never left her one moment. + +"The next morning she called me to her; she took my hand, and +looking at me with a tenderness no language can describe, + +"'My dear, my only friend,' said she, 'I am dying; you are come to +receive the last breath of your unhappy Sophia: I wish with ardor for +my father's blessing and forgiveness, but dare not ask them. + +"'The weakness of my heart has undone me; I am lost, abandoned by him +on whom my soul doated; by him, for whom I would have sacrificed a +thousand lives; he has left me with my babe to perish, yet I still love +him with unabated fondness: the pang of losing him sinks me to the +grave!' + +"Her speech here failed her for a time; but recovering, she +proceeded, + +"'Hard as this request may seem, and to whatever miseries it may +expose my angel friend, I adjure you not to desert my child; save him +from the wretchedness that threatens him; let him find in you a mother +not less tender, but more virtuous, than his own. + +"'I know, my Fanny, I undo you by this cruel confidence; but who else +will have mercy on this innocent?' + +"Unable to answer, my heart torn with unutterable anguish, I +snatched the lovely babe to my bosom, I kissed him, I bathed him with +my tears. + +"She understood me, a gleam of pleasure brightened her dying eyes, +the child was still pressed to my heart, she gazed on us both with a +look of wild affection; then, clasping her hands together, and +breathing a fervent prayer to heaven, sunk down, and expired without a +groan-- + +"To you, Madam, I need not say the rest. + +"The eloquence of angels could not paint my distress; I saw the +friend of my soul, the best and most gentle of her sex, a breathless +corse before me; her heart broke by the ingratitude of the man she +loved, her honor the sport of fools, her guiltless child a sharer in +her shame. + +"And all this ruin brought on by a sensibility of which the best +minds alone are susceptible, by that noble integrity of soul which made +it impossible for her to suspect another. + +"Distracted with grief, I kissed my Sophia's pale lips, talked to +her lifeless form; I promised to protect the sweet babe, who smiled on +me, and with his little hand pressed mine, as if sensible of what I +said. + +"As soon as my grief was enough calmed to render me capable of any +thing, I wrote an account of Sophia's death to her father, who had the +inhumanity to refuse to see her child. + +"I disdained an application to her murderer; and retiring to this +place, where I was, and resolved to continue, unknown, determined to +devote my life to the sweet infant, and to support him by an industry +which I did not doubt heaven would prosper. + +"The faithful girl who had attended Sophia, begged to continue with +me; we work for the milleners in the neighbouring towns, and, with the +little pittance I have, keep above want. + +"I know the consequence of what I have undertaken; I know I give up +the world and all hopes of happiness to myself: yet will I not desert +this friendless little innocent, nor betray the confidence of my +expiring friend, whose last moments were soothed with the hope of his +finding a parent's care in me. + +"You have had the goodness to wish to serve me. Sir Charles Verville +is dead: a fever, the consequence of his ungoverned intemperance, +carried him off suddenly: his brother Sir William has a worthy +character; if Colonel Rivers, by his general acquaintance with the +great world, can represent this story to him, it possibly may procure +my little Charles happier prospects than my poverty can give him. + +"Your goodness, Madam, makes it unnecessary to be more explicit: to +be unhappy, and not to have merited it, is a sufficient claim to your +protection. + +"You are above the low prejudices of common minds; you will pity the +wretched victim of her own unsuspecting heart, you will abhor the +memory of her savage undoer, you will approve my complying with her +dying request, though in contradiction to the selfish maxims of the +world: you will, if in your power, endeavor to serve my little +prattler. + +"'Till I had explained my situation, I could not think of accepting +the honor you allowed me to hope for, of enquiring after your health at +Bellfield; if the step I have taken meets with your approbation, I +shall be most happy to thank you and Colonel Rivers for your attention +to one, whom you would before have been justified in supposing +unworthy of it. + +"I am, Madam, with the most perfect respect and gratitude, + + "Your obliged + and obedient servant, + F. Williams." + + +Your own heart, my dear Fitzgerald, will tell you what were our +reflections on reading the inclosed: Emily, whose gentle heart feels +for the weaknesses as well as misfortunes of others, will to-morrow +fetch this heroic girl and her little ward, to spend a week at +Bellfield; and we will then consider what is to be done for them. + +You know Sir William Verville; go to him from me with the inclosed +letter, he is a man of honor, and will, I am certain, provide for the +poor babe, who, had not his father been a monster of unfeeling +inhumanity, would have inherited the estate and title Sir William now +enjoys. + +Is not the midnight murderer, my dear friend, white as snow to this +vile seducer? this betrayer of unsuspecting, trusting, innocence? what +transport is it to me to reflect, that not one bosom ever heaved a sigh +of remorse of which I was the cause! + +I grieve for the poor victim of a tenderness, amiable in itself, +though productive of such dreadful consequences when not under the +guidance of reason. + +It ought to be a double tie on the honor of men, that the woman who +truely loves gives up her will without reserve to the object of her +affection. + +Virtuous less from reasoning and fixed principle, than from +elegance, and a lovely delicacy of mind; naturally tender, even to +excess; carried away by a romance of sentiment; the helpless sex are +too easily seduced, by engaging their confidence, and piquing their +generosity. + +I cannot write; my heart is softened to a degree which makes me +incapable of any thing. + +Do not neglect one moment going to Sir William Verville. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 208. + + +To Colonel Rivers. + +Oct. 28. + +The story you have told me has equally shocked and astonished me: my +sweet Bell has dropped a pitying tear on poor Sophia's grave. + +Thank heaven! we meet with few minds like that of Sir Charles +Verville; such a degree of savage insensibility is unnatural. + +The human heart is created weak, not wicked: avid of pleasure and of +gain; but with a mixture of benevolence which prevents our seeking +either to the destruction of others. + +Nothing can be more false than that we are naturally inclined to +evil: we are indeed naturally inclined to gratify the selfish passions +of every kind; but those passions are not evil in themselves, they only +become so from excess. + +The malevolent passions are not inherent in our nature. They are +only to be acquired by degrees, and generally are born from chagrin and +disappointment; a wicked character is a depraved one. + +What must this unhappy girl have suffered! no misery can equal the +struggles of a virtuous mind wishing to act in a manner becoming its +own dignity, yet carried by passions to do otherwise. + +One o'clock. + +I have been at Sir William Verville's, who is at Bath; I will write, +and inclose the letter to him this evening; you shall have his answer +the moment I receive it. + +We are going to dine at Richmond with Lord H----. + +Adieu! my dear Rivers; Bell complains you have never answered her +letter: I own, I thought you a man of more gallantry than to neglect a +lady. + + Adieu! + Your faithful + J. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 209. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Oct. 30. + +I am very impatient, my dear friend, till you hear from Sir William, +though I have no doubt of his acting as he ought: our cottagers shall +not leave us till their fate is determined; I have not told Miss +Williams the step I have taken. + +Emily is more and more pleased with this amiable girl: I wish +extremely to be able to keep her here; as an agreable companion of her +own age and sex, whose ideas are similar, and who, from being in the +same season of life, sees things in the same point of view, is all that +is wanting to Emily's happiness. + +'Tis impossible to mention similarity of ideas, without observing +how exactly ours coincide; in all my acquaintance with mankind, I +never yet met a mind so nearly resembling my own; a tie of affection +much stronger than all your merit would be without that similarity. + +I agree with you, that mankind are born virtuous, and that it is +education and example which make them otherwise. + +The believing other men knaves is not only the way to make them so, +but is also an infallible method of becoming such ourselves. + +A false and ill-judged method of instruction, by which we imbibe +prejudices instead of truths, makes us regard the human race as beasts +of prey; not as brothers, united by one common bond, and promoting the +general interest by pursuing our own particular one. + +There is nothing of which I am more convinced than that, + + "True self-love and social are the same:" + +That those passions which make the happiness of individuals tend +directly to the general good of the species. + +The beneficent Author of nature has made public and private +happiness the same; man has in vain endeavored to divide them; but in +the endeavor he has almost destroyed both. + +'Tis with pain I say, that the business of legislation in most +countries seems to have been to counter-work this wise order of +providence, which has ordained, that we shall make others happy in +being so ourselves. + +This is in nothing so glaring as in the point on which not only the +happiness, but the virtue of almost the whole human race is concerned: +I mean marriage; the restraints on which, in almost every country, not +only tend to encourage celibacy, and a destructive libertinism the +consequence of it, to give fresh strength to domestic tyranny, and +subject the generous affections of uncorrupted youth to the guidance of +those in whom every motive to action but avarice is dead; to condemn +the blameless victims of duty to a life of indifference, of disgust, +and possibly of guilt; but, by opposing the very spirit of our +constitution, throwing property into a few hands, and favoring that +excessive inequality, which renders one part of the species wretched, +without adding to the happiness of the other; to destroy at once the +domestic felicity of individuals, contradict the will of the Supreme +Being, as clearly wrote in the book of nature, and sap the very +foundations of the most perfect form of government on earth. + +A pretty long-winded period this: Bell would call it true +Ciceronian, and quote + + "--Rivers for a period of a mile." + +But to proceed. The only equality to which parents in general +attend, is that of fortune; whereas a resemblance in age, in temper, in +personal attractions, in birth, in education, understanding, and +sentiment, are the only foundations of that lively taste, that tender +friendship, without which no union deserves the sacred name of +marriage. + +Timid, compliant youth may be forced into the arms of age and +disease; a lord may invite a citizen's daughter he despises to his bed, +to repair a shattered fortune; and she may accept him, allured by the +rays of a coronet: but such conjunctions are only a more shameful +species of prostitution. + +Men who marry from interested motives are inexcusable; but the very +modesty of women makes against their happiness in this point, by giving +them a kind of bashful fear of objecting to such persons as their +parents recommend as proper objects of their tenderness. + +I am prevented by company from saying all I intended. + + Adieu! Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 210. + + +To Colonel Rivers. + +Temple-house, Nov. 1. + +You wrong me excessively, my dear Rivers, in accusing me of a +natural levity in love and friendship. + +As to the latter, my frequent changes, which I freely acknowledge, +have not been owing to any inconstancy, but to precipitation and want +of caution in contracting them. + +My general fault has been the folly of chusing my friends for some +striking and agreable accomplishment, instead of giving to solid merit +the preference which most certainly is its due. + +My inconstancy in love has been meerly from vanity. + +There is something so flattering in the general favor of women, that +it requires great firmness of mind to resist that kind of gallantry +which indulges it, though absolutely destructive to real happiness. + +I blush to say, that when I first married I have more than once been +in danger, from the mere boyish desire of conquest, notwithstanding my +adoration for your lovely sister: such is the force of habit, for I +must have been infinitely a loser by changing. + +I am now perfectly safe; my vanity has taken another turn: I pique +myself on keeping the heart of the loveliest woman that ever existed, +as a nobler conquest than attracting the notice of a hundred coquets, +who would be equally flattered by the attention of any other man, at +least any other man who had the good fortune to be as fashionable. + +Every thing conspires to keep me in the road of domestic happiness: +the manner of life I am engaged in, your friendship, your example, and +society; and the very fear I am in of losing your esteem. + +That I have the seeds of constancy in my nature, I call on you and +your lovely sister to witness; I have been _your_ friend from +almost infancy, and am every hour more _her_ lover. + +She is my friend, my companion, as well as mistress; her wit, her +sprightliness, her pleasing kind of knowledge, fill with delight those +hours which are so tedious with a fool, however lovely. + +With my Lucy, possession can never cure the wounded heart. + +Her modesty, her angel purity of mind and person, render her +literally, + + "My ever-new delight." + +She has convinced me, that if beauty is the mother, delicacy is the +nurse of love. + +Venus has lent her her cestus, and shares with her the attendance of +the Graces. + +My vagrant passions, like the rays of the sun collected in a burning +glass, are now united in one point. + +Lucy is here. Adieu! I must not let her know her power. + +You spend to-morrow with us; we have a little ball, and are to have +a masquerade next week. + +Lucy wants to consult Emily on her dress; you and I are not to be in +the secret: we have wrote to ask the Fitzgeralds to the masquerade; I +will send Lucy's post coach for them the day before, or perhaps fetch +them myself. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + J. Temple. + + + +LETTER 211. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Nov. 1. + +I have this moment a letter from Temple which has set my heart at +rest: he writes like a lover, yet owns his past danger, with a +frankness which speaks more strongly than any professions could do, the +real present state of his heart. + +My anxiety for my sister has a little broke in on my own happiness; +in England, where the married women are in general the most virtuous in +the world, it is of infinite consequence they should love their +husbands, and be beloved by them; in countries where gallantry is more +permitted, it is less necessary. + +Temple will make her happy whilst she preserves his heart; but, if +she loses it, every thing is to be feared from the vivacity of his +nature, which can never support one moment a life of indifference. + +He has that warmth of temper which is the natural soil of the +virtues; but which is unhappily, at the same time, most apt to produce +indiscretions. + +Tame, cold, dispassionate minds resemble barren lands; warm, +animated ones, rich ground, which, if properly cultivated, yields the +noblest fruit; but, if neglected, from its luxuriance is most +productive of weeds. + +His misfortune has been losing both his parents when almost an +infant; and having been master of himself and a noble fortune, at an +age when the passions hurry us beyond the bounds of reason. + +I am the only person on earth by whom he would ever bear to be +controlled in any thing; happily for Lucy, I preserve the influence +over him which friendship first gave me. + +That influence, and her extreme attention to study his taste in +every thing; with those uncommon graces both of mind and person she has +received from nature, will, I hope, effectually fix this wandering +star. + +She tells me, she has asked you to a masquerade at Temple-house, to +which you will extremely oblige us all by coming. + +You do not tell us, whether the affair of your majority is settled: +if obliged to return immediately, Temple will send you back. + + Adieu! Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + +I have this moment your last letter: you are right, we American +travellers are under great disadvantages; our imaginations are +restrained; we have not the pomp of the orient to describe, but the +simple and unadorned charms of nature. + + + +LETTER 212. + + +To Colonel Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland. + +Nov. 4. + +Sir William Verville is come back to town; I was with him this +morning; he desires to see the child; he tells me, his brother, in his +last moments, mentioned this story in all the agony of remorse, and +begged him to provide for the little innocent, if to be found; that he +had made many enquiries, but hitherto in vain; and that he thought +himself happy in the discovery. + +He talks of settling three thousand pounds on the child, and taking +the care of educating him into his own hands. + +I hinted at some little provision for the amiable girl who had saved +him from perishing, and had the pleasure to find Sir William listen to +me with attention. + +I am sorry it is not possible for me to be at your masquerade; but +my affair is just at the crisis: Bell expects a particular account of +it from Mrs. Rivers, and desires to be immediately in the secret of the +ladies dresses, though you are not: she begs you will send your fair +cottager and little charge to us, and we will take care to introduce +them properly to Sir William. + +I am too much hurried to say more. + + Adieu! my dear Rivers! + Your affectionate + J. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 213. + + +To Mrs. Fitzgerald. + +Nov. 8. + +Yes, my dear Bell, politeness is undoubtedly a moral virtue. + +As we are beings formed for, and not capable of being happy without, +society, it is the duty of every one to endeavor to make it as easy and +agreable as they can; which is only to be done by such an attention to +others as is consistent with what we owe to ourselves; all we give them +in civility will be re-paid us in respect: insolence and ill-breeding +are detestable to all mankind. + +I long to see you, my dear Bell; the delight I have had in your +society has spoiled my relish for that of meer acquaintance, however +agreable. + +'Tis dangerous to indulge in the pleasures of friendship; they +weaken one's taste too much for common conversation. + +Yet what other pleasures are worth the name? what others have spirit +and delicacy too? + +I am preparing for the masquerade, which is to be the 18th; I am +extremely disappointed you will not be with us. + +My dress is simple and unornamented, but I think becoming and +prettily fancied; it is that of a French _paisanne_: Lucy is to +be a sultana, blazing with diamonds: my mother a Roman matron. + +I chuse this dress because I have heard my dear Rivers admire it; to +be one moment more pleasing in his eyes, is an object worthy all my +attention. + + Adieu! + Your faithful + Emily Rivers. + + + +LETTER 214. + + +To Mrs. Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland. + +London, Nov. 10. + +Certainly, my dear, friendship is a mighty pretty invention, and, +next to love, gives of all things the greatest spirit to society. + +And yet the prudery of the age will hardly allow us poor women even +this pleasure, innocent as it is. + +I remember my aunt Cecily, who died at sixty-six, without ever +having felt the least spark of affection for any human being, used to +tell me, a prudent modest woman never loved any thing but herself. + +For my part, I think all the kind propensities of the heart ought +rather to be cherished than checked; that one is allowed to esteem +merit even in the naughty creature, man. + +I love you very sincerely, Emily: but I like friendships for the men +best; and think prudery, by forbidding them, robs us of some of the +most lively as well as innocent pleasures of the heart. + +That desire of pleasing; which one feels much the most strongly for +a _male_ friend, is in itself a very agreable emotion. + +You will say, I am a coquet even in friendship; and I am not quite +sure you are not in the right. + +I am extremely in love with my husband; yet chuse other men should +regard me with complacency, am as fond of attracting the attention of +the dear creatures as ever, and, though I do justice to your wit, +understanding, sentiment, and all that, prefer Rivers's conversation +infinitely to yours. + +Women cannot say civil things to each other; and if they could, they +would be something insipid; whereas a male friend-- + +'Tis absolutely another thing, my dear; and the first system of +ethics I write, I will have a hundred pages on the subject. + +Observe, my dear, I have not the least objection to your having a +friendship for Fitzgerald. I am the best-natured creature in the world, +and the fondest of increasing the circle of my husband's innocent +amusements. + +_A propos_ to innocent amusements, I think your fair +sister-in-law an exquisite politician; calling the pleasures to Temple +at home, is the best method in the world to prevent his going abroad +in pursuit of them. + +I am mortified I cannot be at your masquerade; it is my passion, +and I have the prettiest dress in the world by me. I am half inclined +to elope for a day or two. + + Adieu! Your faithful + A. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 215. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Nov. 12. + +Please to inform the little Bell, I won't allow her to spoil my +Emily. + +I enter a caveat against male friendships, which are only fit for +ladies of the _salamandrine_ order. + +I desire to engross all Emily's _kind propensities_ to myself; +and should grudge the least share in her heart, or, if you please in +her _friendship_, to an archangel. + +However, not to be too severe, since prudery expects women to have +no propensities at all, I allow single ladies, of all ranks, sizes, +ages, and complexions, to spread the veil of friendship between their +hearts and the world. + +'Tis the finest day I ever saw, though the middle of November; a dry +soft west wind, the air as mild as in April, and an almost Canadian +sunshine. + +I have been bathing in the clear stream, at the end of my garden; +the same stream in which I laved my careless bosom at thirteen; an +idea which gave me inconceivable delight; and the more, as my bosom is +as gay and tranquil at this moment as in those dear hours of +chearfulness and innocence. + +Of all local prejudices, that is the strongest as well as most +pleasing, which attaches us to the place of our birth. + +Sweet home! only seat of true and genuine happiness. + +I am extremely in the humor to write a poem to the houshold gods. + +We neglect these amiable deities, but they are revenged; true +pleasure is only to be found under their auspices. + +I know not how it is, my dear Fitzgerald; but I don't find my +passion for the country abate. + +I still find the scenes around me lovely; though, from the change +of season, less smiling than when I first fixed at Bellfield; we have +rural business enough to amuse, not embarrass us; we have a small but +excellent library of books, given us by my mother; she and Emily are +two of the most pleasing companions on earth; the neighbourhood is full +of agreable people, and, what should always be attended to in fixing in +the country, of fortunes not superior to our own. + +The evenings grow long, but they are only the more jovial; I love +the pleasures of the table, not for their own sakes, for no man is more +indifferent on this subject; but because they promote social, +convivial joy, and bring people together in good humor with themselves +and each other. + +My Emily's suppers are enchanting; but our little income obliges us +to have few: if I was rich, this would be my principal extravagance. + +To fill up my measure of content, Emily is pleased with my +retirement, and finds all her happiness in my affection. + +We are so little alone, that I find our moments of unreserved +conversation too short; whenever I leave her, I recollect a thousand +things I had to say, a thousand new ideas to communicate, and am +impatient for the hour of seeing again, without restraint, the most +amiable and pleasing of woman-kind. + +My happiness would be complete, if I did not sometimes see a cloud +of anxiety on that dear countenance, which, however, is dissipated the +moment my eyes meet hers. + +I am going to Temple's, and the chaise is at the door. + + Adieu! my dear friend! + Your affectionate + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 216. + + +To Colonel Rivers. + +Nov. 14. + +So you disapprove male friendships, my sweet Colonel! I thought you +had better ideas of things in general. + +Fitzgerald and I have been disputing on French and English manners, +in regard to gallantry. + +The great question is, Whether a man is more hurt by the imprudent +conduct of his daughter or his wife? + +Much may be said on both sides. + +There is some hazard in suffering coquetry in either; both +contribute to give charms to conversation, and introduce ease and +politeness into society; but both are dangerous to manners. + +Our customs, however, are most likely to produce good effects, as +they give opportunity for love marriages, the only ones which can make +worthy minds happy. + +The coquetry of single women has a point of view consistent with +honor; that of married women has generally no point of view at all; it +is, however of use _pour passer le tems_. + +As to real gallantry, the French style depraves the minds of men +least, ours is most favorable to the peace of families. + +I think I preserve the balance of argument admirably. + +My opinion, however, is, that if people married from affection, +there would be no such thing as gallantry at all. + +Pride, and the parade of life, destroy all happiness: our whole +felicity depends on our choice in marriage, yet we chuse from motives +more trifling than would determine us in the common affairs of life. + +I knew a gentleman who fancied himself in love, yet delayed marrying +his mistress till he could afford a set of plate. + +Modern manners are very unfavorable to the tender affections. + +Ancient lovers had only dragons to combat; ours have the worse +monsters of avarice and ambition. + +All I shall say further on the subject is, that the two happiest +people I ever knew were a country clergyman and his wife, whose whole +income did not exceed one hundred pounds a year. + +A pretty philosophical, sentimental, dull kind of an epistle this! + +But you deserve it, for not answering my last, which was divine. + +I am pleased with Emily's ideas about her dress at the masquerade; +it is a proof you are still lovers. + +I remember, the first symptoms I discovered of my _tendresse_ +for Fitzgerald was my excessive attention to this article: I have +tried on twenty different caps when I expected him at Silleri. + +Before we drop the subject of gallantries, I must tell you I am +charmed with you and my _sposo_, for never giving the least hint +before Emily and me that you have had any; it is a piece of delicacy +which convinces me of your tenderness more than all the vows that ever +lovers broke would do. + +I have been hurt at the contrary behaviour in Temple; and have +observed Lucy to be so too, though her excessive attention not to give +him pain prevented her shewing it: I have on such an occasion seen a +smile on her countenance, and a tear of tender regret starting into her +eyes. + +A woman who has vanity without affection will be pleased to hear of +your past conquests, and regard them as victims immolated to her +superior charms: to her, therefore, it is right to talk of them; but +to flatter the _heart_, and give delight to a woman who truly +loves, you should appear too much taken up with the present passion to +look back to the past: you should not even present to her imagination +the thought that you have had other engagements: we know such things +are, but had rather the idea should not be awakened: I may be wrong, +but I speak from my own feelings. + +I am excessively pleased with a thought I met with in a little +French novel: + +"Un homme qui ne peut plus compter ses bonnes fortunes, est de tous, +celui qui connoit le moins les _faveurs_. C'est le coeur qui les +accorde, & ce n'est pas le coeur qu'un homme a la mode interesse. Plus +on est _prone_ par les femmes, plus il est facile de les avoir, +mais moins il est possible de les enflammer." + +To which truth I most heartily set my hand. + +Twelve o'clock. + +I have just heard from your sister, who tells me, Emily is turned a +little natural philosopher, reads Ray, Derham, and fifty other strange +old fellows that one never heard of, and is eternally poring through a +microscope to discover the wonders of creation. + +How amazingly learned matrimony makes young ladies! I suppose we +shall have a volume of her discoveries bye and bye. + +She says too, you have little pets like sweethearts, quarrel and +make it up again in the most engaging manner in the world. + +This is just what I want to bring Fitzgerald to; but the perverse +monkey won't quarrel with me, do all I can: I am sure this is not my +fault, for I give him reason every day of his life. + +Shenstone says admirably, "That reconciliation is the tenderest part +of love and friendship: the soul here discovers a kind of elasticity, +and, being forced back, returns with an additional violence." + +Who would not quarrel for the pleasure of reconciliation! I shall be +very angry with Fitzgerald if he goes on in this mild way. + +Tell your sister, she cannot be more mortified than I am, that it is +impossible for me to be at her masquerade. + + Adieu! Your affectionate + A. Fitzgerald. + + +Don't you think, my dear Rivers, that marriage, on prudent +principles, is a horrid sort of an affair? It is really cruel of papas +and mammas to shut up two poor innocent creatures in a house together, +to plague and torment one another, who might have been very happy +separate. + +Where people take their own time, and chuse for themselves, it is +another affair, and I begin to think it possible affection may last +through life. + +I sometimes fancy to myself Fitzgerald and I loving on, from the +impassioned hour when I first honored him with my hand, to that +tranquil one, when we shall take our afternoon's nap _vis a vis_ +in two arm chairs, by the fire-side, he a grave country justice, and I +his worship's good sort of a wife, the Lady Bountiful of the parish. + +I have a notion there is nothing so very shocking in being an oldish +gentlewoman; what one loses in charms, is made up in the happy liberty +of doing and saying whatever one pleases. Adieu! + + + +LETTER 217. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Nov. 16. + +My relation, Colonel Willmott, is just arrived from the East Indies, +rich, and full of the project of marrying his daughter to me. + +My mother has this morning received a letter from him, pressing the +affair with an earnestness which rather makes me feel for his +disappointment, and wish to break it to him as gently as possible. + +He talks of being at Bellfield on Wednesday evening, which is +Temple's masquerade; I shall stay behind at Bellfield, to receive him, +have a domino ready, and take him to Temple-house. + +He seems to know nothing of my marriage or my sister's, and I wish +him not to know of the former till he has seen Emily. + +The best apology I can make for declining his offer, is to shew him +the lovely cause. + +I will contrive they shall converse together at the masquerade, and +that he shall sit next her at supper, without their knowing any thing +of each other. + +If he sees her, if he talks with her, without that prejudice which +the knowledge of her being the cause of his disappointment might give, +he cannot fail of having for her that admiration which I never yet met +with a mind savage enough to refuse her. + +His daughter has been educated abroad, which is a circumstance I am +pleased with, as it gives me the power of refusing her without wounding +either her vanity, or her father's, which, had we been acquainted, +might have been piqued at my giving the preference to another. + +She is not in England, but is hourly expected: the moment she +arrives, Lucy and I will fetch her to Temple-house: I shall be anxious +to see her married to a man who deserves her. Colonel Willmott tells +me, she is very amiable; at least as he is told, for he has never seen +her. + +I could wish it were possible to conceal this offer for ever from +Emily; my delicacy is hurt at the idea of her knowing it, at least from +me or my family. + +My mother behaves like an angel on this occasion; expresses herself +perfectly happy in my having consulted my heart alone in marrying, and +speaks of Emily's tenderness as a treasure above all price. + +She does not even hint a wish to see me richer than I am. + +Had I never seen Emily, I would not have married this lady unless +love had united us. + +Do not, however, suppose I have that romantic contempt for fortune, +which is so pardonable, I had almost said so becoming, at nineteen. + +I have seen more of the world than most men of my age, and I have +seen the advantages of affluence in their strongest light. + +I think a worthy man not only may have, but ought to have, an +attention to making his way in the world, and improving his situation +in it, by every means consistent with probity and honor, and with his +own real happiness. + +I have ever had this attention, and ever will, but not by base +means: and, in my opinion, the very basest is that of selling one's +hand in marriage. + +With what horror do we regard a man who is kept! and a man who +marries from interested views alone, is kept in the strongest sense of +the word. + +He is equally a purchased slave, with no distinction but that his +bondage is of longer continuance. + +Adieu! I may possibly write again on Wednesday. + + Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 218. + + +To Colonel Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland. + +London, Nov. 18. + +Fitzgerald is busy, and begs me to write to you. + +Your cottagers are arrived; there is something very interesting in +Miss Williams, and the little boy is an infant Adonis. + +Heaven send he may be an honester man than his father, or I foresee +terrible devastations amongst the sex. + +We have this moment your letter; I am angry with you for blaspheming +the sweet season of nineteen: + + "O lovely source + Of generous foibles, youth! when opening minds + Are honest as the light, lucid as air, + As fostering breezes kind, as linnets gay, + Tender as buds, and lavish as the spring." + +You will find out I am in a course of Shenstone, which I prescribe +to all minds tinctured with the uncomfortable selfishness of the +present age. + +The only way to be good, is to retain the generous mistakes, if they +are such, of nineteen through life. + +As to you, my dear Rivers, with all your airs of prudence and +knowing the world, you are, in this respect, as much a boy as ever. + +Witness your extreme joy at having married a woman with two thousand +pounds, when you might have had one with twenty times the sum. + +You are a boy, Rivers, I am a girl; and I hope we shall remain so as +long as we live. + +Do you know, my dear friend, that I am a daughter of the Muses, and +that I wrote pastorals at seven years old? + +I am charmed with this, because an old physician once told me it was +a symptom, not only of long life, but of long youth, which is much +better. + +He explained this, by saying something about animal spirits, which I +do not at all understand, but which perhaps you may. + +I should have been a pretty enough kind of a poetess, if papa had +not attempted to teach me how to be one, and insisted on seeing my +scribbles as I went on: these same Muses are such bashful misses, they +won't bear to be looked at. + +Genius is like the sensitive plant; it shrinks from the touch. + +So your nabob cousin is arrived: I hope he will fall in love with +Emily; and remember, if he had obligations to Mrs. Rivers's father, he +had exactly the same to your grandfather. + +He might spare ten thousand pounds very well, which would improve +your _petits soupers_. + +Adieu! Sir William Verville dines here, and I have but just time to +dress. + + Yours, + A. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 219. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Nov. 17, Morning. + +I have had a letter from Colonel Willmott myself to-day; he is still +quite unacquainted with the state of our domestic affairs; supposes me +a batchelor, and talks of my being his son-in-law as a certainty, not +attending to the probability of my having other engagements. + +His history, which he tells me in this letter, is a very romantic +one. He was a younger brother, and provided for accordingly: he loved, +when about twenty, a lady who was as little a favorite of fortune as +himself: their families, who on both sides had other views, joined +their interest to get him sent to the East Indies; and the young lady +was removed to the house of a friend in London, where she was to +continue till he had left England. + +Before he went, however, they contrived to meet, and were privately +married; the marriage was known only to her brother, who was +Willmott's friend. + +He left her in the care of her brother, who, under pretence of +diverting her melancholy, and endeavoring to cure her passion, obtained +leave of his father to take her with him to France. + +She was there delivered of this child, and expired a few days after. + +Her brother, without letting her family know the secret, educated +the infant, as the daughter of a younger brother who had been just +before killed in a duel in France; her parents, who died in a few +years, were, almost in their last moments, informed of these +circumstances, and made a small provision for the child. + +In the mean time, Colonel Willmott, after experiencing a great +variety of misfortunes for many years, during which he maintained a +constant correspondence with his brother-in-law, and with no other +person in Europe, by a train of lucky accidents, acquired very rapidly +a considerable fortune, with which he resolved to return to England, +and marry his daughter to me, as the only method to discharge fully +his obligations to my grandfather, who alone, of all his family, had +given him the least assistance when he left England. He wrote to his +daughter, letting her know his design, and directing her to meet him in +London; but she is not yet arrived. + +Six in the evening. + +My mother and Emily went to Temple's to dinner; they are to dress +there, and I am to be surprized. + +Seven. + +Colonel Willmott is come: he is an extreme handsome man; tall, +well-made, with an air of dignity which one seldom sees; he is very +brown, and, what will please Bell, has an aquiline nose: he looks about +fifty, but is not so much; change of climate has almost always the +disagreable effect of adding some years to the look. + +He is dressing, to accompany me to the masquerade; I must attend +him: I have only time to say, + + I am yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 220. + + +To Mrs. Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland. + +London, Nov. 18, twelve at night. + +Who should I dine and sup with to-day, at a merchant's in the city, +but your old love, Sir George Clayton, as gay and amusing as ever! + +What an entertaining companion have you lost, my dear Emily! + +He was a little disconcerted at seeing me, and blushed extremely; +but soon recovered his amiable, uniform insipidity of countenance, and +smiled and simpered as usual. + +He never enquired after you, nor even mentioned your name; being +asked for a toast, I had the malice to give Rivers; he drank him, +without seeming ever to have heard of him before. + +The city misses admire him prodigiously, and he them; they are +charmed with his beauty, and he with their wit. + +His mother, poor woman! could not bring the match she wrote about to +bear: the family approved him; but the fair one made a better choice, +and gave herself last week, at St. George's, Hanover-square, to a very +agreable fellow of our acquaintance, Mr. Palmer; a man of sense and +honor, who deserves her had she been ten times richer: he has a small +estate in Lincolnshire, and his house is not above twenty miles from +you: I must bring you and Mrs. Palmer acquainted. + +I suppose you are now the happiest of beings; Rivers finding a +thousand new beauties in his _belle paisanne_, and you exulting in +your charms, or, in other words, glorying in your strength. + +So the maiden aunts in your neighbourhood think Miss Williams no +better than she should be? + +Either somebody has said, or the idea is my own; after all, I +believe it Shenstone's, That those are generally the best people, whose +characters have been most injured by slanderers, as we usually find +that the best fruit which the birds have been pecking at. + +I will, however, allow appearances were a little against your +cottager; and I would forgive the good old virgins, if they had always +as suspicious circumstances to determine from. + +But they generally condemn from trifling indiscretions, and settle +the characters of their own sex from their conduct at a time of life +when they are themselves no judges of its propriety; they pass sentence +on them for small errors, when it is an amazing proof of prudence not +to commit great ones. + +For my own part, I think those who never have been guilty of any +indiscretion, are generally people who have very little active virtue. + +The waving line holds in moral as well as in corporeal beauty. + + Adieu! + Yours ever, + A. Fitzgerald. + + +All I can say is, that if imprudence is a sin, heaven help your poor +little Bell! + +On those principles, Sir George is the most virtuous man in the +world; to which assertion, I believe, you will enter a caveat. + + + +LETTER 221. + + +To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland. + +London, Nov. 19. + +You are right, my little Rivers: I like your friend, Colonel +Willmott vastly better for his aquiline nose; I never yet saw one on +the face of a fool. + +He is a fortunate man to be introduced to such a party of fine women +at his arrival; it is literally _to feed among the lilies_. + +Fitzgerald says, he should be jealous of him in your esteem, if he +was fifteen years younger; but that the strongest friendships are, +where there is an equality in age; because people of the same age have +the same train of thinking, and see things in the same light. + +Every season of life has its peculiar set of ideas; and we are +greatly inclined to think nobody in the right, but those who are of the +same opinion with ourselves. + +Don't you think it a strong proof of my passion for my _sposo_, +that I repeat his sentiments? + +But to business: Sir William is charmed with his little nephew; has +promised to settle on him what he before mentioned, to allow Miss +Williams an hundred pounds a year, which is to go to the child after +her death, and to be at the expence of his education himself. + +I die to hear whether your oriental Colonel is in love with Emily. + +Pray tell us every thing. + + Adieu! + Your affectionate + A. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 222. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Temple-house, Thursday morning, 11 o'clock. + +Our masquerade last night was really charming; I never saw any thing +equal to it out of London. + +Temple has taste, and had spared no expence to make it agreable; the +decorations of the grand saloon were magnificent. + +Emily was the loveliest _paisanne_ that ever was beheld; her +dress, without losing sight of the character, was infinitely becoming: +her beauty never appeared to such advantage. + +There was a noble simplicity in her air, which it is impossible to +describe. + +The easy turn of her shape, the lovely roundness of her arm, the +natural elegance of her whole form, the waving ringlets of her +beautiful dark hair, carelessly fastened with a ribbon, the unaffected +grace of her every motion, all together conveyed more strongly than +imagination can paint, the pleasing idea of a wood nymph, deigning to +visit some favored mortal. + +Colonel Willmott gazed on her with rapture; and asked me, if the +rural deities had left their verdant abodes to visit Temple-house. + +I introduced him to her, and left her to improve the impression: +'tis well I was married in time; a nabob is a dangerous rival. + +Lucy looked lovely, but in another style; she was a sultana in all +the pride of imperial beauty: her charms awed, but Emily's invited; her +look spoke resistless command, Emily's soft persuasion. + +There were many fine women; but I will own to you, I had, as to +beauty, no eyes but for Emily. + +We are going this morning to see Burleigh: when we return, I shall +announce Colonel Willmott to Emily, and introduce them properly to each +other; they are to go in the same chaise; she at present only knows him +as a friend of mine, and he her as his _belle paisanne_. + + Adieu! I am summoned. + Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + +I should have told you, I acquainted Colonel Willmott with my +sister's marriage before I took him to Temple-house, and found an +opportunity of introducing him to Temple unobserved. + +Emily is the only one here to whom he is a stranger: I will caution +him not to mention to her his past generous design in my favor. Adieu! + + + +LETTER 223. + + +To Mrs. Fitzgerald. + +Temple-house, Thursday morning. + +Your Emily was happy beyond words last night: amongst a crowd of +beauties, her Rivers's eyes continually followed her; he seemed to see +no other object: he would scarce let me wait till supper to unmask. + +But you will call me a foolish romantic girl; therefore I will only +say, I had the delight to see him pleased with my dress, and charmed +with the complaisance which was shewed me by others. + +There was a gentleman who came with Rivers, who was particularly +attentive to me; he is not young, but extremely amiable: has a very +fine person, with a commanding air; great politeness, and, as far as +one can judge by a few hours conversation, an excellent understanding. + +I never in my life met with a man for whom I felt such a partiality +at first sight, except Rivers, who tells me, I have made a conquest of +his friend. + +He is to be my cavalier this morning to Burleigh. + +It has this moment struck me, that Rivers never introduced his +friend and me to each other, but as masks; I never thought of this +before: I suppose he forgot it in the hurry of the masquerade. + +I do not even know this agreable stranger's name; I only found out +by his conversation he had served in the army. + +There is no saying how beautiful Lucy looked last night; her dress +was rich, elegantly fancied, and particularly becoming to her graceful +form, which I never saw look so graceful before. + +All who attempted to be fine figures, shrunk into nothing before her. + +Lucy carries her head, you know, remarkably well; which, with the +advantage of her height, the perfect standard of women, her fine +proportion, the native dignity of her air, the majestic flow of her +robe, and the blaze of her diamonds, gave her a look of infinite +superiority; a superiority which some of the company seemed to feel in +a manner, which rather, I will own, gave me pain. + +In a place consecrated to joy, I hate to see any thing like an +uneasy sensation; yet, whilst human passions are what they are, it is +difficult to avoid them. + +There were four or five other sultanas, who seemed only the slaves +of her train. + +In short, + + "She look'd a goddess, and she mov'd a queen." + +I was happy the unassuming simplicity of the character in which I +appeared, prevented comparisons which must have been extremely to my +disadvantage. + +I was safe in my littleness, like a modest shrub by the side of a +cedar; and, being in so different a style, had the better chance to be +taken notice of, even where Lucy was. + +She was radiant as the morning star, and even dazzlingly lovely. + +Her complexion, for Temple would not suffer her to wear a mask at +all, had the vivid glow of youth and health, heightened by pleasure, +and the consciousness of universal admiration. + +Her eyes had a fire which one could scarce look at. + +Temple's vanity and tenderness were gratified to the utmost: he +drank eagerly the praises which envy itself could not have refused her. + +My mother extremely became her character; and, when talking to +Rivers, gave me the idea of the Roman Aurelia, whose virtues she has +equalled. + +He looked at her with a delight which rendered him a thousand times +more dear to me: she is really one of the most pleasing women that +ever existed. + +I am called: we are just setting out for Burleigh, which I have not +yet seen. + + Adieu! Yours + Emily Rivers. + + + +LETTER 224. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Thursday, two o'clock. + +We are returned: Colonel Willmott is charmed with Burleigh, and more +in love with Emily than ever. + +He is gone to his apartment, whither I shall follow him, and +acquaint him with my marriage; he is exactly in the disposition I +could wish. + +He will, I am sure, pardon any offence of which his _belle paisanne_ +is the cause. + +I am returned. + +He is disappointed, but not surprized; owns no human heart could +have resisted Emily; begs she will allow his daughter a place in her +friendship. + +He insists on making her a present of diamonds; the only condition, +he tells me, on which he will forgive my marriage. + +I am going to introduce him to her in her apartment. + +Adieu! for a moment. + +Fitzgerald!--I scarce respire--the tumult of my joy--this +daughter whom I have refused--my Emily--could you have believed--my +Emily is the daughter of Colonel Willmott. + +When I announced him to her by that name, her color changed; but +when I added that he was just returned from the East Indies, she +trembled, her cheeks had a dying paleness, her voice faltered, she +pronounced faintly, "My father!" and sunk breathless on a sofa. + +He ran to her, he pressed her wildly to his bosom, he kissed her +pale cheek, he demanded if she was indeed his child? his Emily? the +dear pledge of his Emily Montague's tenderness? + +Her senses returned, she fixed her eyes eagerly on him, she kissed +his hand, she would have spoke, but tears stopped her voice. + +The scene that followed is beyond my powers of description. + +I have left them a moment, to share my joy with you: the time is too +precious to say more. To-morrow you shall hear from me. + + Adieu! Yours, + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 225. + + +To Captain Fitzgerald. + +Temple-house, Friday. + +Your friend is the happiest of mankind. + +Every anxiety is removed from my Emily's dear bosom: a father's +sanction leaves her nothing to desire. + +You may remember, she wished to delay our marriage: her motive was, +to wait Colonel Willmott's return. + +Though promised by him to another, she hoped to bring him to leave +her heart free; little did she think the man destined for her by her +father, was the happy Rivers her heart had chosen. + +Bound by a solemn vow, she concealed the circumstances of her birth +even from me. + +She resolved never to marry another, yet thought duty obliged her to +wait her father's arrival. + +She kindly supposed he would see me with her eyes, and, when he knew +me, change his design in my favor: she fancied he would crown her love +as the reward of her obedience in delaying her marriage. + +My importunity, and the fear of giving me room to doubt her +tenderness, as her vow prevented such an explanation as would have +satisfied me, bore down her duty to a father whom she had never seen, +and whom she had supposed dead, till the arrival of Mrs. Melmoth's +letters; having been two years without hearing any thing of him. + +She married me, determined to give up her right to half his fortune +in favor of the person for whom he designed her; and hoped, by that +means, to discharge her father's obligations, which she could not pay +at the expence of sacrificing her heart. + +But she writes to Mrs. Fitzgerald, and will tell you all. + +Come and share the happiness of your friends. + + Adieu! + Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + + +LETTER 226. + + +To Mrs. Fitzgerald. + +Temple-house, Friday. + +My Rivers has told you--my sweet friend, in what words shall I +convey to you an adequate idea of your Emily's transport, at a +discovery which has reconciled all her duties! + +Those anxieties, that sense of having failed in filial obedience, +which cast a damp on the joy of being wife to the most beloved of +mankind, are at an end. + +This husband whom I so dreaded, whom I determined never to accept, +was my Rivers. + +My father forgives me; he pardons the crime of love: he blesses that +kind providence which conducted us to happiness. + +How many has this event made happy! + +The most amiable of mothers shares my joy; she bends in grateful +thanks to that indulgent power who has rewarded her son for all his +goodness to her. + +Rivers hears her, and turns away to hide his tears: her tenderness +melts him to the softness of a woman. + +What gratitude do we not owe to heaven! may the sense of it be for +ever engraven on our hearts! + +My Lucy too; all, all are happy. + +But I will tell you. Rivers has already acquainted you with part of +my story. + +My uncle placed me, with a servant, in whom he could confide, in a +convent in France, till I was seven years old; he then sent for me to +England, and left me at school eight years longer; after which, he took +me with him to his regiment in Kent, where, you know, our friendship +began, and continued till he changed into another, then in America, +whither I attended him. + +My father's affairs were, at that time, in a situation, which +determined my uncle to take the first opportunity of marrying me to +advantage. + +I regarded him as a father; he had always been more than a parent to +me; I had the most implicit deference to his will. + +He engaged me to Sir George Clayton; and, when dying, told me the +story of my birth, to which I had till then been a stranger, exacting +from me, however, an oath of secresy till I saw my father. + +He died, leaving me, with a trifle left in trust to him for my use +from my grandfather, about two thousand pounds, which was all I, at +that time, ever expected to possess. + +My father was then thought ruined; there was even a report of his +death, and I imagined myself absolute mistress of my own actions. + +I was near two years without hearing any thing of him; nor did I +know I had still a father, till the letters you brought me from Mrs. +Melmoth. + +A variety of accidents, and our being both abroad, and in such +distant parts of the world, prevented his letters arriving. + +In this situation, the kind hand of heaven conducted my Rivers to +Montreal. + +I saw him; and, from that moment, my whole soul was his. + +Formed for each other, our love was sudden and resistless as the +bolt of heaven: the first glance of those dear speaking eyes gave me a +new being, and awaked in me ideas never known before. + +The strongest sympathy attached me to him in spite of myself: I +thought it friendship, but felt that friendship more lively than what I +called my _love_ for Sir George; all conversation but his became +insupportable to me; every moment that he passed from me, I counted as +lost in my existence. + +I loved him; that tenderness hourly increased: I hated Sir George, I +fancied him changed; I studied to find errors in a man who had, a few +weeks before, appeared to me amiable, and whom I had consented to +marry; I broke with him, and felt a weight removed from my soul. + +I trembled when Rivers appeared; I died to tell him my whole soul +was his; I watched his looks, to find there the same sentiments with +which he had inspired me: that transporting moment at length arrived; +I had the delight to find our tenderness was mutual, and to devote my +life to making happy the lord of my desires. + +Mrs. Melmoth's letter brought me my father's commands, if unmarried, +to continue so till his return. + +He added, that he intended me for a relation, to whose family he had +obligations; that, his affairs having suffered such a happy +revolution, he had it in his power, and, therefore, thought it his +duty, to pay this debt of gratitude; and, at the same time, hoping to +make me happy by connecting me with an amiable family, allied to him by +blood and friendship; and uniting me to a man whom report spoke worthy +of all my tenderness. + +You may remember, my dearest Bell, how strongly I was affected on +reading those letters: I wrote to Rivers, to beg him to defer our +marriage; but the manner in which he took that request, and the fear of +appearing indifferent to him, conquered all sense of what I owed to my +father, and I married him; making it, however, a condition that he +should ask no explanation of my conduct till I chose to give it. + +I knew not the character of my father; he might be a tyrant, and +divide us from each other: Rivers doubted my tenderness; would not my +waiting, if my father had afterwards refused his consent to our union, +have added to those cruel suspicions? might he not have supposed I had +ceased to love him, and waited for the excuse of paternal authority to +justify a change of sentiment? + +In short, love bore down every other consideration; if I persisted +in this delay, I might hazard losing all my soul held dear, the only +object for which life was worth my care. + +I determined, if I married, to give up all claim to my father's +fortune, which I should justly forfeit by my disobedience to his +commands: I hoped, however, Rivers's merit, and my father's paternal +affection, when he knew us both, would influence him to make some +provision for me as his daughter. + +Half his fortune was all I ever hoped for, or even would have chose +to accept: the rest I determined to give up to the man whom I refused +to marry. + +I gave my hand to Rivers, and was happy; yet the idea of my +father's return, and the consciousness of having disobeyed him, cast +sometimes a damp on my felicity, and threw a gloom over my soul, which +all my endeavors could scarce hide from Rivers, though his delicacy +prevented his asking the cause. + +I now know, what was then a secret to me, that my father had offered +his daughter to Rivers, with a fortune which could, however, have been +no temptation to a mind like his, had he not been attached to me: he +declined the offer, and, lest I should hear of it, and, from a romantic +disinterestedness, want him to accept it, pressed our marriage with +more importunity than ever; yet had the generosity to conceal this +sacrifice from me, and to wish it should be concealed for ever. + +These sentiments, so noble, so peculiar to my Rivers, prevented an +explanation, and hid from us, for some time, the circumstances which +now make our happiness so perfect. + +How infinitely worthy is Rivers of all my tenderness! + +My father has sent to speak with me in his apartment: I should have +told you, I this morning went to Bellfield, and brought from thence my +mother's picture, which I have just sent him. + + Adieu! Your faithful + Emily Rivers. + + + +LETTER 227. + + +To Mrs. Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland. + +London, Sunday. + +No words, my dear Emily, can speak our joy at the receipt of your +two last letters. + +You are then as happy as you deserve to be; we hope, in a few days, +to be witnesses of your felicity. + +We knew from the first of your father's proposal to Rivers; but he +extorted a promise from us, never on any account to communicate it to +you: he also desired us to detain you in Berkshire, by lengthening our +visit, till your marriage, lest any friend of your father's in London +should know his design, and chance acquaint you with it. + +Fitzgerald is _Monsieur le Majeur_, at your ladyship's service: +he received his commission this morning. + +I once again congratulate you, my dear, on this triumph of +tenderness: you see love, like virtue, is not only its own reward, but +sometimes intitles us to other rewards too. + +It should always be considered, that those who marry from love, +_may_ grow rich; but those who marry to be rich, will _never_ +love. + +The very idea that love will come after marriage, is shocking to +minds which have the least spark of delicacy: to such minds, a marriage +which begins with indifference will certainly end in disgust and +aversion. + +I bespeak your papa for my _cecisbeo_; mine is extremely at +your service in return. + +But I am piqued, my dear. "Sentiments so noble, so peculiar to your +Rivers--" + +I am apt to believe there are men in the world--that nobleness of +mind is not so very _peculiar_--and that some people's sentiments +may be as noble as other people's. + +In short, I am inclined to fancy Fitzgerald would have acted just +the same part in the same situation. + +But it is your great fault, my dear Emily, to suppose your love a +phoenix, whereas he is only an agreable, worthy, handsome fellow, +_comme un autre_. + +I suppose you will be very angry; but who cares? I will be angry +too. + +Surely, my Fitzgerald--I allow Rivers all his merit; but +comparisons, my dear-- + +Both our fellows, to be sure, are charming creatures; and I would +not change them for a couple of Adonis's: yet I don't insist upon it, +that there is nothing agreable in the world but them. + +You should remember, my dear, that beauty is in the lover's eye; and +that, however highly you may think of Rivers, every woman breathing has +the same idea of _the dear man_. + +O heaven! I must tell you, because it will flatter your vanity about +your charmer. + +I have had a letter from an old lover of mine at Quebec, who tells +me, Madame Des Roches has just refused one of the best matches in the +country, and vows she will live and die a batchelor. + +'Tis a mighty foolish resolution, and yet I cannot help liking her +the better for making it. + +My dear papa talks of taking a house near you, and of having a +garden to rival yours: we shall spend a good deal of time with him, and +I shall make love to Rivers, which you know will be vastly pretty. + +One must do something to give a little variety to life; and nothing +is so amusing, or keeps the mind so pleasingly awake, especially in the +country, as the flattery of an agreable fellow. + +I am not, however, quite sure I shall not look abroad for a flirt, +for one's friend's husband is almost as insipid as one's own. + +Our romantic adventures being at an end, my dear; and we being all +degenerated into sober people, who marry and _settle_; we seem in +great danger of sinking into vegetation: on which subject I desire +Rivers's opinion, being, I know, a most exquisite enquirer into the +laws of nature. + +Love is a pretty invention, but, I am told, is apt to mellow into +friendship; a degree of perfection at which I by no means desire +Fitzgerald's attachment for me to arrive on this side seventy. + +What must we do, my dear, to vary our days? + +Cards, you will own, are an agreable relief, and the least subject +to pall of any pleasures under the sun: and really, philosophically +speaking, what is life but an intermitted pool at quadrille? + +I am interrupted by a divine colonel in the guards. + + Adieu! Your faithful + A. Fitzgerald. + + + +LETTER 228. + + +To Mrs. Fitzgerald. + +Bellfield, Tuesday. + +I accept your challenge, Bell; and am greatly mistaken if you find +me so very insipid as you are pleased to suppose. + +Have no fear of falling into vegetation; not one amongst us has the +least vegetative quality. + +I have a thousand ideas of little amusements, to keep the mind +awake. + +None of our party are of that sleepy order of beings, who want +perpetual events to make them feel their existence: this is the defect +of the cold and inanimate, who have not spirit and vivacity enough to +taste the natural pleasures of life. + +Our adventures of one kind are at an end; but we shall see others, +as entertaining, springing up every moment. + +I dare say, our whole lives will be Pindaric: my only plan of life +is to have none at all, which, I think, my little Bell will approve. + +Please to observe, my sweet Bell, to make life pleasant, we must not +only have great pleasures but little ones, like the smaller auxiliary +parts of a building; we must have our trifling amusements, as well as +our sublime transports. + +My first _second_ pleasure (if you will allow the expression) +is gardening; and for this reason, that it is my divine Emily's: I must +teach you to love rural pleasures. + +Colonel Willmott has made me just as rich as I wish to be. + +You must know, my fair friend, that whilst I thought a fortune and +Emily incompatible, I had infinite contempt for the former, and fancied +that it would rather take from, than add to, my happiness; but, now I +can possess it with her, I allow it all its value. + +My father (with what delight do I call the father of Emily by that +name!) hinted at my taking a larger house; but I would not leave my +native Dryads for an imperial palace: I have, however, agreed to let +him build a wing to Bellfield, which it wants, to compleat the original +plan, and to furnish it in whatever manner he thinks fit. + +He is to have a house in London; and we are to ramble from one to +the other as fancy leads us. + +He insists on our having no rule but inclination: do you think we +are in any danger of vegetating, my dear Bell? + +The great science of life is, to keep in constant employment that +restless active principle within us, which, if not directed right, will +be eternally drawing us from real to imaginary happiness. + +Love, all charming as it is, requires to be kept alive by such a +variety of amusements, or avocations, as may prevent the languor to +which all human pleasures are subject. + +Emily's tenderness and delicacy make me ever an expecting lover: she +contrives little parties of pleasure, and by surprize, of which she is +always the ornament and the soul: her whole attention is given to make +her Rivers happy. + +I envy the man who attends her on these little excursions. + +Love with us is ever led by the Sports and the Smiles. + +Upon the whole, people who have the spirit to act as we have done, +to dare to chuse their own companions for life, will generally be +happy. + +The affections are the true sources of enjoyment: love, friendship, +and, if you will allow me to anticipate, paternal tenderness, all the +domestic attachments, are sweet beyond words. + +The beneficent Author of nature, who gave us these affections for +the wisest purposes-- + +"Cela est bien dit, mon cher Rivers; mais il faut cultiver notre +jardin." + +You are right, my dear Bell, and I am a prating coxcomb. + +Lucy's post-coach is just setting off, to wait your commands. + +I send this by Temple's servant. On Thursday I hope to see our dear +groupe of friends re-united, and to have nothing to wish, but a +continuance of our present happiness. + + Adieu! Your faithful + Ed. Rivers. + + +THE END. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The History of Emily Montague, by Frances Brooke + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE *** + +***** This file should be named 16300.txt or 16300.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/3/0/16300/ + +Produced by Andrew Sly + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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