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.