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.