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.