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.