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.