To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.
Silleri, March 29.
We are going to dine at a farm house in the country, where we are to
meet other company, and have a ball: the snow begins a little to
soften, from the warmth of the sun, which is greater than in England in
May. Our winter parties are almost at an end.
My father drives Madame Des Roches, who is of our party, and your
brother Emily; I hope the little fool will be easy now, Lucy; she is
very humble, to be jealous of one, who, though really very pleasing, is
neither so young nor so handsome as herself; and who professes to wish
only for Rivers's friendship.
But I have no right to say a word on this subject, after having been
so extremely hurt at Fitzgerald's attention to such a woman as Madame
La Brosse; an attention too which was so plainly meant to pique me.
We are all, I am afraid, a little absurd in these affairs, and
therefore ought to have some degree of indulgence for others.
Emily and I, however, differ in our ideas of love: it is the
business of her life, the amusement of mine; 'tis the food of her
hours, the seasoning of mine.
Or, in other words, she loves like a foolish woman, I like a
sensible man: for men, you know, compared to women, love in about the
proportion of one to twenty.
'Tis a mighty wrong thing, after all, Lucy, that parents will
educate creatures so differently, who are to live with and for each
other.
Every possible means is used, even from infancy, to soften the minds
of women, and to harden those of men; the contrary endeavor might be of
use, for the men creatures are unfeeling enough by nature, and we are
born too tremblingly alive to love, and indeed to every soft affection.
Your brother is almost the only one of his sex I know, who has the
tenderness of woman with the spirit and firmness of man: a circumstance
which strikes every woman who converses with him, and which contributes
to make him the favorite he is amongst us. Foolish women who cannot
distinguish characters may possibly give the preference to a coxcomb;
but I will venture to say, no woman of sense was ever much acquainted
with Colonel Rivers without feeling for him an affection of some kind
or other.
_A propos_ to women, the estimable part of us are divided into
two classes only, the tender and the lively.
The former, at the head of which I place Emily, are infinitely more
capable of happiness; but, to counterbalance this advantage, they are
also capable of misery in the same degree. We of the other class, who
feel less keenly, are perhaps upon the whole as happy, at least I would
fain think so.
For example, if Emily and I marry our present lovers, she will
certainly be more exquisitely happy than I shall; but if they should
change their minds, or any accident prevent our coming together, I am
inclined to fancy my situation would be much the most agreable.
I should pout a month, and then look about for another lover; whilst
the tender Emily would
"Sit like patience on a monument,"
and pine herself into a consumption.
Adieu! They wait for me.
Yours,
A. Fermor.
Tuesday, midnight.
We have had a very agreable day, Lucy, a pretty enough kind of a
ball, and every body in good humor: I danced with Fitzgerald, whom I
never knew so agreable.
Happy love is gay, I find; Emily is all sprightliness, your
brother's eyes have never left her one moment, and her blushes seemed
to shew her sense of the distinction; I never knew her look so handsome
as this day.
Do you know I felt for Madame Des Roches? Emily was excessively
complaisant to her: she returned her civility, but I could perceive a
kind of constraint in her manner, very different from the ease of her
behaviour when we saw her before: she felt the attention of Rivers to
Emily very strongly: in short, the ladies seemed to have changed
characters for the day.
We supped with your brother on our return, and from his windows,
which look on the river St. Charles, had the pleasure of observing one
of the most beautiful objects imaginable, which I never remember to
have seen before this evening.
You are to observe the winter method of fishing here, is to break
openings like small fish ponds on the ice, to which the fish coming for
air, are taken in prodigious quantities on the surface.
To shelter themselves from the excessive cold of the night, the
fishermen build small houses of ice on the river, which are arranged in
a semicircular form, and extend near a quarter of a mile, and which,
from the blazing fires within, have a brilliant transparency and vivid
lustre, not easy either to imagine or to describe: the starry
semicircle looks like an immense crescent of diamonds, on which the sun
darts his meridian rays.
Absolutely, Lucy, you see nothing in Europe: you are cultivated, you
have the tame beauties of art; but to see nature in her lovely wild
luxuriance, you must visit your brother when he is prince of the
Kamaraskas.
Adieu!
Your faithful
A. Fermor.
The variety, as well of grand objects, as of amusements, in this
country, confirms me in an opinion I have always had, that Providence
had made the conveniences and inconveniences of life nearly equal every
where.
We have pleasures here even in winter peculiar to the climate, which
counterbalance the evils we suffer from its rigor.
Good night, my dear Lucy!