To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.
Silleri, June 10, Evening.
My poor Rivers! I think I felt more from his going than even from
Emily's: whilst he was here, I seemed not quite to have lost her: I now
feel doubly the loss of both.
He begged me to shew attention to Madame Des Roches, who he assured
me merited my tenderest friendship; he wrote to her, and has left the
letter open in my care: it is to thank her, in the most affectionate
terms, for her politeness and friendship, as well to himself as to his
Emily; and to offer her his best services in England in regard to her
estate, part of which some people here have very ungenerously applied
for a grant of, on pretence of its not being all settled according to
the original conditions.
He owned to me, he felt some regret at leaving this amiable woman in
Canada, and at the idea of never seeing her more.
I love him for this sensibility; and for his delicate attention to
one whose disinterested affection for him most certainly deserves it.
Fitzgerald is below, he does all possible to console me for the loss
of my friends; but indeed, Lucy, I feel their absence most severely.
I have an opportunity of sending your brother's letter to Madame Des
Roches, which I must not lose, as they are not very frequent: 'tis by
a French gentleman who is now with my father.
Adieu! your faithful,
A. Fermor.
Twelve at night.
We have been talking of your brother; I have been saying, there is
nothing I so much admire in him as that tenderness of soul, and almost
female sensibility, which is so uncommon in a sex, whose whole
education tends to harden their hearts.
Fitzgerald admires his spirit, his understanding, his generosity,
his courage, the warmth of his friendship.
My father his knowledge of the world; not that indiscriminate
suspicion of mankind which is falsely so called; but that clearness of
mental sight, and discerning faculty, which can distinguish virtue as
well as vice, wherever it resides.
"I also love in him," said my father, "that noble sincerity, that
integrity of character, which is the foundation of all the virtues."
"And yet, my dear papa, you would have had Emily prefer to him, that
_white curd of asses milk_, Sir George Clayton, whose highest
claim to virtue is the constitutional absence of vice, and who never
knew what it was to feel for the sorrows of another."
"You mistake, Bell: such a preference was impossible; but she was
engaged to Sir George; and he had also a fine fortune. Now, in these
degenerate days, my dear, people must eat; we have lost all taste for
the airy food of romances, when ladies rode behind their enamored
knights, dined luxuriously on a banquet of haws, and quenched their
thirst at the first stream."
"But, my dear papa--"
"But my dear Bell--"
I saw the sweet old man look angry, so chose to drop the subject;
but I do aver, now he is out of sight, that haws and a pillion, with
such a noble fellow as your brother, are preferable to ortolans and a
coach and six, with such a piece of still life and insipidity as Sir
George.
Good night! my dear Lucy.