To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall.
Silleri, July 13.
I agree with you, my dear Temple, that nothing can be more pleasing
than an _awakened_ English woman; of which you and my _caro sposo_
have, I flatter myself, the happy experience; and wish with you that
the character was more common: but I must own, and I am sorry to own
it, that my fair countrywomen and fellow citizens (I speak of the
nation in general, and not of the capital) have an unbecoming kind of
reserve, which prevents their being the agreable companions, and
amiable wives, which nature meant them.
From a fear, and I think a prudish one, of being thought too
attentive to please your sex, they have acquired a certain distant
manner to men, which borders on ill-breeding: they take great pains to
veil, under an affected appearance of disdain, that winning sensibility
of heart, that delicate tenderness, which renders them doubly lovely.
They are even afraid to own their friendships, if not according to
the square and rule; are doubtful whether a modest woman may own she
loves even her husband; and seem to think affections were given them
for no purpose but to hide.
Upon the whole, with at least as good a native right to charm as any
women on the face of the globe, the English have found the happy secret
of pleasing less.
Is my Emily arrived? I can say nothing else.
Twelve o'clock.
I am the happiest woman in the creation: papa has just told me, we
are to go home in six or seven weeks.
Not but this is a divine country, and our farm a terrestrial
paradise; but we have lived in it almost a year, and one grows tired of
every thing in time, you know, Temple.
I shall see my Emily, and flirt with Rivers; to say nothing of you
and my little Lucy.
Adieu! I am grown very lazy since I married; for the future, I shall
make Fitzgerald write all my letters, except billet-doux, in which I
think I excel him.
Yours,
A. Fitzgerald.