My opinion, however, is, that if people married from affection,
there would be no such thing as gallantry at all.
Pride, and the parade of life, destroy all happiness: our whole
felicity depends on our choice in marriage, yet we chuse from motives
more trifling than would determine us in the common affairs of life.
I knew a gentleman who fancied himself in love, yet delayed marrying
his mistress till he could afford a set of plate.
Modern manners are very unfavorable to the tender affections.
Ancient lovers had only dragons to combat; ours have the worse
monsters of avarice and ambition.
All I shall say further on the subject is, that the two happiest
people I ever knew were a country clergyman and his wife, whose whole
income did not exceed one hundred pounds a year.
A pretty philosophical, sentimental, dull kind of an epistle this!
But you deserve it, for not answering my last, which was divine.
I am pleased with Emily's ideas about her dress at the masquerade;
it is a proof you are still lovers.
I remember, the first symptoms I discovered of my _tendresse_
for Fitzgerald was my excessive attention to this article: I have
tried on twenty different caps when I expected him at Silleri.
Before we drop the subject of gallantries, I must tell you I am
charmed with you and my _sposo_, for never giving the least hint
before Emily and me that you have had any; it is a piece of delicacy
which convinces me of your tenderness more than all the vows that ever
lovers broke would do.
I have been hurt at the contrary behaviour in Temple; and have
observed Lucy to be so too, though her excessive attention not to give
him pain prevented her shewing it: I have on such an occasion seen a
smile on her countenance, and a tear of tender regret starting into her
eyes.
A woman who has vanity without affection will be pleased to hear of
your past conquests, and regard them as victims immolated to her
superior charms: to her, therefore, it is right to talk of them; but
to flatter the _heart_, and give delight to a woman who truly
loves, you should appear too much taken up with the present passion to
look back to the past: you should not even present to her imagination
the thought that you have had other engagements: we know such things
are, but had rather the idea should not be awakened: I may be wrong,
but I speak from my own feelings.
I am excessively pleased with a thought I met with in a little
French novel:
"Un homme qui ne peut plus compter ses bonnes fortunes, est de tous,
celui qui connoît le moins les _faveurs_. C'est le coeur qui les
accorde, & ce n'est pas le coeur qu'un homme à la mode interesse. Plus
on est _prôné_ par les femmes, plus il est facile de les avoir,
mais moins il est possible de les enflammer."
To which truth I most heartily set my hand.
Twelve o'clock.
I have just heard from your sister, who tells me, Emily is turned a
little natural philosopher, reads Ray, Derham, and fifty other strange
old fellows that one never heard of, and is eternally poring through a
microscope to discover the wonders of creation.
How amazingly learned matrimony makes young ladies! I suppose we
shall have a volume of her discoveries bye and bye.
She says too, you have little pets like sweethearts, quarrel and
make it up again in the most engaging manner in the world.
This is just what I want to bring Fitzgerald to; but the perverse
monkey won't quarrel with me, do all I can: I am sure this is not my
fault, for I give him reason every day of his life.
Shenstone says admirably, "That reconciliation is the tenderest part
of love and friendship: the soul here discovers a kind of elasticity,
and, being forced back, returns with an additional violence."
Who would not quarrel for the pleasure of reconciliation! I shall be
very angry with Fitzgerald if he goes on in this mild way.
Tell your sister, she cannot be more mortified than I am, that it is
impossible for me to be at her masquerade.
Adieu! Your affectionate
A. Fitzgerald.
Don't you think, my dear Rivers, that marriage, on prudent
principles, is a horrid sort of an affair? It is really cruel of papas
and mammas to shut up two poor innocent creatures in a house together,
to plague and torment one another, who might have been very happy
separate.
Where people take their own time, and chuse for themselves, it is
another affair, and I begin to think it possible affection may last
through life.
I sometimes fancy to myself Fitzgerald and I loving on, from the
impassioned hour when I first honored him with my hand, to that
tranquil one, when we shall take our afternoon's nap _vis a vis_
in two arm chairs, by the fire-side, he a grave country justice, and I
his worship's good sort of a wife, the Lady Bountiful of the parish.
I have a notion there is nothing so very shocking in being an oldish
gentlewoman; what one loses in charms, is made up in the happy liberty
of doing and saying whatever one pleases. Adieu!