Vol. IV (continued 2)

A propos to innocent amusements, I think your fair sister-in-law an exquisite politician; calling the pleasures to Temple at home, is the best method in the world to prevent his going abroad in pursuit of them.

I am mortified I cannot be at your masquerade; it is my passion, and I have the prettiest dress in the world by me. I am half inclined to elope for a day or two.

Adieu! Your faithful A. Fitzgerald.

LETTER CCXI.215.

To Captain Fitzgerald.

Bellfield, Nov. 12.

Please to inform the little Bell, I won’t allow her to spoil my Emily.

I enter a caveat against male friendships, which are only fit for ladies of the salamandrine order.

I desire to engross all Emily’s kind propensities to myself; and should grudge the least share in her heart, or, if you please in her friendship, to an archangel.

However, not to be too severe, since prudery expects women to have no propensities at all, I allow single ladies, of all ranks, sizes, ages, and complexions, to spread the veil of friendship between their hearts and the world.

’Tis the finest day I ever saw, though the middle of November; a dry soft west wind, the air as mild as in April, and an almost Canadian sunshine.

I have been bathing in the clear stream, at the end of my garden; the same stream in which I laved my careless bosom at thirteen; an idea which gave me inconceivable delight; and the more, as my bosom is as gay and tranquil at this moment as in those dear hours of chearfulness and innocence.

Of all local prejudices, that is the strongest as well as most pleasing, which attaches us to the place of our birth.

Sweet home! only seat of true and genuine happiness.

I am extremely in the humor to write a poem to the houshold gods.

We neglect these amiable deities, but they are revenged; true pleasure is only to be found under their auspices.

I know not how it is, my dear Fitzgerald; but I don’t find my passion for the country abate.

I still find the scenes around me lovely; though, from the change of season, less smiling than when I first fixed at Bellfield; we have rural business enough to amuse, not embarrass us; we have a small but excellent library of books, given us by my mother; she and Emily are two of the most pleasing companions on earth; the neighbourhood is full of agreable people, and, what should always be attended to in fixing in the country, of fortunes not superior to our own.

The evenings grow long, but they are only the more jovial; I love the pleasures of the table, not for their own sakes, for no man is more indifferent on this subject; but because they promote social, convivial joy, and bring people together in good humor with themselves and each other.

My Emily’s suppers are enchanting; but our little income obliges us to have few: if I was rich, this would be my principal extravagance.

To fill up my measure of content, Emily is pleased with my retirement, and finds all her happiness in my affection.

We are so little alone, that I find our moments of unreserved conversation too short; whenever I leave her, I recollect a thousand things I had to say, a thousand new ideas to communicate, and am impatient for the hour of seeing again, without restraint, the most amiable and pleasing of woman-kind.

My happiness would be complete, if I did not sometimes see a cloud of anxiety on that dear countenance, which, however, is dissipated the moment my eyes meet hers.

I am going to Temple’s, and the chaise is at the door.

Adieu! my dear friend! Your affectionate Ed. Rivers.

LETTER CCXII.216.

To Colonel Rivers.

Nov. 14.

So you disapprove male friendships, my sweet Colonel! I thought you had better ideas of things in general.

Fitzgerald and I have been disputing on French and English manners, in regard to gallantry.

The great question is, Whether a man is more hurt by the imprudent conduct of his daughter or his wife?

Much may be said on both sides.

There is some hazard in suffering coquetry in either; both contribute to give charms to conversation, and introduce ease and politeness into society; but both are dangerous to manners.

Our customs, however, are most likely to produce good effects, as they give opportunity for love marriages, the only ones which can make worthy minds happy.

The coquetry of single women has a point of view consistent with honor; that of married women has generally no point of view at all; it is, however of use pour passer le tems.

As to real gallantry, the French style depraves the minds of men least, ours is most favorable to the peace of families.

I think I preserve the balance of argument admirably.

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!

LETTER CCXIII.217.

To Captain Fitzgerald.

Bellfield, Nov. 16.

My relation, Colonel Willmott, is just arrived from the East Indies, rich, and full of the project of marrying his daughter to me.

My mother has this morning received a letter from him, pressing the affair with an earnestness which rather makes me feel for his disappointment, and wish to break it to him as gently as possible.

He talks of being at Bellfield on Wednesday evening, which is Temple’s masquerade; I shall stay behind at Bellfield, to receive him, have a domino ready, and take him to Temple-house.

He seems to know nothing of my marriage or my sister’s, and I wish him not to know of the former till he has seen Emily.

The best apology I can make for declining his offer, is to shew him the lovely cause.

I will contrive they shall converse together at the masquerade, and that he shall sit next her at supper, without their knowing any thing of each other.

If he sees her, if he talks with her, without that prejudice which the knowledge of her being the cause of his disappointment might give, he cannot fail of having for her that admiration which I never yet met with a mind savage enough to refuse her.

His daughter has been educated abroad, which is a circumstance I am pleased with, as it gives me the power of refusing her without wounding either her vanity, or her father’s, which, had we been acquainted, might have been piqued at my giving the preference to another.

She is not in England, but is hourly expected: the moment she arrives, Lucy and I will fetch her to Temple-house: I shall be anxious to see her married to a man who deserves her. Colonel Willmott tells me, she is very amiable; at least as he is told, for he has never seen her.

I could wish it were possible to conceal this offer for ever from Emily; my delicacy is hurt at the idea of her knowing it, at least from me or my family.

My mother behaves like an angel on this occasion; expresses herself perfectly happy in my having consulted my heart alone in marrying, and speaks of Emily’s tenderness as a treasure above all price.

She does not even hint a wish to see me richer than I am.

Had I never seen Emily, I would not have married this lady unless love had united us.

Do not, however, suppose I have that romantic contempt for fortune, which is so pardonable, I had almost said so becoming, at nineteen.

I have seen more of the world than most men of my age, and I have seen the advantages of affluence in their strongest light.

I think a worthy man not only may have, but ought to have, an attention to making his way in the world, and improving his situation in it, by every means consistent with probity and honor, and with his own real happiness.

I have ever had this attention, and ever will, but not by base means: and, in my opinion, the very basest is that of selling one’s hand in marriage.

With what horror do we regard a man who is kept! and a man who marries from interested views alone, is kept in the strongest sense of the word.

He is equally a purchased slave, with no distinction but that his bondage is of longer continuance.

Adieu! I may possibly write again on Wednesday.

Your faithful Ed. Rivers.

ETTERLETTER CCXIV.218.

To Colonel Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland.

London, Nov. 18.

Fitzgerald is busy, and begs me to write to you.

Your cottagers are arrived; there is something very interesting in Miss Williams, and the little boy is an infant Adonis.

Heaven send he may be an honester man than his father, or I foresee terrible devastations amongst the sex.

We have this moment your letter; I am angry with you for blaspheming the sweet season of nineteen:

You will find out I am in a course of Shenstone, which I prescribe to all minds tinctured with the uncomfortable selfishness of the present age.

The only way to be good, is to retain the generous mistakes, if they are such, of nineteen through life.

As to you, my dear Rivers, with all your airs of prudence and knowing the world, you are, in this respect, as much a boy as ever.

Witness your extreme joy at having married a woman with two thousand pounds, when you might have had one with twenty times the sum.

You are a boy, Rivers, I am a girl; and I hope we shall remain so as long as we live.

Do you know, my dear friend, that I am a daughter of the Muses, and that I wrote pastorals at seven years old?

I am charmed with this, because an old physician once told me it was a symptom, not only of long life, but of long youth, which is much better.

He explained this, by saying something about animal spirits, which I do not at all understand, but which perhaps you may.

I should have been a pretty enough kind of a poetess, if papa had not attempted to teach me how to be one, and insisted on seeing my scribbles as I went on: these same Muses are such bashful misses, they won’t bear to be looked at.

Genius is like the sensitive plant; it shrinks from the touch.

So your nabob cousin is arrived: I hope he will fall in love with Emily; and remember, if he had obligations to Mrs. Rivers’s father, he had exactly the same to your grandfather.

He might spare ten thousand pounds very well, which would improve your petits soupers.

Adieu! Sir William Verville dines here, and I have but just time to dress.

Yours, A. Fitzgerald.

LETTER CCXV.219.

To Captain Fitzgerald.

Bellfield, Nov. 17, Morning.

I have had a letter from Colonel Willmott myself to-day; he is still quite unacquainted with the state of our domestic affairs; supposes me a batchelor, and talks of my being his son-in-law as a certainty, not attending to the probability of my having other engagements.

His history, which he tells me in this letter, is a very romantic one. He was a younger brother, and provided for accordingly: he loved, when about twenty, a lady who was as little a favorite of fortune as himself: their families, who on both sides had other views, joined their interest to get him sent to the East Indies; and the young lady was removed to the house of a friend in London, where she was to continue till he had left England.

Before he went, however, they contrived to meet, and were privately married; the marriage was known only to her brother, who was Willmott’s friend.

He left her in the care of her brother, who, under pretence of diverting her melancholy, and endeavoring to cure her passion, obtained leave of his father to take her with him to France.

She was there delivered of this child, and expired a few days after.

Her brother, without letting her family know the secret, educated the infant, as the daughter of a younger brother who had been just before killed in a duel in France; her parents, who died in a few years, were, almost in their last moments, informed of these circumstances, and made a small provision for the child.

In the mean time, Colonel Willmott, after experiencing a great variety of misfortunes for many years, during which he maintained a constant correspondence with his brother-in-law, and with no other person in Europe, by a train of lucky accidents, acquired very rapidly a considerable fortune, with which he resolved to return to England, and marry his daughter to me, as the only method to discharge fully his obligations to my grandfather, who alone, of all his family, had given him the least assistance when he left England. He wrote to his daughter, letting her know his design, and directing her to meet him in London; but she is not yet arrived.

Six in the Evening.evening.

My mother and Emily went to Temple’s to dinner; they are to dress there, and I am to be surprized.

Seven.

Colonel Willmott is come: he is an extreme handsome man; tall, well-made, with an air of dignity which one seldom sees; he is very brown, and, what will please Bell, has an aquiline nose: he looks about fifty, but is not so much; change of climate has almost always the disagreable effect of adding some years to the look.

He is dressing, to accompany me to the masquerade; I must attend him: I have only time to say,

I am yours, Ed. Rivers.

LETTER CCXVI.220.

To Mrs. Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland.

London, Nov. 18, twelve at night.

Who should I dine and sup with to-day, at a merchant’s in the city, but your old love, Sir George Clayton, as gay and amusing as ever!

What an entertaining companion have you lost, my dear Emily!

He was a little disconcerted at seeing me, and blushed extremely; but soon recovered his amiable, uniform insipidity of countenance, and smiled and simpered as usual.

He never enquired after you, nor even mentioned your name; being asked for a toast, I had the malice to give Rivers; he drank him, without seeming ever to have heard of him before.

The city misses admire him prodigiously, and he them; they are charmed with his beauty, and he with their wit.

His mother, poor woman! could not bring the match she wrote about to bear: the family approved him; but the fair one made a better choice, and gave herself last week, at St. George’s, Hanover-square, to a very agreable fellow of our acquaintance, Mr. Palmer; a man of sense and honor, who deserves her had she been ten times richer: he has a small estate in Lincolnshire, and his house is not above twenty miles from you: I must bring you and Mrs. Palmer acquainted.

I suppose you are now the happiest of beings; Rivers finding a thousand new beauties in his belle paisanne, and you exulting in your charms, or, in other words, glorying in your strength.

So the maiden aunts in your neighbourhood think Miss Williams no better than she should be?

Either somebody has said, or the idea is my own; after all, I believe it Shenstone’s, That those are generally the best people, whose characters have been most injured by slanderers, as we usually find that the best fruit which the birds have been pecking at.

I will, however, allow appearances were a little against your cottager; and I would forgive the good old virgins, if they had always as suspicious circumstances to determine from.

But they generally condemn from trifling indiscretions, and settle the characters of their own sex from their conduct at a time of life when they are themselves no judges of its propriety; they pass sentence on them for small errors, when it is an amazing proof of prudence not to commit great ones.

For my own part, I think those who never have been guilty of any indiscretion, are generally people who have very little active virtue.

The waving line holds in moral as well as in corporeal beauty.

Adieu! Yours ever, A. Fitzgerald.

All I can say is, that if imprudence is a sin, heaven help your poor little Bell!

On those principles, Sir George is the most virtuous man in the world; to which assertion, I believe, you will enter a caveat.

LETTER CCXVII.221.

To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland.

London, Nov. 19.

You are right, my little Rivers: I like your friend, Colonel Willmott vastly better for his aquiline nose; I never yet saw one on the face of a fool.

He is a fortunate man to be introduced to such a party of fine women at his arrival; it is literally to feed among the lilies.

Fitzgerald says, he should be jealous of him in your esteem, if he was fifteen years younger; but that the strongest friendships are, where there is an equality in age; because people of the same age have the same train of thinking, and see things in the same light.

Every season of life has its peculiar set of ideas; and we are greatly inclined to think nobody in the right, but those who are of the same opinion with ourselves.

Don’t you think it a strong proof of my passion for my sposo, that I repeat his sentiments?

But to business: Sir William is charmed with his little nephew; has promised to settle on him what he before mentioned, to allow Miss Williams an hundred pounds a year, which is to go to the child after her death, and to be at the expence of his education himself.

I die to hear whether your oriental Colonel is in love with Emily.

Pray tell us every thing.

Adieu! Your affectionate A. Fitzgerald.

LETTER CCXVIII.222.

To Captain Fitzgerald.

Temple-house, Thursday morning, 11 o’clock.

Our masquerade last night was really charming; I never saw any thing equal to it out of London.

Temple has taste, and had spared no expence to make it agreable; the decorations of the grand saloon were magnificent.

Emily was the loveliest paisanne that ever was beheld; her dress, without losing sight of the character, was infinitely becoming: her beauty never appeared to such advantage.

There was a noble simplicity in her air, which it is impossible to describe.

The easy turn of her shape, the lovely roundness of her arm, the natural elegance of her whole form, the waving ringlets of her beautiful dark hair, carelessly fastened with a ribbon, the unaffected grace of her every motion, all together conveyed more strongly than imagination can paint, the pleasing idea of a wood nymph, deigning to visit some favored mortal.

Colonel Willmott gazed on her with rapture; and asked me, if the rural deities had left their verdant abodes to visit Temple-house.

I introduced him to her, and left her to improve the impression: ’tis well I was married in time; a nabob is a dangerous rival.

Lucy looked lovely, but in another style; she was a sultana in all the pride of imperial beauty: her charms awed, but Emily’s invited; her look spoke resistless command, Emily’s soft persuasion.

There were many fine women; but I will own to you, I had, as to beauty, no eyes but for Emily.

We are going this morning to see Burleigh: when we return, I shall announce Colonel Willmott to Emily, and introduce them properly to each other; they are to go in the same chaise; she at present only knows him as a friend of mine, and he her as his belle paisanne.

Adieu! I am summoned. Your faithful Ed. Rivers.

I should have told you, I acquainted Colonel Willmott with my sister’s marriage before I took him to Temple-house, and found an opportunity of introducing him to Temple unobserved.

Emily is the only one here to whom he is a stranger: I will caution him not to mention to her his past generous design in my favor. Adieu!

LETTER CCXIX.223.

To Mrs. Fitzgerald.

Temple-house, Thursday morning.

Your Emily was happy beyond words last night: amongst a crowd of beauties, her Rivers’s eyes continually followed her; he seemed to see no other object: he would scarce let me wait till supper to unmask.

But you will call me a foolish romantic girl; therefore I will only say, I had the delight to see him pleased with my dress, and charmed with the complaisance which was shewed me by others.

There was a gentleman who came with Rivers, who was particularly attentive to me; he is not young, but extremely amiable: has a very fine person, with a commanding air; great politeness, and, as far as one can judge by a few hours conversation, an excellent understanding.

I never in my life met with a man for whom I felt such a partiality at first sight, except Rivers, who tells me, I have made a conquest of his friend.

He is to be my cavalier this morning to Burleigh.

It has this moment struck me, that Rivers never introduced his friend and me to each other, but as masks; I never thought of this before: I suppose he forgot it in the hurry of the masquerade.

I do not even know this agreable stranger’s name; I only found out by his conversation he had served in the army.

There is no saying how beautiful Lucy looked last night; her dress was rich, elegantly fancied, and particularly becoming to her graceful form, which I never saw look so graceful before.

All who attempted to be fine figures, shrunk into nothing before her.

Lucy carries her head, you know, remarkably well; which, with the advantage of her height, the perfect standard of women, her fine proportion, the native dignity of her air, the majestic flow of her robe, and the blaze of her diamonds, gave her a look of infinite superiority; a superiority which some of the company seemed to feel in a manner, which rather, I will own, gave me pain.

In a place consecrated to joy, I hate to see any thing like an uneasy sensation; yet, whilst human passions are what they are, it is difficult to avoid them.

There were four or five other sultanas, who seemed only the slaves of her train.

In short,

I was happy the unassuming simplicity of the character in which I appeared, prevented comparisons which must have been extremely to my disadvantage.

I was safe in my littleness, like a modest shrub by the side of a cedar; and, being in so different a style, had the better chance to be taken notice of, even where Lucy was.

She was radiant as the morning star, and even dazzlingly lovely.

Her complexion, for Temple would not suffer her to wear a mask at all, had the vivid glow of youth and health, heightened by pleasure, and the consciousness of universal admiration.

Her eyes had a fire which one could scarce look at.

Temple’s vanity and tenderness were gratified to the utmost: he drank eagerly the praises which envy itself could not have refused her.

My mother extremely became her character; and, when talking to Rivers, gave me the idea of the Roman Aurelia, whose virtues she has equalled.

He looked at her with a delight which rendered him a thousand times more dear to me: she is really one of the most pleasing women that ever existed.

I am called: we are just setting out for Burleigh, which I have not yet seen.

Adieu! Yours Emily Rivers.

LETTER CCXX.224.

To Captain Fitzgerald.

Bellfield, Thursday, two o’clock.

We are returned: Colonel Willmott is charmed with Burleigh, and more in love with Emily than ever.

He is gone to his apartment, whither I shall follow him, and acquaint him with my marriage; he is exactly in the disposition I could wish.

He will, I am sure, pardon any offence of which his belle paisanne is the cause.

I am returned.

He is disappointed, but not surprized; owns no human heart could have resisted Emily; begs she will allow his daughter a place in her friendship.

He insists on making her a present of diamonds; the only condition, he tells me, on which he will forgive my marriage.

I am going to introduce him to her in her apartment.

Adieu! for a moment.

Fitzgerald!—I scarce respire—the tumult of my joy—this daughter whom I have refused—my Emily—could you have believed—my Emily is the daughter of Colonel Willmott.

When I announced him to her by that name, her color changed; but when I added that he was just returned from the East Indies, she trembled, her cheeks had a dying paleness, her voice faltered, she pronounced faintly, “My father!” and sunk breathless on a sofa.

He ran to her, he pressed her wildly to his bosom, he kissed her pale cheek, he demanded if she was indeed his child? his Emily? the dear pledge of his Emily Montague’s tenderness?

Her senses returned, she fixed her eyes eagerly on him, she kissed his hand, she would have spoke, but tears stopped her voice.

The scene that followed is beyond my powers of description.

I have left them a moment, to share my joy with you: the time is too precious to say more. To-morrow you shall hear from me.

Adieu! Yours, Ed. Rivers.

LETTER CCXXI.225.

To Captain Fitzgerald.

Temple-house, Friday.

Your friend is the happiest of mankind.

Every anxiety is removed from my Emily’s dear bosom: a father’s sanction leaves her nothing to desire.

You may remember, she wished to delay our marriage: her motive was, to wait Colonel Willmott’s return.

Though promised by him to another, she hoped to bring him to leave her heart free; little did she think the man destined for her by her father, was the happy Rivers her heart had chosen.

Bound by a solemn vow, she concealed the circumstances of her birth even from me.

She resolved never to marry another, yet thought duty obliged her to wait her father’s arrival.

She kindly supposed he would see me with her eyes, and, when he knew me, change his design in my favor: she fancied he would crown her love as the reward of her obedience in delaying her marriage.

My importunity, and the fear of giving me room to doubt her tenderness, as her vow prevented such an explanation as would have satisfied me, bore down her duty to a father whom she had never seen, and whom she had supposed dead, till the arrival of Mrs. Melmoth’s letters; having been two years without hearing any thing of him.

She married me, determined to give up her right to half his fortune in favor of the person for whom he designed her; and hoped, by that means, to discharge her father’s obligations, which she could not pay at the expence of sacrificing her heart.

But she writes to Mrs. Fitzgerald, and will tell you all.

Come and share the happiness of your friends.

Adieu! Your faithful Ed. Rivers.

LETTER CCXXI.226.

To Mrs. Fitzgerald.

Temple-house, Friday.

My Rivers has told you—my sweet friend, in what words shall I convey to you an adequate idea of your Emily’s transport, at a discovery which has reconciled all her duties!

Those anxieties, that sense of having failed in filial obedience, which cast a damp on the joy of being wife to the most beloved of mankind, are at an end.

This husband whom I so dreaded, whom I determined never to accept, was my Rivers.

My father forgives me; he pardons the crime of love: he blesses that kind providence which conducted us to happiness.

How many has this event made happy!

The most amiable of mothers shares my joy; she bends in grateful thanks to that indulgent power who has rewarded her son for all his goodness to her.

Rivers hears her, and turns away to hide his tears: her tenderness melts him to the softness of a woman.

What gratitude do we not owe to heaven! may the sense of it be for ever engraven on our hearts!

My Lucy too; all, all are happy.

But I will tell you. Rivers has already acquainted you with part of my story.

My uncle placed me, with a servant, in whom he could confide, in a convent in France, till I was seven years old; he then sent for me to England, and left me at school eight years longer; after which, he took me with him to his regiment in Kent, where, you know, our friendship began, and continued till he changed into another, then in America, whither I attended him.

My father’s affairs were, at that time, in a situation, which determined my uncle to take the first opportunity of marrying me to advantage.

I regarded him as a father; he had always been more than a parent to me; I had the most implicit deference to his will.

He engaged me to Sir George Clayton; and, when dying, told me the story of my birth, to which I had till then been a stranger, exacting from me, however, an oath of secresy till I saw my father.

He died, leaving me, with a trifle left in trust to him for my use from my grandfather, about two thousand pounds, which was all I, at that time, ever expected to possess.

My father was then thought ruined; there was even a report of his death, and I imagined myself absolute mistress of my own actions.

I was near two years without hearing any thing of him; nor did I know I had still a father, till the letters you brought me from Mrs. Melmoth.

A variety of accidents, and our being both abroad, and in such distant parts of the world, prevented his letters arriving.

In this situation, the kind hand of heaven conducted my Rivers to Montreal.

I saw him; and, from that moment, my whole soul was his.

Formed for each other, our love was sudden and resistless as the bolt of heaven: the first glance of those dear speaking eyes gave me a new being, and awaked in me ideas never known before.

The strongest sympathy attached me to him in spite of myself: I thought it friendship, but felt that friendship more lively than what I called my love for Sir George; all conversation but his became insupportable to me; every moment that he passed from me, I counted as lost in my existence.

I loved him; that tenderness hourly increased: I hated Sir George, I fancied him changed; I studied to find errors in a man who had, a few weeks before, appeared to me amiable, and whom I had consented to marry; I broke with him, and felt a weight removed from my soul.

I trembled when Rivers appeared; I died to tell him my whole soul was his; I watched his looks, to find there the same sentiments with which he had inspired me: that transporting moment at length arrived; I had the delight to find our tenderness was mutual, and to devote my life to making happy the lord of my desires.

Mrs. Melmoth’s letter brought me my father’s commands, if unmarried, to continue so till his return.

He added, that he intended me for a relation, to whose family he had obligations; that, his affairs having suffered such a happy revolution, he had it in his power, and, therefore, thought it his duty, to pay this debt of gratitude; and, at the same time, hoping to make me happy by connecting me with an amiable family, allied to him by blood and friendship; and uniting me to a man whom report spoke worthy of all my tenderness.

You may remember, my dearest Bell, how strongly I was affected on reading those letters: I wrote to Rivers, to beg him to defer our marriage; but the manner in which he took that request, and the fear of appearing indifferent to him, conquered all sense of what I owed to my father, and I married him; making it, however, a condition that he should ask no explanation of my conduct till I chose to give it.

I knew not the character of my father; he might be a tyrant, and divide us from each other: Rivers doubted my tenderness; would not my waiting, if my father had afterwards refused his consent to our union, have added to those cruel suspicions? might he not have supposed I had ceased to love him, and waited for the excuse of paternal authority to justify a change of sentiment?

In short, love bore down every other consideration; if I persisted in this delay, I might hazard losing all my soul held dear, the only object for which life was worth my care.

I determined, if I married, to give up all claim to my father’s fortune, which I should justly forfeit by my disobedience to his commands: I hoped, however, Rivers’s merit, and my father’s paternal affection, when he knew us both, would influence him to make some provision for me as his daughter.

Half his fortune was all I ever hoped for, or even would have chose to accept: the rest I determined to give up to the man whom I refused to marry.

I gave my hand to Rivers, and was happy; yet the idea of my father’s return, and the consciousness of having disobeyed him, cast sometimes a damp on my felicity, and threw a gloom over my soul, which all my endeavors could scarce hide from Rivers, though his delicacy prevented his asking the cause.

I now know, what was then a secret to me, that my father had offered his daughter to Rivers, with a fortune which could, however, have been no temptation to a mind like his, had he not been attached to me: he declined the offer, and, lest I should hear of it, and, from a romantic disinterestedness, want him to accept it, pressed our marriage with more importunity than ever; yet had the generosity to conceal this sacrifice from me, and to wish it should be concealed for ever.

These sentiments, so noble, so peculiar to my Rivers, prevented an explanation, and hid from us, for some time, the circumstances which now make our happiness so perfect.

How infinitely worthy is Rivers of all my tenderness!

My father has sent to speak with me in his apartment: I should have told you, I this morning went to Bellfield, and brought from thence my mother’s picture, which I have just sent him.

Adieu! Your faithful Emily Rivers.

LETTER CCXXIII.227.

To Mrs. Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland.

London, Sunday.

No words, my dear Emily, can speak our joy at the receipt of your two last letters.

You are then as happy as you deserve to be; we hope, in a few days, to be witnesses of your felicity.

We knew from the first of your father’s proposal to Rivers; but he extorted a promise from us, never on any account to communicate it to you: he also desired us to detain you in Berkshire, by lengthening our visit, till your marriage, lest any friend of your father’s in London should know his design, and chance acquaint you with it.

Fitzgerald is Monsieur le Majeur, at your ladyship’s service: he received his commission this morning.

I once again congratulate you, my dear, on this triumph of tenderness: you see love, like virtue, is not only its own reward, but sometimes intitles us to other rewards too.

It should always be considered, that those who marry from love, may grow rich; but those who marry to be rich, will never love.

The very idea that love will come after marriage, is shocking to minds which have the least spark of delicacy: to such minds, a marriage which begins with indifference will certainly end in disgust and aversion.

I bespeak your papa for my cecisbeo; mine is extremely at your service in return.

But I am piqued, my dear. “Sentiments so noble, so peculiar to your Rivers—”

I am apt to believe there are men in the world—that nobleness of mind is not so very peculiar—and that some people’s sentiments may be as noble as other people’s.

In short, I am inclined to fancy Fitzgerald would have acted just the same part in the same situation.

But it is your great fault, my dear Emily, to suppose your love a phoenix, whereas he is only an agreable, worthy, handsome fellow, comme un autre.

I suppose you will be very angry; but who cares? I will be angry too.

Surely, my Fitzgerald—I allow Rivers all his merit; but comparisons, my dear—

Both our fellows, to be sure, are charming creatures; and I would not change them for a couple of Adonis’s: yet I don’t insist upon it, that there is nothing agreable in the world but them.

You should remember, my dear, that beauty is in the lover’s eye; and that, however highly you may think of Rivers, every woman breathing has the same idea of the dear man.

O heaven! I must tell you, because it will flatter your vanity about your charmer.

I have had a letter from an old lover of mine at Quebec, who tells me, Madame Des Roches has just refused one of the best matches in the country, and vows she will live and die a batchelor.

’Tis a mighty foolish resolution, and yet I cannot help liking her the better for making it.

My dear papa talks of taking a house near you, and of having a garden to rival yours: we shall spend a good deal of time with him, and I shall make love to Rivers, which you know will be vastly pretty.

One must do something to give a little variety to life; and nothing is so amusing, or keeps the mind so pleasingly awake, especially in the country, as the flattery of an agreable fellow.

I am not, however, quite sure I shall not look abroad for a flirt, for one’s friend’s husband is almost as insipid as one’s own.

Our romantic adventures being at an end, my dear; and we being all degenerated into sober people, who marry and settle; we seem in great danger of sinking into vegetation: on which subject I desire Rivers’s opinion, being, I know, a most exquisite enquirer into the laws of nature.

Love is a pretty invention, but, I am told, is apt to mellow into friendship; a degree of perfection at which I by no means desire Fitzgerald’s attachment for me to arrive on this side seventy.

What must we do, my dear, to vary our days?

Cards, you will own, are an agreable relief, and the least subject to pall of any pleasures under the sun: and really, philosophically speaking, what is life but an intermitted pool at quadrille?

I am interrupted by a divine colonel in the guards.

Adieu! Your faithful A. Fitzgerald.

LETTER CCXXIV.228.

To Mrs. Fitzgerald.

Bellfield, Tuesday.

I accept your challenge, Bell; and am greatly mistaken if you find me so very insipid as you are pleased to suppose.

Have no fear of falling into vegetation; not one amongst us has the least vegetative quality.

I have a thousand ideas of little amusements, to keep the mind awake.

None of our party are of that sleepy order of beings, who want perpetual events to make them feel their existence: this is the defect of the cold and inanimate, who have not spirit and vivacity enough to taste the natural pleasures of life.

Our adventures of one kind are at an end; but we shall see others, as entertaining, springing up every moment.

I dare say, our whole lives will be Pindaric: my only plan of life is to have none at all, which, I think, my little Bell will approve.

Please to observe, my sweet Bell, to make life pleasant, we must not only have great pleasures but little ones, like the smaller auxiliary parts of a building; we must have our trifling amusements, as well as our sublime transports.

My first second pleasure (if you will allow the expression) is gardening; and for this reason, that it is my divine Emily’s: I must teach you to love rural pleasures.

Colonel Willmott has made me just as rich as I wish to be.

You must know, my fair friend, that whilst I thought a fortune and Emily incompatible, I had infinite contempt for the former, and fancied that it would rather take from, than add to, my happiness; but, now I can possess it with her, I allow it all its value.

My father (with what delight do I call the father of Emily by that name!) hinted at my taking a larger house; but I would not leave my native Dryads for an imperial palace: I have, however, agreed to let him build a wing to Bellfield, which it wants, to compleat the original plan, and to furnish it in whatever manner he thinks fit.

He is to have a house in London; and we are to ramble from one to the other as fancy leads us.

He insists on our having no rule but inclination: do you think we are in any danger of vegetating, my dear Bell?

The great science of life is, to keep in constant employment that restless active principle within us, which, if not directed right, will be eternally drawing us from real to imaginary happiness.

Love, all charming as it is, requires to be kept alive by such a variety of amusements, or avocations, as may prevent the languor to which all human pleasures are subject.

Emily’s tenderness and delicacy make me ever an expecting lover: she contrives little parties of pleasure, and by surprize, of which she is always the ornament and the soul: her whole attention is given to make her Rivers happy.

I envy the man who attends her on these little excursions.

Love with us is ever led by the Sports and the Smiles.

Upon the whole, people who have the spirit to act as we have done, to dare to chuse their own companions for life, will generally be happy.

The affections are the true sources of enjoyment: love, friendship, and, if you will allow me to anticipate, paternal tenderness, all the domestic attachments, are sweet beyond words.

The beneficent Author of nature, who gave us these affections for the wisest purposes—

“Cela est bien dit, mon cher Rivers; mais il faut cultiver notre jardin.”

You are right, my dear Bell, and I am a prating coxcomb.

Lucy’s post-coach is just setting off, to wait your commands.

I send this by Temple’s servant. On Thursday I hope to see our dear groupe of friends re-united, and to have nothing to wish, but a continuance of our present happiness.

Adieu! Your faithful Ed. Rivers.

THE END.