The History of Emily Montague Part 21

To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.

Quebec, Feb. 20.

Every hour, my Lucy, convinces me more clearly there is no happiness for me without this lovely woman; her turn of mind is so correspondent to my own, that we seem to have but one soul: the first moment I saw her the idea struck me that we had been friends in some pre-existent state, and were only renewing our acquaintance here; when she speaks, my heart vibrates to the sound, and owns every thought she expresses a native there.

The same dear affections, the same tender sensibility, the most precious gift of Heaven, inform our minds, and make us peculiarly capable of exquisite happiness or misery.

The pa.s.sions, my Lucy, are common to all; but the affections, the lively sweet affections, the only sources of true pleasure, are the portion only of a chosen few.

Uncertain at present of the nature of her sentiments, I am determined to develop them clearly before I discover mine: if she loves as I do, even a perpetual exile here will be pleasing. The remotest wood in Canada with her would be no longer a desert wild; it would be the habitation of the Graces.

But I forget your letter, my dear girl; I am hurt beyond words at what you tell me of my mother; and would instantly return to England, did not my fondness for this charming woman detain me here: you are both too good in wis.h.i.+ng to retire with me to the country; will your tenderness lead you a step farther, my Lucy? It would be too much to hope to see you here; and yet, if I marry Emily, it will be impossible for me to think of returning to England.

There is a man here whom I should prefer of all men I ever saw for you; but he is already attached to your friend Bell Fermor, who is very inattentive to her own happiness, if she refuses him: I am very happy in finding you think of Temple as I wish you should.

You are so very civil, Lucy, in regard to me, I am afraid of becoming vain from your praises.

Take care, my dear, you don't spoil me by this excess of civility, for my only merit is that of not being a c.o.xcomb.

I have a heaviness of heart, which has never left me since I read your letter: I am shocked at the idea of giving pain to the best parent that ever existed; yet have less hope than ever of seeing England, without giving up the tender friend, the dear companion, the adored mistress; in short the very woman I have all my life been in search of: I am also hurt that I cannot place this object of all my wishes in a station equal to that she has rejected, and I begin to think rejected for me.

I never before repined at seeing the gifts of fortune lavished on the unworthy.

Adieu, my dear! I will write again when I can write more chearfully.

Your affectionate Ed. Rivers.

LETTER 72.

To the Earl of ----.

My Lord,

Silleri, Feb. 20.

Your Lords.h.i.+p does me great honor in supposing me capable of giving any satisfactory account of a country in which I have spent only a few months.

As a proof, however, of my zeal, and the very strong desire I have to merit the esteem you honor me with, I shall communicate from time to time the little I have observed, and may observe, as well as what I hear from good authority, with that lively pleasure with which I have ever obeyed every command of your Lords.h.i.+p's.

The French, in the first settling this colony, seem to have had an eye only to the conquest of ours: their whole system of policy seems to have been military, not commercial; or only so far commercial as was necessary to supply the wants, and by so doing to gain the friends.h.i.+p, of the savages, in order to make use of them against us.

The lands are held on military tenure: every peasant is a soldier, every seigneur an officer, and both serve without pay whenever called upon; this service is, except a very small quit-rent by way of acknowledgement, all they pay for their lands: the seigneur holds of the crown, the peasant of the seigneur, who is at once his lord and commander.

The peasants are in general tall and robust, notwithstanding their excessive indolence; they love war, and hate labor; are brave, hardy, alert in the field, but lazy and inactive at home; in which they resemble the savages, whose manners they seem strongly to have imbibed. The government appears to have encouraged a military spirit all over the colony; though ignorant and stupid to a great degree, these peasants have a strong sense of honor; and though they serve, as I have said, without pay, are never so happy as when called to the field.

They are excessively vain, and not only look on the French as the only civilized nation in the world, but on themselves as the flower of the French nation: they had, I am told, a great aversion to the regular troops which came from France in the late war, and a contempt equal to that aversion; they however had an affection and esteem for the late Marquis De Montcalm, which almost rose to idolatry; and I have even at this distance of time seen many of them in tears at the mention of his name: an honest tribute to the memory of a commander equally brave and humane; for whom his enemies wept even on the day when their own hero fell.

I am called upon for this letter, and have only time to a.s.sure your Lords.h.i.+p of my respect, and of the pleasure I always receive from your commands. I have the honor to be,

My Lord, Your Lords.h.i.+p's, &c.

William Fermor.

LETTER 73.

To Miss Fermor.

Feb. 24, Eleven at night.

I have indeed, my dear, a pleasure in his conversation, to which words cannot do justice: love itself is less tender and lively than my friends.h.i.+p for Rivers; from the first moment I saw him, I lost all taste for other conversation; even yours, amiable as you are, borrows its most prevailing charm from the pleasure of hearing you talk of him.

When I call my tenderness for him friends.h.i.+p, I do not mean either to paint myself as an enemy to tenderer sentiments, or him as one whom it is easy to see without feeling them: all I mean is, that, as our situations make it impossible for us to think of each other except as friends, I have endeavored--I hope with success--to see him in no other light: it is not in his power to marry without fortune, and mine is a trifle: had I worlds, they should be his; but, I am neither so selfish as to desire, nor so romantic as to expect, that he should descend from the rank of life he has been bred in, and live lost to the world with me.

As to the impertinence of two or three women, I hear of it with perfect indifference: my dear Rivers esteems me, he approves my conduct, and all else is below my care: the applause of worlds would give me less pleasure than one smile of approbation from him.

I am astonished your father should know me so little, as to suppose me capable of being influenced even by you: when I determined to refuse Sir George, it was from the feelings of my own heart alone; the first moment I saw Colonel Rivers convinced me my heart had till then been a stranger to true tenderness: from that moment my life has been one continued struggle between my reason, which shewed me the folly as well as indecency of marrying one man when I so infinitely preferred another, and a false point of honor and mistaken compa.s.sion: from which painful state, a concurrence of favorable accidents has at length happily relieved me, and left me free to act as becomes me.

Of this, my dear, be a.s.sured, that, though I have not the least idea of ever marrying Colonel Rivers, yet, whilst my sentiments for him continue what they are, I will never marry any other man.

I am hurt at what Mrs. Melmoth hinted in her letter to you, of Rivers having appeared to attach himself to me from vanity; she endeavors in vain to destroy my esteem for him: you well know, he never did appear to attach himself to me; he is incapable of having done it from such a motive; but if he had, such delight have I in whatever pleases him, that I should with joy have sacrificed my own vanity to gratify his.

Adieu! Your Emily Montague.

LETTER 74.

To Miss Montague.

Feb. 25, Eight o'clock, just up.

My dear, you deceive yourself; you love Colonel Rivers; you love him even with all the tenderness of romance: read over again the latter part of your letter; I know friends.h.i.+p, and of what it is capable; but I fear the sacrifices it makes are of a different nature.

Examine your heart, my Emily, and tell me the result of that examination. It is of the utmost consequence to you to be clear as to the nature of your affection for Rivers.

Adieu! Yours, A. Fermor.

LETTER 75.