The History of Emily Montague Part 33

We have had a very agreable day, Lucy, a pretty enough kind of a ball, and every body in good humor: I danced with Fitzgerald, whom I never knew so agreable.

Happy love is gay, I find; Emily is all sprightliness, your brother's eyes have never left her one moment, and her blushes seemed to shew her sense of the distinction; I never knew her look so handsome as this day.

Do you know I felt for Madame Des Roches? Emily was excessively complaisant to her: she returned her civility, but I could perceive a kind of constraint in her manner, very different from the ease of her behaviour when we saw her before: she felt the attention of Rivers to Emily very strongly: in short, the ladies seemed to have changed characters for the day.

We supped with your brother on our return, and from his windows, which look on the river St. Charles, had the pleasure of observing one of the most beautiful objects imaginable, which I never remember to have seen before this evening.

You are to observe the winter method of fis.h.i.+ng here, is to break openings like small fish ponds on the ice, to which the fish coming for air, are taken in prodigious quant.i.ties on the surface.

To shelter themselves from the excessive cold of the night, the fishermen build small houses of ice on the river, which are arranged in a semicircular form, and extend near a quarter of a mile, and which, from the blazing fires within, have a brilliant transparency and vivid l.u.s.tre, not easy either to imagine or to describe: the starry semicircle looks like an immense crescent of diamonds, on which the sun darts his meridian rays.

Absolutely, Lucy, you see nothing in Europe: you are cultivated, you have the tame beauties of art; but to see nature in her lovely wild luxuriance, you must visit your brother when he is prince of the Kamaraskas.

Adieu!

Your faithful A. Fermor.

The variety, as well of grand objects, as of amus.e.m.e.nts, in this country, confirms me in an opinion I have always had, that Providence had made the conveniences and inconveniences of life nearly equal every where.

We have pleasures here even in winter peculiar to the climate, which counterbalance the evils we suffer from its rigor.

Good night, my dear Lucy!

LETTER 115.

To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.

Quebec, April 2.

I have this moment, my dear, a letter from Montreal, describing some lands on Lake Champlain, which my friend thinks much better worth my taking than those near the Kamaraskas: he presses me to come up immediately to see them, as the ice on the rivers will in a few days be dangerous to travel on.

I am strongly inclined to go, and for this reason; I am convinced my wish of bringing about a friends.h.i.+p between Emily and Madame Des Roches, the strongest reason I had for fixing at the Kamaraskas, was an imprudent one: grat.i.tude and (if the expression is not impertinent) compa.s.sion give me a softness in my behaviour to the latter, which a superficial observer would take for love, and which her own tenderness may cause even her to misconstrue; a circ.u.mstance which must r.e.t.a.r.d her resolution of changing the affection with which she has honored me, into friends.h.i.+p.

I am also delicate in my love, and cannot bear to have it one moment supposed, my heart can know a wish but for my Emily.

Shall I say more? The blush on Emily's cheek on her first seeing Madame Des Roches convinced me of my indiscretion, and that vanity alone carried me to desire to bring together two women, whose affection for me is from their extreme merit so very flattering.

I shall certainly now fix in Canada; I can no longer doubt of Emily's tenderness, though she refuses me her hand, from motives which make her a thousand times more dear to me, but which I flatter myself love will over-rule.

I am setting off in an hour for Montreal, and shall call at Silleri to take Emily's commands.

Seven in the evening, Des Chambeaux.

I asked her advice as to fixing the place of my settlement; she said much against my staying in America at all; but, if I was determined, recommended Lake Champlain rather than the Kamaraskas, on account of climate. Bell smiled; and a blush, which I perfectly understood, over-spread the lovely cheek of my sweet Emily. Nothing could be more flattering than this circ.u.mstance; had she seen Madame Des Roches with a calm indifference, had she not been alarmed at the idea of fixing near her, I should have doubted of the degree of her affection; a little apprehension is inseparable from real love.

My courage has been to-day extremely put to the proof: had I staid three days longer, it would have been impossible to have continued my journey.

The ice cracks under us at every step the horses set, a rather unpleasant circ.u.mstance on a river twenty fathom deep: I should not have attempted the journey had I been aware of this particular. I hope no man meets inevitable danger with more spirit, but no man is less fond of seeking it where it is honorably to be avoided.

I am going to sup with the seigneur of the village, who is, I am told, married to one of the handsomest women in the province.

Adieu! my dear! I shall write to you from Montreal.

Your affectionate Ed. Rivers.

LETTER 116.

To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.

Montreal, April 3.

I am arrived, my dear, after a very disagreable and dangerous journey; I was obliged to leave the river soon after I left Des Chambeaux, and to pursue my way on the land over melting snow, into which the horses feet sunk half a yard every step.

An officer just come from New York has given me a letter from you, which came thither by a private s.h.i.+p: I am happy to hear of your health, and that Temple's affection for you seems rather to increase than lessen since your marriage.

You ask me, my dear Lucy, how to preserve this affection, on the continuance of which, you justly say, your whole happiness depends.

The question is perhaps the most delicate and important which respects human life; the caprice, the inconstancy, the injustice of men, makes the task of women in marriage infinitely difficult.

Prudence and virtue will certainly secure esteem; but, unfortunately, esteem alone will not make a happy marriage; pa.s.sion must also be kept alive, which the continual presence of the object beloved is too apt to make subside into that apathy, so insupportable to sensible minds.

The higher your rank, and the less your manner of life separates you from each other, the more danger there will be of this indifference.

The poor, whose necessary avocations divide them all day, and whose sensibility is blunted by the coa.r.s.eness of their education, are in no danger of being weary of each other; and, unless naturally vicious, you will see them generally happy in marriage; whereas even the virtuous, in more affluent situations, are not secure from this unhappy cessation of tenderness.

When I received your letter, I was reading Madame De Maintenon's advice to the Dutchess of Burgundy, on this subject. I will transcribe so much of it as relates to _the woman_, leaving her advice to _the princess_ to those whom it may concern.

"Do not hope for perfect happiness; there is no such thing in this sublunary state.

"Your s.e.x is the more exposed to suffer, because it is always in dependence: be neither angry nor ashamed of this dependence on a husband, nor of any of those which are in the order of Providence.

"Let your husband be your best friend and your only confidant.

"Do not hope that your union will procure you perfect peace: the best marriages are those where with softness and patience they bear by turns with each other; there are none without some contradiction and disagreement.

"Do not expect the same degree of friends.h.i.+p that you feel: men are in general less tender than women; and you will be unhappy if you are too delicate in friends.h.i.+p.

"Beg of G.o.d to guard your heart from jealousy: do not hope to bring back a husband by complaints, ill humor, and reproaches. The only means which promise success, are patience and softness: impatience sours and alienates hearts; softness leads them back to their duty.

"In sacrificing your own will, pretend to no right over that of a husband: men are more attached to theirs than women, because educated with less constraint.

"They are naturally tyrannical; they will have pleasures and liberty, yet insist that women renounce both: do not examine whether their rights are well founded; let it suffice to you, that they are established; they are masters, we have only to suffer and obey with a good grace."