Letter I.

After spending two or three very
agreeable days here, with a party
of friends, in exploring the beauties of
the Island, and dropping a tender tear at Vol. I. B Caris- B1v 2
Carisbrook Castle on the memory of the
unfortunate Charles the First, I am just
setting out for America, on a scheme I
once hinted to you, of settling the lands
to which I have a right as a lieutenant-
colonel on half pay. On enquiry and mature
deliberation, I prefer Canada to New
York for two reasons, that it is wilder,
and that the women are handsomer: the
first, perhaps, every body will not approve;
the latter, I am sure, you will.

You may perhaps call my project romantic,
but my active temper is ill suited
to the lazy character of a reduc’d officer;
besides that I am too proud to narrow my
circle of life, and not quite unfeeling
enough to break in on the little estate
which is scarce sufficient to support my
mother and sister in the manner to which
they have been accustom’d.

What you call a sacrifice, is none at all;
I love England, but am not obstinately chain’d B2r 3
chain’d down to any spot of earth; nature
has charms every where for a man
willing to be pleased: at my time of life,
the very change of place is amusing; love
of variety, and the natural restlessness of
man, would give me a relish for this voyage,
even if I did not expect, what I really do,
to become lord of a principality which will
put our large-acred men in England out of
countenance. My subjects indeed at present
will be only bears and elks, but in
time I hope to see the “human face divine”
multiplying around me; and, in thus cultivating
what is in the rudest state of nature,
I shall taste one of the greatest of
all pleasures, that of creation, and see
order and beauty gradually rise from
chaos.

The vessel is unmoor’d; the winds are
fair; a gentle breeze agitates the bosom
of the deep; all nature smiles: I go with
all the eager hopes of a warm imagination;B2 tion: B2v 4
yet friendship casts a lingering look
behind.

Our mutual loss, my dear Temple, will
be great. I shall never cease to regret
you, nor will you find it easy to replace
the friend of your youth. You may find
friends of equal merit; you may esteem
them equally; but few connexions form’d
after five and twenty strike root like that
early sympathy, which united us almost
from infancy, and has increas’d to the very
hour of our separation.

What pleasure is there in the friendships
of the spring of life, before the
world, the mean unfeeling selfish world,
breaks in on the gay mistakes of the just-
expanding heart, which sees nothing but
truth, and has nothing but happiness in
prospect!

I am not surpriz’d the heathens rais’d
altars to friendship; ’twas natural for untaught3 taught B3r 5
superstition to deify the source of
every good; they worship’d friendship,
which animates the moral world, on the
same principle as they paid adoration to
the sun, which gives life to the world of
nature.

Letter II.

Ihavethis moment your letter, my
dear; I am happy to hear my mother
has been amus’d at Bath, and not at all
surpriz’d to find she rivals you in your
conquests. By the way, I am not sure she
is not handsomer, notwithstanding you tell B3 me B3v 6
me you are handsomer than ever: I am
astonish’d she will lead a tall daughter
about with her thus, to let people into a
secret they would never suspect, that she is
past five and twenty.

You are a foolish girl, Lucy: do you
think I have not more pleasure in continuing
to my mother, by coming hither, the
little indulgencies of life, than I could have
had by enjoying them myself? pray reconcile
her to my absence, and assure her
she will make me happier by jovially enjoying
the trifle I have assign’d to her use,
than by procuring me the wealth of a
Nabob, in which she was to have no
share.

But to return; you really, Lucy, ask me
such a million of questions, ’tis impossible
to know which to answer first; the country,
the convents, the balls, the ladies, the
beaux—’tis a history; not a letter, you demand,mand, B4r 7
and it will take me a twelvemonth
to satisfy your curiosity.

Where shall I begin? certainly with
what must first strike a soldier: I have seen
then the spot where the amiable hero expir’d
in the arms of victory; have traced
him step by step with equal astonishment
and admiration: ’tis here alone it is possible
to form an adequate idea of an enterprize,
the difficulties of which must have
destroy’d hope itself had they been foreseen.

The country is a very fine one; you see
here not only the beautiful which it has in
common with Europe, but the great sublime
to an amazing degree; every object
here is magnificent: the very people seem
almost another species, if we compare them
with the French from whom they are descended.

On approaching the coast of America,
I felt a kind of religious veneration, on
seeing rocks which almost touch’d the
clouds, cover’d with tall groves of pines
that seemed coeval with the world itself:
to which veneration the solemn silence not
a little contributed; from Cape Rosieres,
up the river St. Lawrence, during a course
of more than two hundred miles, there is
not the least appearance of a human footstep;
no objects meet the eye but mountains,
woods, and numerous rivers, which
seem to roll their waters in vain.

It is impossible to behold a scene like
this without lamenting the madness of
mankind, who, more merciless than the
fierce inhabitants of the howling wilderness,
destroy millions of their own species
in the wild contention for a little portion of
that earth, the far greater part of which
remains yet unpossest, and courts the hand
of labour for cultivation.

The river itself is one of the noblest in
the world; it’s breadth is ninety miles at
it’s entrance, gradually, and almost imperceptibly,
decreasing; interspers’d with
islands which give it a variety infinitely
pleasing, and navigable near five hundred
miles from the sea.

Nothing can be more striking than the
view of Quebec as you approach; it stands
on the summit of a boldly-rising hill, at the
confluence of two very beautiful rivers, the
St. Lawrence and St. Charles, and, as the
convents and other public buildings first
meet the eye, appears to great advantage
from the port. The island of Orleans, the
distant view of the cascade of Montmorenci,
and the opposite village of Beauport,
scattered with a pleasing irregularity
along the banks of the river St. Charles,
add greatly to the charms of the prospect.

I have just had time to observe, that the
Canadian ladies have the vivacity of the
French, with a superior share of beauty:
as to balls and assemblies, we have none at
present, it being a kind of interregnum
of government: if I chose to give you the
political state of the country, I could fill
volumes with the pours and the contres;
but I am not one of those sagacious observers,
who, by staying a week in place,
think themselves qualified to give, not
only its natural, but it’s moral and political
history: besides which, you and I are rather
too young to be very profound politicians.
We are in expectation of a successor
from whom we hope a new golden
age; I shall then have better subjects for
a letter to a lady.

Letter III.

Indeed gone to people the wilds of
America, Ned, and multiply the “human
face divine?” ’tis a project worthy a
tall handsome colonel of twenty seven:
let me see; five feet, eleven inches, well
made, with fine teeth, speaking eyes, a
military air, and the look of a man of
fashion: spirit, generosity, a good understanding,
some knowledge, an easy address,
a compassionate heart, a strong inclination
for the ladies, and in short every quality a
gentleman should have: excellent all these
for colonization: prenez garde, mes cheres
dames. You have nothing against you,
Ned, but your modesty; a very useless
virtue on French ground, or indeed on
any ground: I wish you had a little more B6 con- B6v 12
consciousness of your own merits: remember
that “to know one’s self” the oracle of
Apollo has pronounced to be the perfection
of human wisdom. Our fair friend Mrs.
H— says, “Colonel Rivers wants nothing
to make him the most agreeable man
breathing but a little dash of the coxcomb.”

For my part, I hate humility in a man of
the world; ’tis worse than even the hypocrisy
of the saints: I am not ignorant, and
therefore never deny, that I am a very
handsome fellow; and I have the pleasure
to find all the women of the same opinion.

I am just arriv’d from Paris: the divine
Madame De―― is as lovely and as constant
as ever; ’twas cruel to leave her, but
who can account for the caprices of the
heart? mine was the prey of a young unexperienc’d
English charmer, just come out
of a convent,
“The bloom of opening flowers—” Ha, B7r 13
Ha, Ned? But I forget; you are for the
full-blown rose: ’tis a happiness, as we
are friends, that ’tis impossible we can ever
be rivals; a woman is grown out of my
taste some years before she comes up to
yours: absolutely, Ned, you are too nice;
for my part, I am not so delicate; youth
and beauty are sufficient for me; give me
blooming seventeen, and I cede to you the
whole empire of sentiment.

This, I suppose, will find you trying the
force of your destructive charms on the savage
dames of America; chasing females
wild as the winds thro’ woods as wild as
themselves: I see you pursuing the stately
relict of some renown’d Indian chief, some
plump squaw arriv’d at the age of sentiment,
some warlike queen dowager of the
Ottawas or Tuscaroras.

And pray, comment trouvez vous les
dames sauvages? all pure and genuine nature,
I suppose; none of the affected coynessness B7v 14
of Europe: your attention there will
be the more obliging, as the Indian heroes,
I am told, are not very attentive to the
charms of the beau sexe.

You are very sentimental on the subject
of friendship; no one has more exalted
notions of this species of affection than
myself, yet I deny that it gives life to the
moral world; a gallant man, like you,
might have found a more animating principle:

O Venus! O Mere de l’Amour!

I am most gloriously indolent this morning,
and would not write another line if
the empire of the world (observe I do not
mean the female world) depended on it.

Letter IV.

’Tis very true, Jack; I have no relish
for the Misses; for puling girls in
hanging sleeves, who feel no passion but
vanity, and, without any distinguishing taste,
are dying for the first man who tells them
they are handsome. Take your boardingschool
girls; but give me a woman; one,
in short, who has a soul; not a cold inamnimate
form, insensible to the lively impressions
of real love, and unfeeling as the wax
baby she has just thrown away.

You will allow Prior to be no bad
judge of female merit; and you may remember
his Egyptian maid, the favorite of 1 the B8v 16
the luxurious King Solomon, is painted in
full bloom.

By the way, Jack, there is generally a
certain hoity-toity inelegance of form and
manner at seventeen, which in my opinion
is not balanc’d by freshness of complexion,
the only advantage girls have to boast of.

I have another objection to girls, which
is, that they will eternally fancy every man
they converse with has designs; a coquet
and a prude in the bud are equally disagreeable;
the former expects universal adoration,
the latter is alarm’d even at that general
civility which is the right of all their
sex; of the two however the last is, I think,
much the most troublesome; I wish these
very apprehensive young ladies knew,
their virtue is not half so often in danger as
they imagine, and that there are many
male creatures to whom they may safely shew B9r 17
shew politeness without being drawn into
any concessions inconsistent with the strictest
honor. We are not half such terrible animals
as mammas, nurses, and novels represent
us; and, if my opinion is of any
weight, I am inclin’d to believe those tremendous
men, who have designs on the
whole sex, are, and ever were, characters
as fabulous as the giants of romance.

Women after twenty begin to know this,
and therefore converse with us on the footing
of rational creatures, without either
fearing or expecting to find every man a
lover.

To do the ladies justice however, I have
seen the same absurdity in my own sex,
and have observed many a very good sort
of man turn pale at the politeness of an
agreeable woman.

I lament this mistake, in both sexes, because
it takes greatly from the pleasure of
mix’d society, the only society for which I
have any relish.

Don’t, however, fancy that, becase I
dislike the Misses, I have a taste for their
grandmothers; there is a golden mean,
Jack, of which you seem to have no idea.

You are very ill inform’d as to the manners
of the Indian ladies; ’tis in the bud
alone these wild roses are accessible; liberal
to profusion of their charms before marriage,
they are chastity itself after: the
moment they commence wives, they give
up the very idea of pleasing, and turn all
their thoughts to the cares, and those not
the most delicate cares, of domestic life:
laborious, hardy, active, they plough the
ground, they sow, they reap; whilst the haughty B10r 19
haughty husband amuses himself with
hunting, shooting, fishing, and such exercises
only as are the image of war; all
other employments being, according to his
idea, unworthy the dignity of man.

I have told you the labors of savage life,
but I should observe that they are only temporary,
and when urg’d by the sharp tooth
of necessity: their lives are, upon the whole,
idle beyond any thing we can conceive. If
the Epicurean definition of happiness is
just, that it consists in indolence of body,
and tranquillity of mind, the Indians of
both sexes are the happiest people on
earth; free from all care, they enjoy the
present moment, forget the past, and are
without solicitude for the future: in summer,
stretch’d on the verdant turf, they
sing, they laugh, they play, they relate
stories of their ancient heroes to warm the
youth to war; in winter, wrap’d in the furs B10v 20
furs which bounteous nature provides them,
they dance, they feast, and despise the rigors
of the season, at which the more effeminate
Europeans tremble.

War being however the business of their
lives, and the first passion of their souls,
their very pleasures take their colors from
it: every one must have heard of the war
dance, and their songs are almost all on the
same subject: on the most diligent enquiry,
I find but one love song in their language,
which is short and simple, tho’ perhaps not
inexpressive: “I love you,
I love you dearly,
I love you all day long.”
An old Indian told me, they had also songs
of friendship, but I could never procure a
translation of one of them: on my pressing this B11r 21
this Indian to translate one into French for
me, he told me with a haughty air, the
Indians were not us’d to make translations,
and that if I chose to understand their songs
I must learn their language. By the way,
their language is extremely harmonious,
especially as pronounced by their women,
and as well adapted to music as Italian itself.
I must not here omit an instance of
their independent spirit, which is, that
they never would submit to have the service
of the church, tho’ they profess the
Romish religion, in any language but their
own; the women, who have in general
fine voices, sing in the choir with a taste
and manner that would surprize you, and
with a devotion that might edify more polish’d
nations.

The Indian women are tall and well
shaped; have good eyes, and before marriage
are, except their color, and their coarse B11v 22
coarse greasy black hair, very far from
being disagreeable; but the laborious life
they afterwards lead is extremely unfavorable
to beauty; they become coarse and
masculine, and lose in a year or two the
power as well as the desire of pleasing. To
compensate however for the loss of their
charms, they acquire a new empire in marrying;
are consulted in all affairs of state,
chuse a chief on every vacancy of the
throne, are sovereign arbiters of peace
and war, as well as of the fate of those
unhappy captives that have the misfortune
to fall into their hands, who are adopted
as children, or put to the most cruel death,
as the wives of the conquerors smile or
frown.

A Jesuit missionary told me a story on
this subject, which one cannot hear without
horror: an Indian woman with whom
he liv’d on his mission was feeding her children,
when her husband brought in an English B12r 23
English prisoner; she immediately cut off
his arm, and gave her children the streaming
blood to drink: the Jesuit remonstrated
on the cruelty of the action, on which,
looking sternly at him, “I would have them
warriors,” said she, “and therefore feed
them with the food of men.”

This anecdote may perhaps disgust you
with the Indian ladies, who certainly do not
excel in female softness. I will therefore
turn to the Canadian, who have every
charm except that without which all other
charms are to me insipid, I mean sensibility:
they are gay, coquet, and sprightly;
more gallant than sensible, more flatter’d
by the vanity of inspiring passion, than capable
of feeling it themselves; and, like
their European countrywomen, prefer the
outward attentions of unmeaning admiration
to the real devotion of the heart. There
is not perhaps on earth a race of females,
who talk so much, or feel so little, of love
as the French; the very reverse is in generalral B12v 24
true of the English: my fair countrywomen
seem ashamed of the charming sentiment
to which they are indebted for all
their power.

Adieu! I am going to attend a very
handsome French lady, who allows me the
honor to drive her en calache to our Canadian Hyde Park, the road to St. Foix,
where you will see forty or fifty calashes,
with pretty women in them, parading every
evening: you will allow the apology to be
admissible.

Letter V.

What an inconstant animal is man!
do you know, Lucy, I begin to be
tir’d of the lovely landscape round me? I
have enjoy’d from it all the pleasure meer
inanimate objects can give, and find ’tis a
pleasure that soon satiates, if not relieved
by others which are more lively. The
scenery is to be sure divine, but one grows
weary of meer scenery: the most enchanting
prospect soon loses its power of pleasing,
when the eye is accustom’d to it: we
gaze at first transported on the charms of
nature, and fancy they will please for ever;
but, alas! it will not do; we sigh for society,
the conversation of those dear to us;
the more animated pleasures of the heart.
There are fine women, and men of merit Vol. I C here; C1v 26
here; but, as the affections are not in our
power, I have not yet felt my heart gravitate
towards any of them. I must absolutely
set in earnest about my settlement, in order
to emerge from the state of vegetation into
which I seem falling.

But to your last: you ask me a particular
account of the convents here. Have
you an inclination, my dear, to turn nun?
if you have, you could not have applied to
a properer person; my extreme modesty
and reserve, and my speaking French, having
made me already a great favourite with
the older part of all the three communities,
who unanimously declare colonel Rivers to
be un tres aimable homme, and have given me
an unlimited liberty of visiting them whenever
I please: they now and then treat me
with a sight of some of the young ones,
but this is a favor not allow’d to all the
world.

There are three religious houses at Quebec,
so you have choice; the Ursulines,
the Hotel Dieu, and the General Hospital.
The first is the severest order in the Romish
church, except that very cruel one which
denies its fair votaries the inestimable liberty
of speech. The house is large and
handsome, but has an air of gloominess,
with which the black habit, and the livid
paleness of the nuns, extremely corresponds.
The church is, contrary to the style
of the rest of the convent, ornamented and
lively to the last degree. The superior is
an English-woman of good family, who
was taken prisoner by the savages when a
child, and plac’d here by the generosity of
a French officer. She is one of the most
amiable women I ever knew, with a benevolence
in her countenance which inspires
all who see her with affection: I am very
fond of her conversation, tho’ sixty and a
nun.

The Hotel Dieu is very pleasantly situated,
with a view of the two rivers, and
the entrance of the port: the house is
chearful, airy, and agreeable; the habit
extremely becoming, a circumstance a handsome
woman ought by no means to overlook;
’tis white with a black gauze veil,
which would shew your complexion to
great advantage. The order is much less
severe than the Ursulines, and I might add,
much more useful, their province being the
care of the sick: the nuns of this house
are sprightly, and have a look of health
which is wanting at the Ursulines.

The General Hospital, situated about a
mile out of town, on the borders of the
river St. Charles, is much the most agreeable
of the three. This order and the habit
are the same with the Hotel Dieu, except
that to the habit is added the cross,
generally worn in Europe by canonesses
only: a distinction procur’d for them by their C3r 29
their founder, St. Vallier, the second bishop
of Quebec. The house is, without,
a very noble building; and neatness, elegance
and propriety reign within. The
nuns, who are all of the noblesse, are
many of them handsome, and all genteel,
lively, and well bread; they have an air of
the world, their conversation is easy, spirited,
and polite: with them you almost
forget the recluse in the woman of condition.
In short, you have the best nuns at
the Ursulines, the most agreeable women
at the General Hospital: all however have
an air of chagrin, which they in vain endeavour
to conceal; and the general eagerness
with which they tell you unask’d they
are happy, is a strong proof of the contrary.

Tho’ the most indulgent of all men to the
follies of others, especially such as have
their source in mistaken devotion; tho’
willing to allow all the world to play the
fool their own way, yet I cannot help C3 being C3v 30
being fir’d with a degree of zeal against an
institution equally incompatible with public
good, and private happiness; an institution
which cruelly devotes beauty and innocence
to slavery, regret, and wretchedness; to a
more irksome imprisonment than the severest
laws inflict on the worst of criminals.

Could any thing but experience, my dear
Lucy, make it be believ’d possible that
there should be rational beings, who think
they are serving the God of mercy by inflicting
on themselves voluntary tortures,
and cutting themselves off from that state
of society in which he has plac’d them, and
for which they were form’d? by renouncing
the best affections of the human heart,
the tender names of friend, of wife, of mother?
and, as far as in them lies, counterworking
creation? by spurning from them
every amusement however innocent, by
refusing the gifts of that beneficent power who C4r 31
who made us to be happy, and destroying
his most precious gifts, health, beauty, sensibility,
chearfulness, and peace!

My indignation is yet awake, from having
seen a few days since at the Ursulines,
an extreme lovely young girl, whose countenance
spoke a soul form’d for the most
lively, yet delicate, ties of love and friendship,
led by a momentary enthusiasm, or
perhaps by a childish vanity artfully excited,
to the foot of those altars, which she
will probably too soon bathe with the bitter
tears of repentance and remorse.

The ceremony, form’d to strike the imagination,
and seduce the heart of unguarded
youth, is extremely solemn and affecting;
the procession of the nuns, the sweetness
of their voices in the choir, the dignified
devotion with which the charming enthusiast
received the veil, and took the cruel
vow which shut her from the world for ever,
struck my heart inspite of my reason, and C4 I felt C4v 32
I felt myself touch’d even to tears by a superstition
I equally pity and despise.

I am not however certain it was the ceremony
which affected me thus strongly; it
was impossible not to feel for this amiable
victim; never was there an object more interesting;
her form was elegance itself;
her air and motion animated and graceful;
the glow of pleasure was on her cheek, the
fire of enthusiasm in her eyes, which are
the finest I ever saw: never did I see joy so
livelily painted on the countenance of the
happiest bride; she seem’d to walk in air;
her whole person look’d more than human.

An enemy to every species of superstition,
I must however allow it to be least destructive
to true virtue in your gentle sex, and
therefore to be indulg’d with least danger:
the superstition of men is gloomy and ferocious;
it lights the fire, and points the
dagger of the assassin; whilst that of womenmen C5r 33
takes its color from the sex; is soft,
mild, and benevolent; exerts itself in acts
of kindness and charity, and seems only
substituting the love of God to that of man.

Who can help admiring, whilst they
pity, the foundress of the Ursuline convent,
Madame de la Peltrie, to whom the
very colony in some measure owes its existence?
young, rich and lovely; a widow
in the bloom of life, mistress of her own
actions, the world was gay before her, yet
she left all the pleasures that world could
give, to devote her days to the severities of
a religion she thought the only true one:
she dar’d the dangers of the sea, and the
greater dangers of a savage people; she
landed on an unknown shore, submitted to
the extremities of cold and heat, of thirst
and hunger, to perform a service she
thought acceptable to the Deity. To an
action like this, however mistaken the motive,
bigotry alone will deny praise: the
man of candor will only lament that minds C5 capable C5v 34
capable of such heroic virtue are not directed
to views more conducive to their own
and general happiness.

I am unexpectedly call’d this moment,
my dear Lucy, on some business to Montreal,
from whence you shall hear from me.

Letter VI.

Letter VII.

By Heavens, Lucy; this is more than
man can bear; I was mad to stay so
long at Melmoth’s; there is no resisting
this little seducer: ’tis shameful in such a
lovely woman to have understanding too;
yet even this I could forgive, had she not
that enchanting softness in her manner,
which steals upon the soul, and would almost
make ugliness itself charm; were she
but vain, one had some chance, but she will
take upon her to have no consciousness, at
least no apparent consciousness, of her perfections,
which is really intolerable. I told
her so last night, when she put on such a
malicious smile—I believe the little tyrant
wants to add me to the list of her slaves;
but I was not form’d to fill up a train. The 2 woman C12r 47
woman I love must be so far from giving
another the preference, that she must have
no soul but for me; I am one of the most
unreasonable men in the world on this head;
she may fancy what she pleases, but I set
her and all her attractions at defiance: I
have made my escape, and shall set off for
Quebec in an hour. Flying is, I must acknowledge,
a little out of character, and
unbecoming a soldier; but in these cases
it is the very best thing man or woman
either can do, when they doubt their
powers of resistance.

I intend to be ten days going to Quebec.
I propose visiting the priests at every village,
and endeavouring to get some knowledge
of the nature of the country, in order
to my intended settlement. Idleness being
the root of all evil, and the nurse of
love, I am determin’d to keep myself employed;
nothing can be better suited to
my temper than my present design; the
pleasure of cultivating lands here is as much superior C12v 48
superior to what can be found in the same
employment in England, as watching the
expanding rose, and beholding the falling
leaves: America is in infancy, Europe in
old age. Nor am I very ill qualified for this
agreeable talk: I have studied the Georgicks,
and am a pretty enough kind of a husbandman
as far as theory goes; nay, I am not
sure I shall not be, even in practice, the
best gentleman farmer in the province.

You may expect soon to hear of me in
the Museum Rusticum; I intend to make
amazing discoveries in the rural way: I
have already found out, by the force of
my own genius, two very uncommon circumstances;
that in Canada, contrary to
what we see every where else, the country
is rich, the capital poor; the hills fruitful,
the vallies barren. You see what excellent
dispositions I have to be an useful member
of society: I had always a strong biass to
the study of natural philosophy.

Tell my mother how well I am employ’d,
and she cannot but approve my voyage:
assure her, my dear, of my tenderest regard.

The lover is every hour expected; I
am not quite sure I should have
lik’d to see him arrive: a third person,
you know, on such an occasion,
sinks into nothing; and I love,
wherever I am, to be one of the
figures which strike the eye; I hate
to appear on the back ground of
the picture.

Letter VIII.

You can’t think, my dear, what a
fund of useful knowledge I have
treasur’d up during my journey from Montreal.
This colony is a rich mine yet unopen’d;
I do not mean of gold and silver,
but of what are of much more real value,
corn and cattle. Nothing is wanting but
encouragement and cultivation; the Canadians
are at their ease even without labor;
nature is here a bounteous mother, who
pours forth her gifts almost unsolicited:
bigotry, stupidity, and laziness, united,
have not been able to keep the peasantry
poor. I rejoice to find such admirable capabilities
where I propose to fix my dominion.

I was hospitably entertained by the cures
all the way down, tho’ they are in general
but ill provided for: the parochial clergy
are useful every where, but I have a great
aversion to monks, those drones in the political
hive, whose whole study seems to be
to make themselves as useless to the world
as possible. Think too of the shocking indelicacy
of many of them, who make it a
point of religion to abjure linen, and wear
their habits till they drop off. How astonishing
that any mind should suppose the
Deity an enemy to cleanliness! the Jewish
religion was hardly any thing else.

I paid my respects wherever I stopped, to
the seigneuress of the village; for as to the
seigneurs, except for two or three, if they had
not wives, they would not be worth visiting.

I am every day more pleased with the
women here; and, if I was gallant, should
be in danger of being a convert to the D2 French D2v 52
French stile of gallantry; which certainly
debases the mind much less than ours.

But what is all this to my Emily? How I
envy Sir George! what happiness has Heaven
prepared for him, if he has a soul to
taste it!

I really must not think of her; I found
so much delight in her conversation, it was
quite time to come away; I am almost
ashamed to own how much difficulty I found
in leaving her: do you know I have scarce
slept since? This is absurd, but I cannot
help it; which by the way is an admirable
excuse for any thing.

I have been come but two hours, and
am going to Silleri, to pay my compliments
to your friend Miss Fermor, who arrived
with her father, who comes to join his regiment,
since I left Quebec, I hear there
has been a very fine importation of English ladies D3r 53
ladies during my absence. I am sorry I
have not time to visit the rest, but I go tomorrow
morning to the Indian village for a
fortnight, and have several letters to write
to-night.

Letter IX.

Icannot, Madam, express my obligation
to you for having added a postscript
to Major Melmoth’s letter: I am sure
he will excuse my answering the whole to
you; if not, I beg he may know that I
shall be very pert about it, being much more
solicitous to please you than him, for a
thousand reasons too tedious to mention.

I thought you had more penetration than
to suppose me indifferent: on the contrary,
sensibility is my fault; though it is not
your little every-day beauties who can excite
it: I have admirable dispositions to
love, though I am hard to please: in short,
I am not cruel, I am only nice: do but you,
or your divine friend, give me leave to wear
your chains, and you shall soon be convinced
I can love like an angel, when I set in earnest
about it. But, alas! you are married, and
in love with your husband; and your friend
is in a situation still more unfavorable to a
lover’s hopes. This is particularly unfortunate,
as you are the only two of your bewitching
sex in Canada, for whom my
heart feels the least sympathy. To be plain,
but don’t tell the little Major, I am more
than half in love with you both, and, if I
was the grand Turk, should certainly fit
out a fleet, to seize, and bring you to my
seraglio.

There is one virtue I admire extremely
in you both; I mean, that humane and tender
compassion for the poor men, which
prompts you to be always seen together; if
you appeared separate, where is the hero
who could resist either of you?

You ask me how I like the French ladies
at Montreal: I think them extremely pleasing;
and many of them handsome; I
thought Madame L―― so, even near you
and Miss Montague; which is, I think,
saying as much as can be said on the subject.

I have just heard by accident that Sir
George is arrived at Montreal. Assure Miss
Montague, no one can be more warmly interested
in her happiness than I am: she is
the most perfect work of Heaven; may she
be the happiest! I feel much more on this
occasion than I can express: a mind like
hers must, in marriage, be exquisitely happy D4 or D4v 56
or miserable: my friendship makes me
tremble for her, notwithstanding the worthy
character I have heard of Sir George.

I will defer till another time what I had
to say to Major Melmoth.

Letter X.

Ihave been a month arrived, my dear,
without having seen your brother, who
is at Montreal, but I am told is expected
to-day. I have spent my time however
very agreably. I know not what the winter
may be, but I am enchanted with the
beauty of this country in summer; bold, picturesque, D5r 57
picturesque, romantic, nature reigns here
in all her wanton luxuriance, adorned by a
thousand wild graces which mock the cultivated
beauties of Europe. The scenery
about the town is infinitely lovely; the
prospect extensive, and diversified by a variety
of hills, woods, rivers, cascades, intermingled
with smiling farms and cottages,
and bounded by distant mountains which
seem to scale the very Heavens.

The days are much hotter here than in
England, but the heat is more supportable
from the breezes which always spring up
about noon; and the evenings are charming
beyond expression. We have much
thunder and lightening, but very few instances
of their being fatal: the thunder is
more magnificent and aweful than in Europe,
and the lightening brighter and more
beautiful; I have even seen it of a clear
pale purple, resembling the gay tints of
the morning.

The verdure is equal to that of England,
and in the evening acquires an unspeakable
beauty from the lucid splendor of the
fire-flies sparkling like a thousand little
stars on the trees and on the grass.

There are two very noble falls of water
near Quebec, la Chaudiere and Montmorenci:
the former is a prodigious sheet of
water, rushing over the wildest rocks, and
forming a scene grotesque, irregular, astonishing:
the latter, less wild, less irregular,
but more pleasing and more majestic, falls
from an immense height, down the side of
a romantic mountain, into the river St.
Lawrence, opposite the most smiling part
of the island of Orleans, to the cultivated
charms of which it forms the most striking
and agreeable contrast.

The river of the same name, which supplies
the cascade of Montmorenci, is the
most lovely of all inamninmate objects: but why D6r 59
why do I call it inanimate? It almost
breathes; I no longer wonder at the enthusiasm
of Greece and Rome; ’twas from
objects resembling this their mythology took
its rise; it seems that residence of a thousand
deities.

Paint to yourself a stupendous rock
burst as it were in sunder by the hands of
nature, to give passage to a small, but very
deep and beautiful river; and forming on
each side a regular and magnificent wall,
crowned with the noblest woods that can
be imagined; the sides of these romantic
walls adorned with a variety of the gayest
flowers, and in many places little streams of
the purest water gushing through, and losing
themselves in the river below: a thousand
natural grottoes in the rock make you
suppose yourself in the abode of the Nereids;
as a little island, covered with flowering
shrubs, about a mile above the falls, where
the river enlarges itself as if to give it room,
seems intended for the throne of the river D6 goddess D6v 60
goddess. Beyond this, the rapids, formed
by the irregular projections of the rock,
which in some places seem almost to meet,
rival in beauty, as they excel in variety,
the cascade itself, and close this little world
of enchantment.

In short, the loveliness of this fairy scene
alone more than pays the fatigues of my
voyage; and, if I ever murmur at having
crossed the Atlantic, remind me that I
have seen the river Montmorenci.

I can give you a very imperfect account of
the people here; I have only examined the
landscape about Quebec, and have given very
little attention to the figures; the French
ladies are handsome, but as to the beaux,
they appear to me not at all dangerous,
and one might safely walk in a wood by
moonlight with the most agreeable Frenchman
here. I am not surprized the Canadian
ladies take such pains to seduce our men D7r 61
men from us; but I think it is a little hard we
have no temptation to make reprisals.

I am at present at an extreme pretty
farm on the banks of the river St. Lawrence;
the house stands at the foot of a
steep mountain covered with a variety of
trees, forming a verdant sloping wall, which
rises in a kind of regular confusion, “Shade above shade, a woody theatre,”
and has in front this noble river, on which
the ships continually passing present to the
delighted eye the most charming moving
picture imaginable; I never saw a place so
formed to inspire that pleasing lassitude, that
divine inclination to saunter, which may not
improperly be called, the luxurious indolence
of the country. I intend to build a
temple here to the charming goddess of
laziness.

A gentleman is just coming down the
winding path of the side of a hill, whom
by his air I take to be your brother. Adieu! I must D7v 62
I must receive him: my father is at Quebec.

Your brother has given me a very
pleasing piece of intelligence: my
friend Emily Montague is at Montreal,
and is going to be married to
great advantage; I must write to
her immediately, and insist on her
making me a visit before she marries.
She came to America two
years ago, with her uncle Colonel
Montague, who died here, and I
imagined was gone back to England;
she is however at Montreal with
Mrs. Melmoth, a distant relation of
her mother’s. Adieu! ma tres chere!

Letter XI.

I Find, my dear, that absence and amusement
are the best remedies for a
beginning passion; I have passed a fortnight
at the Indian village of Lorette,
where the novelty of the scene, and the
enquiries I have been led to make into
their antient religion and manners, have
been of a thousand times more service to
me than all the reflection in the world
would have been.

I will own to you that I staid too long
at Montreal, or rather at Major Melmoth’s;
to be six weeks in the same house
with one of the most amiable, most pleasing
of women, was a trying situation to a
heart full of sensibility, and of a sensibilitylity D8v 64
which has been hitherto, from a variety
of causes, a good deal restrained. I
should have avoided the danger from the
first, had it appeared to me what it really
was; but I thought myself secure in the
consideration of her engagements, a defence
however which I found grow weaker
every day.

But to my savages: other nations talk
of liberty, they possess it; nothing can be
more astonishing than to see a little village
of about thirty or forty families, the small
remains of the Hurons, almost exterminated
by long and continual war with the Iroquoise,
preserve their independence in the
midst of an European colony consisting of
seventy thousand inhabitants; yet the fact
is true of the savages of Lorette; they
assert and they maintain that independence
with a spirit truly noble. One of our company
having said something which an Indian
understood as a supposition that they
had been subjects of France, his eyes struck fire, D9r 65
fire, he stop’d him abruptly, contrary to
their respectful and sensible custom of never
interrupting the person who speaks, “You
mistake, brother,” said he; “we are
subjects to no prince; a savage is free
all over the world.” And he spoke only
truth; they are not only free as a people,
but every individual is perfectly so. Lord
of himself, at once subject and master, a
savage knows no superior, a circumstance
which has a striking effect on his behaviour;
unawed by rank or riches, distinctions
unknown amongst his own nation, he would
enter as unconcerned, would possess all his
powers as freely in the palace of an oriental
monarch, as in the cottage of the meanest
peasant: ’tis the species, ’tis man, ’tis
his equal he respects, without regarding the
gaudy trappings, the accidental advantages,
to which polished nations pay homage.

I have taken some pains to develop their
present, as well as past, religious sentiments,
because the Jesuit missionaries have boasted D9v 66
boasted so much of their conversion; and
find they have rather engrafted a few of
the most plain and simple truths of Christianity
on their ancient superstitions, than
exchanged one faith for another; they are
baptized, and even submit to what they
themselves call the yoke of confession, and
worship according to the outward forms of
the Romish church, the drapery of which
cannot but strike minds unused to splendor;
but their belief is very little changed,
except that the women seem to pay great
reverence to the Virgin, perhaps because
flattering to the sex. They anciently believed
in one God, the ruler and creator
of the universe, whom they called the
Great Spirit and the Master of Life; in the
sun as his image and representative; in a
multitude of inferior spirits and demons;
and in a future state of rewards and punishments,
or, to use their own phrase, in a
country of souls. They reverenced the spirits
of their departed heroes, but it does not D10r 67
not appear that they paid them any religious
adoration. Their morals were more
pure, their manners more simple, than
those of polished nations, except in what
regarded the intercourse of the sexes: the
young women before marriage were indulged
in great libertinism, hid however
under the most reserved and decent exterior.
They held adultery in abhorrence,
and with the more reason as their marriages
were dissolvible at pleasure. The missionaries
are said to have found no difficulty
so great in gaining them to Christianity, as
that of persuading them to marry for life:
they regarded the Christian system of marriage
as contrary to the laws of nature
and reason; and asserted that, as the Great
Spirit formed us to be happy, it was opposing
his will, to continue together when
otherwise.

The sex we have so unjustly excluded
from power in Europe have a great share in D10v 68
in the Huron government; the chief is
chose by the matrons from amongst the
nearest male relations, by the female line,
of him he is to succeed; and is generally
an aunt’s or sister’s son; a custom which,
if we examine strictly into the principle on
which it is founded, seems a little to contradict
what we are told of the extreme
chastity of the married ladies.

The power of the chief is extremely limited;
he seems rather to advise his people
as a father than command them as a master:
yet, as his commands are always reasonable,
and for the general good, no prince
in the world is so well obeyed. They have
a supreme council of ancients, into which
every man enters of course at an age fixed,
and another of assistants to the chief on
common occasions, the members of which
are like him elected by the matrons: I am
pleased with this last regulation, as women
are, beyond all doubt, the best judges
of the merit of men; and I should be extremelytremely D11r 69
pleased to see it adopted in England:
canvassing for elections would then
be the most agreeable thing in the world,
and I am sure the ladies would give their
votes on much more generous principles
than we do. In the true sense of the word,
we are the savages, who so impolitely deprive
you of the common rights of citizenship,
and leave you no power but that of
which we cannot deprive you, the resistless
power of your charms. By the way, I
don’t think you are obliged in conscience to
obey laws you have had no share in making;
your plea would certainly be at least
as good as that of the Americans, about
which we every day hear so much.

The Hurons have no positive laws; yet
being a people not numerous, with a strong
sense of honor, and in that state of equality
which gives no food to the most tormenting
passions of the human heart, and
the council of ancients having a power to 3 punish D11v 70
punish atrocious crimes, which power however
they very seldom find occasion to use,
they live together in a tranquillity and order
which appears to us surprizing.

In more numerous Indian nations, I am
told, every village has its chief and its councils,
and is perfectly independent on the
rest; but on great occasions summon a general
council, to which every village sends
deputies.

Their language is at once sublime and
melodious; but, having much fewer ideas,
it is impossible it can be so copious as those
of Europe: the pronunciation of the men
is guttural, but that of the women extremely
soft and pleasing; without understanding
one word of the language, the
sound of it is very agreeable to me. Their
style even in speaking French is bold and
metaphorical: and I am told is on important
occasions extremely sublime. Even in 1 common D12r 71
common conversation they speak in figures,
of which I have this moment an instance.
A savage woman was wounded lately in defending
an English family from the drunken
rage of one of her nation. I asked her
after her wound; “It is well,” said she;
“my sisters at Quebec (meaning the English
ladies) have been kind to me; and piastres,
you know, are very healing.”

They have no idea of letters, no alphabet,
nor is their language reducible to
rules: ’tis by painting they preserve the
memory of the only events which interest
them, or that they think worth recording,
the conquests gained over their enemies in
war.

When I speak of their paintings, I
should not omit that, though extremely
rude, they have a strong resemblance to
the Chinese, a circumstance which struck
me the more, as it is not the stile of nature.
Their dances also, the most lively pantomimes
I ever saw, and especially the dance of D12v 72
of peace, exhibit variety of attitudes resembling
the figures on Chinese fans; nor
have their features and complexion less
likeness to the pictures we see of the Tartars,
as their wandering manner of life,
before they became cChristians, was the same.

If I thought it necessary to suppose they
were not natives of the country, and that
America was peopled later than the other
quarters of the world, I should imagine
them the descendants of Tartars; as nothing
can be more easy than their passage
from Asia, from which America is probably
not divided; or, if it is, by a very
narrow channel. But I leave this to those
who are better informed, being a subject
on which I honestly confess my ignorance.

I have already observed, that they retain
most of their antient superstitions. I should
particularize their belief in dreams, of
which folly even repeated disappointments
cannot cure them: they have also an unlimitedmited E1r 73
faith in their powawers, or conjurers,
of whom there is one in every Indian village,
who is at once physician, orator, and
divine, and who is consulted as an oracle
on every occasion. As I happened to smile
at the recital a savage was making of a
prophetic dream, from which he assured us
of the death of an English officer whom I
knew to be alive, “You Europeans,”
said he; “are the most unreasonable people
in the world; you laugh at our belief
in dreams, and yet expect us to believe
things a thousand times more incredible.”

Their general character is difficult to describe;
made up of contrary and even contradictory
qualities, they are indolent, tranquil,
quiet, humane in peace; active, restless,
cruel, ferocious in war: courteous,
attentive, hospitable, and even polite, when
kindly treated; haughty, stern, vindictive,
when they are not; and their resentment
is the more to be dreaded, as they hold it a Vol. I. E point E1v 74
point of honor to dissemble their sense of
an injury till they find an opportunity to
revenge it.

They are patient of cold and heat, of
hunger and thirst, even beyond all belief
when necessity requires, passing whole days,
and often three or four days together, without
food, in the woods, when on the watch
for an enemy, or even on their hunting parties;
yet indulging themselves in their
feasts even to the most brutal degree of intemperance.
They despise death, and suffer
the most excruciating tortures not only without
a groan, but with an air of triumph;
singing their death song, deriding their tormentors,
and threatening them with the
vengeance of their surviving friends: yet
hold it honorable to fly before an enemy
that appears the least superior in number
or force.

Deprived by their extreme ignorance,
and that indolence which nothing but their ardor E2r 75
ardor for war can surmount, of all the conveniencies,
as well as elegant refinements
of polished life; strangers to the softer passions,
love being with them on the same
footing as amongst their fellow-tenants of
the woods, their lives appear to me rather
tranquil than happy: they have fewer
cares, but they have also much fewer enjoyments,
than fall to our share. I am told,
however, that, though insensible to love,
they are not without affections; are extremely
awake to friendship, and passionately
fond of their children.

They are of a copper color, which is
rendered more unpleasing by a quantity
of coarse red on their cheeks; but the children,
when born, are of a pale silver white;
perhaps their indelicate custom of greasing
their bodies, and their being so much exposed
to the air and sun even from infancy,
may cause that total change of complexion,
which I know not how otherwise
to account for: their hair is black and E2 shining, E2v 76
shining, the women’s very long, parted at
the top, and combed back, tied behind,
and often twisted with a thong of leather,
which they think very ornamental: the
dress of both sexes is a close jacket, reaching
to their knees, with spatterdashes, all
of coarse blue cloth, shoes of deer-skin,
embroidered with porcupine quills, and
sometimes with silver spangles; and a blanket
thrown across their shoulders, and fastened
before with a kind of bodkin, with
necklaces, and other ornaments of beads or
shells.

They are in general tall, well made, and
agile to the last degree; have a lively imagination,
a strong memory; and, as far as
their interests are concerned, are very dextrous
politicians.

Their address is cold and reserved; but
their treatment of strangers, and the unhappy,
infinitely kind and hospitable. A
very worthy priest, with whom I am acquaintedquainted E3r 77
at Quebec, was some years since
shipwrecked in December on the island of
Anticosti: after a variety of distresses, not
difficult to be imagined on an island without
inhabitants, during the severity of a
winter even colder than that of Canada;
he, with the small remains of his companions
who survived such complicated distress,
early in the spring, reached the main land
in their boat, and wandered to a cabbin of
savages; the ancient of which, having heard
his story, bid him enter, and liberally supplied
their wants: “Approach, brother,”
said he; “the unhappy have a right to our
assistance; we are men, and cannot but
feel for the distresses which happen to
men;” a sentiment which has a strong
resemblance to a celebrated one in a Greek
tragedy.

You will not expect more from me on
this subject, as my residence here has been
short, and I can only be said to catch a few E3 marking E3v 78
marking features flying. I am unable to
give you a picture at full length.

Nothing astonishes me so much as to find
their manners so little changed by their intercourse
with the Europeans; they seem
to have learnt nothing of us but excess in
drinking.

The situation of the village is very fine,
on an eminence, gently rising to a thick
wood at some distance, a beautiful little
serpentine river in front, on which are a
bridge, a mill, and a small cascade, at such
a distance as to be very pleasing objects
from their houses; and a cultivated country,
intermixed with little woods lying between
them and Quebec, from which they
are distant only nine very short miles.

What a letter have I written! I shall
quit my post of historian to your friend
Miss Fermor; the ladies love writing much better E4r 79
better than we do; and I should perhaps
be only just, if I said they write better.

Letter XII.

Letter XIII.

My dearest Bell will better imagine
than I can describe, the pleasure
it gave me to hear of her being in Canada;
I am impatient to see her, but as Mrs.
Melmoth comes in a fortnight to Quebec;
I know she will excuse my waiting to come
to her. My visit however is to Silleri; I
long to see my dear girl, to tell her a thousand
little trifles interesting only to friendship.

You congratulate me, my dear, on the
pleasing prospect I have before me; on
my approaching marriage with a man young, rich, E8r 87
rich, lovely, enamor’d, and of an amiable
character.

Yes, my dear, I am oblig’d to my uncle
for his choice; Sir George is all you have
heard; and, without doubt, loves me, as
he marries me with such an inferiority of
fortune. I am very happy certainly; how
is it possible I should be otherwise?

I could indeed with my tenderness for
him more lively, but perhaps my wishes
are romantic. I prefer him to all his sex,
but with my preference was of a less languid
nature; there is something in it more
like friendship than love; I see him with
pleasure, but I part from him without regret;
yet he deserves my affection, and I
can have no objection to him which is not
founded in caprice.

You say true; Colonel Rivers is very
amiable; he pass’d six weeks with us, yet 5 we E8v 88
we found his conversation always new; he
is the man on earth of whom one would
wish to make a friend; I think I could
already trust him with every sentiment of
my soul; I have even more confidence in
him than in Sir George whom I love; his
manner is soft, attentive, insinuating, and
particularly adapted to please women.
Without designs, without pretensions; he
steals upon you in the character of a friend,
because there is not the least appearance
of his ever being a lover: he seems to take
such an interest in your happiness, as gives
him a right to know your every thought.
Don’t you think, my dear, these kind of
men are dangerous? Take care of yourself,
my dear Bell; as to me, I am secure in my
situation.

Sir George is to have the pleasure of
delivering this to you, and comes again in
a few days; love him for my sake, though 1 he E9r 89
he deserves it for his own. I assure you, he
is extremely worthy.

Letter XIV.

Believe me, Jack, you are wrong;
this vagrant taste is unnatural, and
does not lead to happiness; your eager
pursuit of pleasure defeats itself; love
gives no true delight but where the heart
is attach’d, and you do not give yours time
to fix. Such is our unhappy frailty, that
the tenderest passion may wear out, and another E9v 90
another succeed, but the love of change
merely as change is not in nature; where it
is a real taste, ’tis a depraved one. Boys are
inconstant from vanity and affectation, old
men from decay of passion; but men, and
particularly men of sense, find their happiness
only in that lively attachment of which
it is impossible for more than one to be the
object. Love is an intellectual pleasure,
and even the senses will be weakly affected
where the heart is silent.

You will find this truth confirmed even
within the walls of the seraglio; amidst
this crowd of rival beauties, eager to
please, one happy fair generally reigns in
the heart of the sultan; the rest serve
only to gratify his pride and ostentation,
and are regarded by him with the same
indifference as the furniture of his superb
palace, of which they may be said to make
a part.

With your estate, you should marry; I
have as many objections to the state as you
can have; I mean, on the footing marriage
is at present. But of this I am certain, that
two persons at once delicate and sensible,
united by friendship, by taste, by a conformity
of sentiment, by that lively ardent
tender inclination which alone deserves the
name of love, will find happiness in marriage,
which is in vain sought in any other
kind of attachment.

You are so happy as to have the power
of chusing; you are rich, and have not the
temptation to a mercenary engagement.
Look round you for a companion, a confidente;
a tender amiable friend, with all the
charms of a mistress: above all, be certain
of her affection, that you engage, that
you fill her whole soul. Find such a woman,
my dear Temple, and you cannot make
too much haste to be happy.

I have a thousand things to say to you,
but am setting off immediately with Sir
George Clayton, to meet the lieutenant
governor at Montreal; a piece of respect
which I should pay with the most lively
pleasure, if it did not give me the opportunity
of seeing the woman in the world I
most admire. I am not however going to
set you the example of marrying: I am
not so happy; she is engaged to the gentleman
who goes up with me. Adieu!

Letter XV.

Take care, my dear Emily, you do
not fall into the common error of sensible
and delicate minds, that of resining
away your happiness.

Sir George is handsome as an Adonis;
you allow him to be of an amiable character;
he is rich, young, well born, and
loves you; you will have fine cloaths, fine
jewels, a fine house, a coach and six; all
the douceurs of marriage, with an extreme
pretty fellow, who is fond of you, whom
you see with pleasure, and prefer to all his
sex; and yet you are discontented, because
you have not for him at twenty-four the
romantic passion of fifteen, or rather that ideal E11v 94
ideal passion which perhaps never existed
but in imagination.

To be happy in this world, it is necessary
not to raise one’s ideas too high: if I loved
a man of Sir George’s fortune half as well
as by your own account you love him, I
should not hesitate one moment about marrying;
but sit down contented with ease,
affluence, and an agreeable man, without
expecting to find life what it certainly is
not, a state of continual rapture. ’Tis, I
am afraid, my dear, your misfortune to
have too much sensibility to be happy.

I could moralize exceedingly well this
morning on the vanity of human wishes and
expectations, and the folly of hoping for
felicity in this vile sublunary world: but
the subject is a little exhausted, and I have
a passion for being original. I think all the
moral writers, who have set off with promising
to shew us the road to happiness,
have obligingly ended with telling us there is E12r 95
is no such thing; a conclusion extremely
consoling, and which if they had drawn before
they set pen to paper, would have
saved both themselves and their readers an
infinity of trouble. This fancy of hunting
for what one knows is not to be found, is
really an ingenious way of amusing both
one’s self and the world: I wish people
would either write to some purpose, or be
so good as not to write at all.

I believe I shall set about writing a system
of ethics myself, which shall be short,
clear, and comprehensive; nearer the Epicurean
perhaps than the Stoic; but rural,
refined, and sentimental; rural by all
means; for who does not know that virtue
is a country gentlewoman? all the good
mammas will tell you, there is no such being
to be heard of in town.

I shall certainly be glad to see you, my
dear; though I foresee strange revolutions
in the state of Denmark from this event; at E12v 96
at present I have all the men to myself,
and you must know I have a prodigious
aversion to divided empire: however, ’tis
some comfort they all know you are going
to be married. You may come, Emily;
only be so obliging to bring Sir George
along with you: in your present situation,
you are not so very formidable.

The men here, as I said before, are all
dying for me; there are many handsomer
women, but I flatter them, and the dear
creatures cannot resist it. I am a very good
girl to women, but naturally artful (if you
will allow the expression) to the other sex;
I can blush, look down, stifle a sigh, flutter
my fan, and seem so agreeably confused—
you have no notion, my dear, what fools
men are. If you had not got the start of
me, I would have had your little white-
haired baronet in a week, and yet I don’t
take him to be made of very combustible
materials; rather mild, composed, and pretty, F1r 97
pretty, I believe; but he has vanity, which
is quite enough for my purpose.

Either your love or Colonel Rivers will
have the honor to deliver this letter; ’tis
rather cruel to take them both from us at
once; however, we shall soon be made
amends; for we shall have a torrent of
beaux with the general.

Don’t you think the sun in this country
vastly more chearing than in England? I
am charmed with the sun, to say nothing
of the moon, though to be sure I never saw
a moon-light night that deserved the name
till I came to America.

Mon cher pere desires a thousand compliments;
you know he has been in love
with you ever since you were seven years
old: he is vastly better for his voyage, and
the clear air of Canada, and looks ten years
younger than before he set out.

Adieu! I am going to ramble in the
woods, and pick berries, with a little smiling
civil captain, who is enamoured of me:
a pretty rural amusement for lovers!

Letter XVI.