To Miss Fermor.

Always Madame Des Roches! but let her come:  indeed, my dear, she is artful; she gains upon him by this appearance of generosity; I cannot return it, I do not love her; yet I will receive her with politeness.

He is to drive her too; but ’tis no matter; if the tenderest affection can secure his heart, I have nothing to fear:  loving him as I do, it is impossible not to be apprehensive:  indeed, my dear, he knows not how I love him.

      Adieu! 
          Your Emily.

LETTER 113.

To Miss Fermor.

Monday evening.

Surely I am the weakest of my weak sex; I am ashamed to tell you all my feelings:  I cannot conquer my dislike to Madame Des Roches:  she said a thousand obliging things to me, she praised my Rivers; I made her no answer, I even felt tears ready to start; what must she think of me? there is a meanness in my jealousy of her, which I cannot forgive myself.

I cannot account for her attention to me, it is not natural; she behaved to me not only with politeness, but with the appearance of affection; she seemed to feel and pity my confusion.  She is either the most artful, or the most noble of women.

      Adieu! 
        Your
          Emily.

LETTER 114.

To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.

Silleri, March 29.

We are going to dine at a farm house in the country, where we are to meet other company, and have a ball:  the snow begins a little to soften, from the warmth of the sun, which is greater than in England in May.  Our winter parties are almost at an end.

My father drives Madame Des Roches, who is of our party, and your brother Emily; I hope the little fool will be easy now, Lucy; she is very humble, to be jealous of one, who, though really very pleasing, is neither so young nor so handsome as herself; and who professes to wish only for Rivers’s friendship.

But I have no right to say a word on this subject, after having been so extremely hurt at Fitzgerald’s attention to such a woman as Madame La Brosse; an attention too which was so plainly meant to pique me.

We are all, I am afraid, a little absurd in these affairs, and therefore ought to have some degree of indulgence for others.

Emily and I, however, differ in our ideas of love:  it is the business of her life, the amusement of mine; ’tis the food of her hours, the seasoning of mine.

Or, in other words, she loves like a foolish woman, I like a sensible man:  for men, you know, compared to women, love in about the proportion of one to twenty.

’Tis a mighty wrong thing, after all, Lucy, that parents will educate creatures so differently, who are to live with and for each other.

Every possible means is used, even from infancy, to soften the minds of women, and to harden those of men; the contrary endeavor might be of use, for the men creatures are unfeeling enough by nature, and we are born too tremblingly alive to love, and indeed to every soft affection.