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 circumstance 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 ship:  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; passion 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 coarseness 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 sex 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.