How happy are you and I, Lucy, in having parents, who, far from forcing our inclinations, have not even endeavored to betray us into chusing from sordid motives!  They have not labored to fill our young hearts with vanity or avarice; they have left us those virtues, those amiable qualities, we received from nature.  They have painted to us the charms of friendship, and not taught us to value riches above their real price.

My father, indeed, checks a certain excess of romance which there is in my temper; but, at the same time, he never encouraged my receiving the addresses of any man who had only the gifts of fortune to recommend him; he even advised me, when very young, against marrying an officer in his regiment, of a large fortune, but an unworthy character.

If I have any knowledge of the human heart, it will be my own fault if I am not happy with Fitzgerald.

I am only afraid, that when we are married, and begin to settle into a calm, my volatile disposition will carry me back to coquetry:  my passion for admiration is naturally strong, and has been increased by indulgence; for without vanity I have been extremely the taste of the men.

I have a kind of an idea it won’t be long before I try the strength of my resolution, for I heard papa and Fitzgerald in high consultation this morning.

Do you know, that, having nobody to love but Fitzgerald, I am ten times more enamored of the dear creature than ever?  My love is now like the rays of the sun collected.

He is so much here, I wonder I don’t grow tired of him; but somehow he has the art of varying himself beyond any man I ever knew:  it was that agreable variety of character that first struck me; I considered that with him I should have all the sex in one; he says the same of me; and indeed, it must be owned we have both an infinity of agreable caprice, which in love affairs is worth all the merit in the world.

Have you never observed, Lucy, that the same person is seldom greatly the object of both love and friendship?

Those virtues which command esteem do not often inspire passion.

Friendship seeks the more real, more solid virtues; integrity, constancy, and a steady uniformity of character:  love, on the contrary, admires it knows not what; creates itself the idol it worships; finds charms even in defects; is pleased with follies, with inconsistency, with caprice:  to say all in one line,

 “Love is a child, and like a child he plays.”

The moment Emily arrives, I entreat that one of you will write to me:  no words can speak my impatience:  I am equally anxious to hear of my dear Rivers.  Heaven send them prosperous gales!

    Adieu! 
      Your faithful
          A. Fermor.

LETTER 157.

To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.

Silleri, June 30.

You are extremely mistaken, my dear, in your idea of the society here; I had rather live at Quebec, take it for all in all, than in any town in England, except London; the manner of living here is uncommonly agreable; the scenes about us are lovely, and the mode of amusements make us taste those scenes in full perfection.