LETTER 169.

To Captain Fermor, at Silleri.

Aug. 6.

I have been taking an exact survey of the house and estate with my mother, in order to determine on some future plan of life.

’Tis inconceivable what I felt on returning to a place so dear to me, and which I had not seen for many years; I ran hastily from one room to another; I traversed the garden with inexpressible eagerness:  my eye devoured every object; there was not a tree, not a bush, which did not revive some pleasing, some soft idea.

I felt, to borrow a very pathetic expression of Thomson’s,

  “A thousand little tendernesses throb,”

on revisiting those dear scenes of infant happiness; which were increased by having with me that estimable, that affectionate mother, to whose indulgence all my happiness had been owing.

But to return to the purpose of our visit:  the house is what most people would think too large for the estate, even had I a right to call it all my own; this is, however, a fault, if it is one, which I can easily forgive.

There is furniture enough in it for my family, including my mother; it is unfashionable, but some of it very good:  and I think Emily has tenderness enough for me to live with me in a house, the furniture of which is not perfectly in taste.

In short, I know her much above having the slightest wish of vanity, where it comes in competition with love.

We can, as to the house, live here commodiously enough; and our only present consideration is, on what we are to live:  a consideration, however, which as lovers, I believe in strictness we ought to be much above!

My mother again solicits me to resume this estate; and has proposed my making over to her my half-pay instead of it, though of much less value, which, with her own two hundred pounds a year, will, she says, enable her to continue her house in town, a point I am determined never to suffer her to give up; because she loves London; and because I insist on her having her own house to go to, if she should ever chance to be displeased with ours.

I am inclined to like this proposal:  Temple and I will make a calculation; and, if we find it will answer every necessary purpose to my mother, I owe it to Emily to accept of it.

I endeavor to persuade myself, that I am obliging my mother, by giving her an opportunity of shewing her generosity, and of making me happy:  I have been in spirits ever since she mentioned it.

I have already projected a million of improvements; have taught new streams to flow, planted ideal groves, and walked, fancy-led, in shades of my own raising.

The situation of the house is enchanting; and with all my passion for the savage luxuriance of America, I begin to find my taste return for the more mild and regular charms of my native country.

We have no Chaudieres, no Montmorencis, none of those magnificent scenes on which the Canadians have a right to pride themselves; but we excel them in the lovely, the smiling; in enameled meadows, in waving corn-fields, in gardens the boast of Europe; in every elegant art which adorns and softens human life; in all the riches and beauty which cultivation can give.