Women are naturally more constant, education improves this happy disposition:  the husband who has the politeness, the attention, and delicacy of a lover, will always be beloved.

The same is generally, but not always, true on the other side:  I have sometimes seen the most amiable, the most delicate of the sex, fail in keeping the affection of their husbands.

I am well aware, my friend, that we are not to expect here a life of continual rapture; in the happiest marriage there is danger of some languid moments:  to avoid these, shall be my study; and I am certain they are to be avoided.

The inebriation, the tumult of passion, will undoubtedly grow less after marriage, that is, after peaceable possession; hopes and fears alone keep it in its first violent state:  but, though it subsides, it gives place to a tenderness still more pleasing, to a soft, and, if you will allow the expression, a voluptuous tranquillity:  the pleasure does not cease, does not even lessen; it only changes its nature.

My sister tells me, she flatters herself, you will give a few months to hers and Mr. Temple’s friendship; I will not give up the claim I have to the same favor.

My little farm will induce only friends to visit us; and it is not less pleasing to me for that circumstance:  one of the misfortunes of a very exalted station, is the slavery it subjects us to in regard to the ceremonial world.

Upon the whole, I believe, the most agreable, as well as most free of all situations, to be that of a little country gentleman, who lives upon his income, and knows enough of the world not to envy his richer neighbours.

Let me hear from you, my dear Fitzgerald, and tell me, if, little as I am, I can be any way of the least use to you.

You will see Emily before I do; she is more lovely, more enchanting, than ever.

Mrs. Fitzgerald will make me happy if she can invent any commands for me.

    Adieu!  Believe me,
      Your faithful, &c. 
          Ed. Rivers.

LETTER 178.

To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland.

London, Sept. 15.

Every mark of your friendship, my dear Rivers, must be particularly pleasing to one who knows your worth as I do:  I have, therefore, to thank you as well for your letter, as for those obliging offers of service, which I shall make no scruple of accepting, if I have occasion for them.

I rejoice in the prospect of your being as happy as myself:  nothing can be more just than your ideas of marriage; I mean, of a marriage founded on inclination:  all that you describe, I am so happy as to experience.

I never loved my sweet girl so tenderly as since she has been mine; my heart acknowledges the obligation of her having trusted the future happiness or misery of her life in my hands.  She is every hour more dear to me; I value as I ought those thousand little attentions, by which a new softness is every moment given to our affection.