I will open all my heart to you when we meet:  I am not so happy as you imagine:  do not accuse me of caprice; can I be too cautious, where the happiness of my whole life is at stake?

      Adieu! 
        Your faithful
          Emily Montague.

LETTER 20.

To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.

Silleri, Sept. 24.

I declare off at once; I will not be a squaw; I admire their talking of the liberty of savages; in the most essential point, they are slaves:  the mothers marry their children without ever consulting their inclinations, and they are obliged to submit to this foolish tyranny.  Dear England! where liberty appears, not as here among these odious savages, wild and ferocious like themselves, but lovely, smiling, led by the hand of the Graces.  There is no true freedom any where else.  They may talk of the privilege of chusing a chief; but what is that to the dear English privilege of chusing a husband?

I have been at an Indian wedding, and have no patience.  Never did I see so vile an assortment.

Adieu!  I shall not be in good humor this month.

      Yours,
          A. Fermor.

LETTER 21.

To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall.

Montreal, Sept. 24.

What you say, my dear friend, is more true than I wish it was; our English women of character are generally too reserved; their manner is cold and forbidding; they seem to think it a crime to be too attractive; they appear almost afraid to please.

’Tis to this ill-judged reserve I attribute the low profligacy of too many of our young men; the grave faces and distant behaviour of the generality of virtuous women fright them from their acquaintance, and drive them into the society of those wretched votaries of vice, whose conversation debases every sentiment of their souls.

With as much beauty, good sense, sensibility, and softness, at least, as any women on earth, no women please so little as the English:  depending on their native charms, and on those really amiable qualities which envy cannot deny them, they are too careless in acquiring those enchanting nameless graces, which no language can define, which give resistless force to beauty, and even supply its place where it is wanting.

They are satisfied with being good, without considering that unadorned virtue may command esteem, but will never excite love; and both are necessary in marriage, which I suppose to be the state every woman of honor has in prospect; for I own myself rather incredulous as to the assertions of maiden aunts and cousins to the contrary.  I wish my amiable countrywomen would consider one moment, that virtue is never so lovely as when dressed in smiles:  the virtue of women should have all the softness of the sex; it should be gentle, it should be even playful, to please.