Bon soir! I am sleepy. 
      Yours,
          A. Fermor.

LETTER 51.

To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall.

Quebec, Jan. 9.

You mistake me extremely, Jack, as you generally do:  I have by no means forsworn marriage:  on the contrary, though happiness is not so often found there as I wish it was, yet I am convinced it is to be found no where else; and, poor as I am, I should not hesitate about trying the experiment myself to-morrow, if I could meet with a woman to my taste, unappropriated, whose ideas of the state agreed with mine, which I allow are something out of the common road:  but I must be certain those ideas are her own, therefore they must arise spontaneously, and not in complaisance to mine; for which reason, if I could, I would endeavour to lead my mistress into the subject, and know her sentiments on the manner of living in that state before I discovered my own.

I must also be well convinced of her tenderness before I make a declaration of mine:  she must not distinguish me because I flatter her, but because she thinks I have merit; those fancied passions, where gratified vanity assumes the form of love, will not satisfy my heart:  the eyes, the air, the voice of the woman I love, a thousand little indiscretions dear to the heart, must convince me I am beloved, before I confess I love.

Though sensible of the advantages of fortune, I can be happy without it:  if I should ever be rich enough to live in the world, no one will enjoy it with greater gust; if not, I can with great spirit, provided I find such a companion as I wish, retire from it to love, content, and a cottage:  by which I mean to the life of a little country gentleman.

You ask me my opinion of the winter here.  If you can bear a degree of cold, of which Europeans can form no idea, it is far from being unpleasant; we have settled frost, and an eternal blue sky.  Travelling in this country in winter is particularly agreable:  the carriages are easy, and go on the ice with an amazing velocity, though drawn only by one horse.

The continual plain of snow would be extremely fatiguing both to the eye and imagination, were not both relieved, not only by the woods in prospect, but by the tall branches of pines with which the road is marked out on each side, and which form a verdant avenue agreably contrasted with the dazzling whiteness of the snow, on which, when the sun shines, it is almost impossible to look steadily even for a moment.

Were it not for this method of marking out the roads, it would be impossible to find the way from one village to another.

The eternal sameness however of this avenue is tiresome when you go far in one road.

I have passed the last two months in the most agreable manner possible, in a little society of persons I extremely love:  I feel myself so attached to this little circle of friends, that I have no pleasure in any other company, and think all the time absolutely lost that politeness forces me to spend any where else.  I extremely dread our party’s being dissolved, and wish the winter to last for ever, for I am afraid the spring will divide us.