Ed. Rivers.

LETTER 5.

To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.

Quebec, July 4.

What an inconstant animal is man! do you know, Lucy, I begin to be tir’d of the lovely landscape round me?  I have enjoy’d from it all the pleasure meer inanimate objects can give, and find ’tis a pleasure that soon satiates, if not relieved by others which are more lively.  The scenery is to be sure divine, but one grows weary of meer scenery:  the most enchanting prospect soon loses its power of pleasing, when the eye is accustom’d to it:  we gaze at first transported on the charms of nature, and fancy they will please for ever; but, alas! it will not do; we sigh for society, the conversation of those dear to us; the more animated pleasures of the heart.  There are fine women, and men of merit here; but, as the affections are not in our power, I have not yet felt my heart gravitate towards any of them.  I must absolutely set in earnest about my settlement, in order to emerge from the state of vegetation into which I seem falling.

But to your last:  you ask me a particular account of the convents here.  Have you an inclination, my dear, to turn nun? if you have, you could not have applied to a properer person; my extreme modesty and reserve, and my speaking French, having made me already a great favourite with the older part of all the three communities, who unanimously declare colonel Rivers to be un tres aimable homme, and have given me an unlimited liberty of visiting them whenever I please:  they now and then treat me with a sight of some of the young ones, but this is a favor not allow’d to all the world.

There are three religious houses at Quebec, so you have choice; the Ursulines, the Hotel Dieu, and the General Hospital.  The first is the severest order in the Romish church, except that very cruel one which denies its fair votaries the inestimable liberty of speech.  The house is large and handsome, but has an air of gloominess, with which the black habit, and the livid paleness of the nuns, extremely corresponds.  The church is, contrary to the style of the rest of the convent, ornamented and lively to the last degree.  The superior is an English-woman of good family, who was taken prisoner by the savages when a child, and plac’d here by the generosity of a French officer.  She is one of the most amiable women I ever knew, with a benevolence in her countenance which inspires all who see her with affection:  I am very fond of her conversation, tho’ sixty and a nun.

The Hotel Dieu is very pleasantly situated, with a view of the two rivers, and the entrance of the port:  the house is chearful, airy, and agreeable; the habit extremely becoming, a circumstance a handsome woman ought by no means to overlook; ’tis white with a black gauze veil, which would shew your complexion to great advantage.  The order is much less severe than the Ursulines, and I might add, much more useful, their province being the care of the sick:  the nuns of this house are sprightly, and have a look of health which is wanting at the Ursulines.