Adieu! 
          A. Fermor.

LETTER 87.

To the Earl of ——.

My Lord,

Silleri, March 13.

I generally distrust my own opinion when it differs from your Lordship’s; but in this instance I am most certainly in the right:  allow me to say, nothing can be more ill-judged than your Lordship’s design of retiring into a small circle, from that world of which you have so long been one of the most brilliant ornaments.  What you say of the disagreableness of age, is by no means applicable to your Lordship; nothing is in this respect so fallible as the parish register.  Why should any man retire from society whilst he is capable of contributing to the pleasures of it?  Wit, vivacity, good-nature, and politeness, give an eternal youth, as stupidity and moroseness a premature old age.  Without a thousandth part of your Lordship’s shining qualities, I think myself much younger than half the boys about me, meerly because I have more good-nature, and a stronger desire of pleasing.

My daughter is much honored by your Lordship’s enquiries:  she is Bell Fermor still; but is addressed by a gentleman who is extremely agreable to me, and I believe not less so to her; I however know too well the free spirit of woman, of which she has her full share, to let Bell know I approve her choice; I am even in doubt whether it would not be good policy to seem to dislike the match, in order to secure her consent:  there is something very pleasing to a young girl, in opposing the will of her father.

To speak truth, I am a little out of humor with her at present, for having contributed, and I believe entirely from a spirit of opposition to me, to break a match on which I had extremely set my heart; the lady was the niece of my particular friend, and one of the most lovely and deserving women I ever knew:  the gentleman very worthy, with an agreable, indeed a very handsome person, and a fortune which with those who know the world, would have compensated for the want of most other advantages.

The fair lady, after an engagement of two years, took a whim that there was no happiness in marriage without being madly in love, and that her passion was not sufficiently romantic; in which piece of folly my rebel encouraged her, and the affair broke off in a manner which has brought on her the imputation of having given way to an idle prepossession in favor of another.

Your Lordship will excuse my talking on a subject very near my heart, though uninteresting to you; I have too often experienced your Lordship’s indulgence to doubt it on this occasion:  your good-natured philosophy will tell you, much fewer people talk or write to amuse or inform their friends, than to give way to the feelings of their own hearts, or indulge the governing passion of the moment.

In my next, I will endeavor in the best manner I can, to obey your Lordship’s commands in regard to the political and religious state of Canada:  I will make a point of getting the best information possible; what I have yet seen, has been only the surface.