I MUST still resort to the maxims of the East, where the most beautiful women are content to confine the power of their charms to him who has a right to enjoy them; and they are too sincere, not to confess, that they think themselves capable of exciting desires.

I RECOLLECT a conversation that I had with a lady of great quality at Constantinople, (the most amiable woman I ever knew in my life, and with whom I afterwards contracted the closest friendship.) She frankly acknowledged, that she was satisfied with her husband.  What libertines, said she, you Christian ladies are! you are permitted to receive visits from as many men as you think proper, and your laws allow you the unlimited use of love and wine.  I assured her, that she was wrong informed, and that it was criminal to listen to, or to love, any other than our husbands.  “Your husbands are great fools,” she replied smiling, “to be content with so precarious a fidelity.  “Your necks, your eyes, your hands, your conversation are all for the “public, and what do you pretend to reserve for them?  Pardon me, “my pretty sultana,” she added, embracing me, “I have a strong “inclination to believe all that you tell me, but you would impose “impossibilities upon me.  I know the filthiness of the infidels; I “perceive that you are ashamed, and I will say no more.”

I FOUND so much good sense and propriety in what she said, that I knew not how to contradict her; and, at length, I acknowledged, that she had reason to prefer the Mahometan manners to our ridiculous customs, which form a confused medley of the rigid maxims of Christianity, with all the libertinism (sic) of the Spartans:  And, notwithstanding our absurd manners, I am persuaded, that a woman who is determined to place her happiness in her husband’s affections, should abandon the extravagant desire of engaging public adoration; and that a husband, who tenderly loves his wife, should, in his turn, give up the reputation of being a gallant.  You find that I am supposing a very extraordinary pair; it is not very surprising, therefore, that such an union should be uncommon in those countries, where it is requisite to conform to established customs, in order to be happy.

VERSES

Written in the Chiask, at Pera, overlooking Constantinople, December 26th, 1718.

By Lady MARY WORTLEY MONTAGUE.

GIVE me, great God!  Said I, a little farm,
In summer shady, and in winter warm;
Where a clear spring gives birth to murm’ring brooks,
By nature gliding down the mossy rocks. 
Not artfully by leading pipes convey’d,
Or greatly falling in a forc’d cascade,
Pure and unsully’d winding thro’ the shade. 
All-bounteous Heaven has added to my prayer
A softer climate, and a purer air.

OUR frozen ISLE now chilling winter binds,
Deform’d by rains, and rough with blasting winds;
The wither’d woods grow white with hoary frost,
By driving storms their verdant beauty lost,
The trembling birds their leafless covert shun,
And seek, in distant climes a warmer sun: 
The water-nymphs their silent urns deplore,
Ev’n Thames benum’d’s a river now no more: 
The barren meads no longer yield delight,
By glist’ring snows made painful to the sight.