Part 30 (2/2)

These Frenchwomen are not to be supported; they fancy vanity and a.s.surance are to make up for the want of every other virtue; forgetting that delicacy, softness, sensibility, tenderness, are attractions to which they are strangers: some of them here are however tolerably handsome, and have a degree of liveliness which makes them not quite insupportable.

You will call all this spite, as Emily does, so I will say no more: only that, in order to shew her how very easy it is to be civil to a rival, I wish for the pleasure of seeing another French lady, that I could mention, at Quebec.

Good night, my dear! tell Temple, I am every thing but in love with him.

Your faithful, A. Fermor.

I will however own, I encouraged Fitzgerald by a kind look. I was so pleased at his return, that I could not keep up the farce of disdain I had projected: in love affairs, I am afraid, we are all fools alike.

LETTER 106.

To Miss Fermor.

Sat.u.r.day noon.

Come to my dressing-room, my dear; I have a thousand things to say to you: I want to talk of my Rivers, to tell you all the weakness of my soul.

No, my dear, I cannot love him more, a pa.s.sion like mine will not admit addition; from the first moment I saw him my whole soul was his: I knew not that I was dear to him; but true genuine love is self-existent, and does not depend on being beloved: I should have loved him even had he been attached to another.

This declaration has made me the happiest of my s.e.x; but it has not increased, it could not increase, my tenderness: with what softness, what diffidence, what respect, what delicacy, was this declaration made! my dear friend, he is a G.o.d, and my ardent affection for him is fully justified.

I love him--no words can speak how much I love him.

My pa.s.sion for him is the first and shall be the last of my life: my bosom never heaved a sigh but for my Rivers.

Will you pardon the folly of a heart which till now was ashamed to own its feelings, and of which you are even now the only confidante?

I find all the world so insipid, nothing amuses me one moment; in short, I have no pleasure but in Rivers's conversation, nor do I count the hours of his absence in my existence.

I know all this will be called folly, but it is a folly which makes all the happiness of my life.

You love, my dear Bell; and therefore will pardon the weakness of your

Emily.

LETTER 107.

To Miss Montague.

Sat.u.r.day.

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