Читать книгу The History of Emily Montague - Frances Brooke - Страница 17

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To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.

Quebec, Sept. 12.

I yesterday morning received a letter from Major Melmoth, to introduce to my acquaintance Sir George Clayton, who brought it; he wanted no other introduction to me than his being dear to the most amiable woman breathing; in virtue of that claim, he may command every civility, every attention in my power. He breakfasted with me yesterday: we were two hours alone, and had a great deal of conversation; we afterwards spent the day together very agreably, on a party of pleasure in the country.

I am going with him this afternoon to visit Miss Fermor, to whom he has a letter from the divine Emily, which he is to deliver himself.

He is very handsome, but not of my favorite stile of beauty: extremely fair and blooming, with fine features, light hair and eyes; his countenance not absolutely heavy, but inanimate, and to my taste insipid: finely made, not ungenteel, but without that easy air of the world which I prefer to the most exact symmetry without it. In short, he is what the country ladies in England call a sweet pretty man. He dresses well, has the finest horses and the handsomest liveries I have seen in Canada. His manner is civil but cold, his conversation sensible but not spirited; he seems to be a man rather to approve than to love. Will you excuse me if I say, he resembles the form my imagination paints of Prometheus’s man of clay, before he stole the celestial fire to animate him?

Perhaps I scrutinize him too strictly; perhaps I am prejudiced in my judgment by the very high idea I had form’d of the man whom Emily Montague could love. I will own to you, that I thought it impossible for her to be pleased with meer beauty; and I cannot even now change my opinion; I shall find some latent fire, some hidden spark, when we are better acquainted.

I intend to be very intimate with him, to endeavour to see into his very soul; I am hard to please in a husband for my Emily; he must have spirit, he must have sensibility, or he cannot make her happy.

He thank’d me for my civility to Miss Montague: do you know I thought him impertinent? and I am not yet sure he was not so, though I saw he meant to be polite.

He comes: our horses are at the door. Adieu!

Yours,

Ed. Rivers.

Eight in the evening.

We are return’d: I every hour like him less. There were several ladies, French and English, with Miss Fermor, all on the rack to engage the Baronet’s attention; you have no notion of the effect of a title in America. To do the ladies justice however, he really look’d very handsome; the ride, and the civilities he receiv’d from a circle of pretty women, for they were well chose, gave a glow to his complexion extremely favorable to his desire of pleasing, which, through all his calmness, it was impossible not to observe; he even attempted once or twice to be lively, but fail’d: vanity itself could not inspire him with vivacity; yet vanity is certainly his ruling passion, if such a piece of still life can be said to have any passions at all.

What a charm, my dear Lucy, is there in sensibility! ’Tis the magnet which attracts all to itself: virtue may command esteem, understanding and talents admiration, beauty a transient desire; but ’tis sensibility alone which can inspire love.

Yet the tender, the sensible Emily Montague—no, my dear, ’tis impossible: she may fancy she loves him, but it is not in nature; unless she extremely mistakes his character. His approbation of her, for he cannot feel a livelier sentiment, may at present, when with her, raise him a little above his natural vegetative state, but after marriage he will certainly sink into it again.

If I have the least judgment in men, he will be a cold, civil, inattentive husband; a tasteless, insipid, silent companion; a tranquil, frozen, unimpassion’d lover; his insensibility will secure her from rivals, his vanity will give her all the drapery of happiness; her friends will congratulate her choice; she will be the envy of her own sex: without giving positive offence, he will every moment wound, because he is a stranger to, all the fine feelings of a heart like hers; she will seek in vain the friend, the lover, she expected; yet, scarce knowing of what to complain, she will accuse herself of caprice, and be astonish’d to find herself wretched with the best husband in the world.

I tremble for her happiness; I know how few of my own sex are to be found who have the lively sensibility of yours, and of those few how many wear out their hearts by a life of gallantry and dissipation, and bring only apathy and disgust into marriage. I know few men capable of making her happy; but this Sir George—my Lucy, I have not patience.

Did I tell you all the men here are in love with your friend Bell Fermor? The women all hate her, which is an unequivocal proof that she pleases the other sex.