Do you know, Rivers, I have a fancy you and Fitzgerald will always be happy husbands? this is something owing to yourselves, and something to us; you have both that manly tenderness, and true generosity, which inclines you to love creatures who have paid you the compliment of making their happiness or misery depend entirely on you, and partly to the little circ.u.mstance of your being married to two of the most agreable women breathing.

To speak _en philosophe_, my dear Rivers, you are not to be told, that the fire of love, like any other fire, is equally put out by too much or too little fuel.

Now Emily and I, without vanity, besides our being handsome and amazingly sensible, to say nothing of our pleasing kind of sensibility, have a certain just idea of causes and effects, with a natural blushing reserve, and bridal delicacy, which I am apt to flatter myself--

Do you understand me, Rivers? I am not quite clear I understand myself.

All that I would insinuate is, that Emily and I are, take us for all in all, the two most charming women in the world, and that, whoever leaves us, must change immensely for the worse.

I believe Lucy equally pleasing, but I think her charms have not so good a subject to work upon.

Temple is a handsome fellow, and loves her; but he has not the tenderness of heart that I so much admire in two certain youths of my acquaintance.

He is rich indeed; but who cares?

Certainly, my dear Rivers, nothing can be more absurd, or more destructive to happiness, than the very wrong turn we give our children's imaginations about marriage.

If miss and master are good, she is promised a rich husband, and a coach and six, and he a wife with a monstrous great fortune.

Most of these fine promises must fail; and where they do not, the poor things have only the consolation of finding, when too late to retreat, that the objects to which all their wishes were pointed have really nothing to do with happiness.

Is there a nabobess on earth half as happy as the two foolish little girls about whom I have been writing, though married to such poor devils as you and Fitzgerald? _Certainement_ no.

And so ends my sermon.

Adieu!

Your most obedient, A. Fitzgerald.

LETTER 203.

To John Temple, Esq; Temple-house, Rutland.

Bellfield, Oct. 21.

You ridicule my enthusiasm, my dear Temple, without considering there is no exertion of the human mind, no effort of the understanding, imagination, or heart, without a spark of this divine fire.

Without enthusiasm, genius, virtue, pleasure, even love itself, languishes; all that refines, adorns, softens, exalts, enn.o.bles life, has its source in this animating principle.

I glory in being an enthusiast in every thing; but in nothing so much as in my tenderness for this charming woman.

I am a perfect Quixote in love, and would storm enchanted castles, and fight giants, for my Emily.

Coldness of temper damps every spring that moves the human heart; it is equally an enemy to pleasure, riches, fame, to all which is worth living for.

I thank you for your wishes that I was rich, but am by no means anxious myself on the subject.

You sons of fortune, who possess your thousands a year, and find them too little for your desires, desires which grow from that very abundance, imagine every man miserable who wants them; in which you are greatly mistaken.

Every real pleasure is within the reach of my little fortune, and I am very indifferent about those which borrow their charms, not from nature, but from fashion and caprice.

My house is indeed less than yours; but it is finely situated, and large enough for my fortune: that part of it which belongs peculiarly to my Emily is elegant.

I have an equipage, not for parade but use; and the loveliest of women prefers it with me to all that luxury and magnificence could bestow with another.

The flowers in my garden bloom as fair, the peach glows as deep, as in yours: does a flower blush more lovely, or smell more sweet; a peach look more tempting than its fellows, I select it for my Emily, who receives it with delight, as the tender tribute of love.

In some respects, we are the more happy for being less rich: the little avocations, which our mediocrity of fortune makes necessary to both, are the best preventives of that languor, from being too constantly together, which is all that love founded on taste and friendship has to fear.

Had I my choice, I should wish for a very small addition only to my income, and that for the sake of others, not myself.

I love pleasure, and think it our duty to make life as agreable as is consistent with what we owe to others; but a true pleasurable philosopher seeks his enjoyments where they are really to be found; not in the gratifications of a childish pride, but of those affections which are born with us, and which are the only rational sources of enjoyment.

When I am walking in these delicious shades with Emily; when I see those lovely eyes, softened with artless fondness, and hear the music of that voice; when a thousand trifles, un.o.bserved but by the prying sight of love, betray all the dear sensations of that bosom, where truth and delicate tenderness have fixed their seat, I know not the Epicurean of whom I do not deserve to be the envy.

Does your fortune, my dear Temple, make you more than happy? if not, why so very earnestly wish an addition to mine? believe me, there is nothing about which I am more indifferent. I am ten times more anxious to get the finest collection of flowers in the world for my Emily.

You observe justly, that there is nothing so insipid as women who have conversed with women only; let me add, nor so brutal as men who have lived only amongst men.

The desire of pleasing on each side, in an intercourse enlivened by taste, and governed by delicacy and honor, calls forth all the graces of the person and understanding, all the amiable sentiments of the heart: it also gives good-breeding, ease, and a certain awakened manner, which is not to be acquired but in mixed conversation.

Remember, you and my dear Lucy dine with us to-morrow; it is to be a little family party, to indulge my mother in the delight of seeing her children about her, without interruption: I have saved all my best fruit for this day; we are to drink tea and sup in Emily's apartment.

Adieu! Your affectionate Ed. Rivers.

I will to-morrow shew you better grapes than any you have at Temple-house: you rich men fancy n.o.body has any thing good but yourselves; but I hope next year to shew you that you are mistaken in a thousand instances. I will have such roses and jessamines, such bowers of intermingled sweets--you shall see what astonishing things Emily's taste and my industry can do.

LETTER 204.

To Mrs. Fitzgerald.

Bellfield, Oct. 22.

Finish your business, my dear girl, and let us see you again at Bellfield. I need not tell you the pleasure Mr. Fitzgerald's accompanying you will give us.

I die to see you, my dear Bell; it is not enough to be happy, unless I have somebody to tell every moment that I am so: I want a confidante of my tenderness, a friend like my Bell, indulgent to all my follies, to talk to of the loveliest and most beloved of mankind. I want to tell you a thousand little instances of that ardent, that refined affection, which makes all the happiness of my life! I want to paint the flattering attention, the delicate fondness of that dear lover, who is only the more so for being a husband.

You are the only woman on earth to whom I can, without the appearance of insult, talk of my Rivers, because you are the only one I ever knew as happy as myself.

Fitzgerald, in the tenderness and delicacy of his mind, resembles strongly--

I am interrupted: adieu! for a moment.