History of Emily Montague, Vol. IV (Dramatic Reading)-Frances Moore Brooke

0:00Section 1 of the History of Emily Montague Volume 4 by Francis Moore Brook. This is the Librevox Recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit librevox.org. Cast List. Emily Montague, read by J.M. Small here. Colonel Edward Rivers, read by Jim Locke. Arabella Femme, read by what te abratuch. Captain J. Fitzgerald, read by Larry Wilson. John Temple, read by Alan Napstone. Fanny Williams, read by Abay. The Earl of Hamburg, read by Kevinus. Narrated by Lynette. Letters 181 through 190. Letter 181. To Colonel Rivers at Bellfield, Rutland, Rose Hill, September 17.

1:01Can you in earnest ask such a question? Can you suppose I ever felt the least degree of love for Sir George? No, my rivers. Never did your Emily feel tenderness till she saw the loveliest, the most amiable of his sex, till those eyes spoke the sentiments of a soul every idea of which was similar to her own. Yes, my rivers. Our souls have the most perfect resemblance. I never heard you speak without finding the feelings of my own heart developed. Your conversation conveyed your Emily's ideas, but closed in the language of angels. I thought well of Sir George. I saw him as the man destined to be my husband. I fancied he loved me, and that gratitude obliged me to a return, carried away by the order of my friends for this marriage. I rather suffered than approved his addresses. I had not courage to resist the torrent. I therefore gave way to it. I loved no other. I fancied my want of affection, a native coldness of temper.

2:05I felt a languid esteem, which I endeavour to flatter myself was love. But the moment I saw you, the delusion vanished. Your eyes, my rivers, in one moment convinced me I had a heart. You stayed some weeks with us in the country. With what transport do I recollect those pleasing moments? How did my heart beat whenever you approached me? What charms did I find in your conversation? I heard you talk with a delight of which I was not mistress. I fancied every woman who saw you felt the same emotions. My tenderness increased imperceptibly without my perceiving the consequences of my indulging the dear pleasure of seeing you. I found I loved, yet was doubtful of your sentiments. My heart, however, flattered me, yours was equally affected. My situation prevented an explanation, but love has a thousand ways of making himself understood. How dear to me were those soft, those delicate attentions which told me all you felt for

3:08me was out communicating it to others. Do you remember that day my rivers when sitting in the little Hawthorn Grove near the borders of the river, the rest of the company of which Sir George was one, ran to look at a ship that was passing? I would have followed, you asked me to stay, by a look which it was impossible to mistake. Nothing could be more imprudent than my stay, yet I had not resolution to refuse what I saw gave you pleasure. I stayed. You pressed my hand. You regarded me with a look of unutterable love. My rivers from that dear moment your Emily vowed never to be another's. She vowed not to sacrifice all the happiness of her life to a romantic parade of fidelity, to a man whom she had been betrayed into receiving as a lover. She resolved, if necessary, to own to him the tenderness with which you had inspired her, to entreat from his esteem, from his compassion, a release from engagements which made

4:09her wretched. My heart burns with the love of virtue. I am crèmelingly alive to fame. What bitterness then must have been my portion had I first seen you when the wife of another. Such is the parable sympathy that unites us, that I fear, that virtue, that strong sense of honor and fame, so parable in mind's most turned to tenderness, would only have served to make more poignant the pangs of hopeless, despairing love. How blessed am I, that we met before my situation, made it a crime to love you. I shudder at the idea a wretched I might have been had I seen you a few months later. I am just returned from a visit at a few miles distance. I find a letter from my dear bell that she will be here tomorrow, how do I long to see her, to talk to her of my rivers. I am interrupted. Adieu, yours, Emily mad to you.

5:10Letter 182. To Mrs. Temple, Rose Hill, September 18, morning. I have this moment, my dear Mrs. Temple's letter. She will imagine my transport at the happy event she mentions. My dear rivers has, in some degree, sacrificed even filial affection to his tenderness for me. The consciousness of this has ever cast a damp on the pleasure I should otherwise have felt at the prospect of spending my life with the most excellent of mankind. I shall now be his, without the painful reflection of having lessened the enjoyment of the best parent that ever existed. I should be blessed indeed, my amiable friend, if I did not suffer from my too anxious tenderness. I dread the possibility of my becoming in time less dear to your brother. I love him to such excess that I could not survive the loss of his affection.

6:11There is no distress, no want, I could not bear with delight for him, but if I lose his heart, I lose all for which life is worth keeping. Could I bear to see those looks of ardent love converted into the cold glances of indifference? You will, my dearest friend, pity a heart, whose too great sensibility wounds itself. Why should I fear? Was ever tenderness equal to that of my rivers? Can a heart like his change from Caprice? It shall be the business of my life to merit his tenderness. I will not give way to fears which injure him and indulged would destroy all my happiness. I expect Mr. Enmes' Fitzgerald every moment, a dear, your affectionate Emily Montague. Better 183. To Captain Fitzgerald, Bellfield, September 17. You say true, my dear Fitzgerald, friendship like love is more the child of sympathy than

7:15of reason, though inspired by qualities very opposite to those which give love. It strikes like that in a moment. Like that, it is free is there, and when constrained loses all its spirit. Even both, from some nameless cause at least some cause to us incomprehensible, the affections take fire, the instant two persons whose minds are in unison observe each other which, however, they may often meet without doing. It is therefore as impossible for others to point out objects of our friendship as love, our choice must be uninfluenced if we wish to find happiness in either. Old, lifeless esteem may grow from a long, tasteless acquaintance, but real affection makes a sudden and lively impression. This impression is improved as strengthened by time and a more intimate knowledge of the merit of the person who makes it, but it is it must be spontaneous or be nothing.

8:16I felt this sympathy powerfully in regard to yourself. I had the strongest partiality for you before I knew how very worthy you were of my esteem. Your countenance and manner made an impression on me which inclined me to take your virtues upon trust. It is not always safe to depend on these preventive feelings, but in general the face is a pretty faithful index of a mind. I propose being in town in four or five days. Twelve o'clock, my mother has this moment a second letter from her relation who is coming home and proposes a marriage between me and his daughter, to whom he will give twenty thousand pounds now and the rest of his fortune at his death. As Emily's fault, if love can allow her one, is in excess of romantic generosity, the fault of most uncorrupted female minds. I'm very anxious to marry her before she knows of this proposal that she should think

9:18yet a proof of tenderness to aim at making me wretch it in order to make me rich. I therefore entreat you in Mrs. Fitzgerald to stay at Rose Hill and prevent her coming to town to she is mine, past the power of retreat. Our relation may have mentioned his design to persons less prudent than our little party, and she may hear of it if she is in London. But independently of my fear of her spirit of romance, I feel that it would be an endeavour to let her know of this proposal at present and look like attempting to make a merit of my refusal. It is not to you, my dear friend, I need say, the gifts of fortune are nothing to me without her, for whose sake alone I wish to possess them. You know my heart and you also know this is the sentiment of every man who loves, but I can, with drew say, much more, I do not even wish an increase of fortune considering it abstractedly from its being incompatible with my marriage with the loveliest of women.

10:22I am indifferent to all, but independence will not make me happier. On the contrary, it might break in on my present little plan of enjoyment by forcing me to give to common acquaintance of whom wealth will always attract to crowd, those precious hours devoted to friendship and domestic pleasure. I think my present income, just what a wise man would wish, and very sincerely join in the philosophical prayer of the royal prophet, give me neither poverty nor riches. I love the veil and had always an aversion to very extensive prospects. I will hasten my coming as much as possible and hope to be at Roe Cielon Monday next. I shall be a prey to anxiety till Emily is a revocably man. Tell Mrs. Fitzgerald, I am all impatience to kiss her hand, your affectionate Ed Rivers. Let her one eighty four. To Captain Firmware, Richmond's at 10th of 18th.

11:23I am this moment returned to Richmond from a journey. I am rejoiced at your arrival and impatient to see you, where I am so happy as not to have outlived my impatience. How is my little bell? I am as much in love with her as ever. This you will conceal from Captain Fitzgerald, lest he should be alarmed. For I am as formidable arrival as a man of four-score can be supposed to be. I am extremely obliged to you, my dear Firmware, for having introduced me to a very amiable man in your friend Colonel Rivers. I begin to be so sensible that I am an old fellow, that I feel a very lively degree of gratitude to the young ones who visit me and look on every agreeable new acquaintance under thirty as in acquisition I had no right to expect. You know, I have always thought personal advantages of much more real value than accidental ones, and that those who possess the former have much the greatest right to be proud.

12:23Youth, health, beauty, understanding are substantial goods, wealth and title, comparatively ideal ones. I therefore think a young man who condescends to visit an old one, the healthy who visit the sick, the man of sense who spends his time with the fool, and even a handsome fellow with an ugly one, are the persons who confer the favor, whatever difference there may be in rank or fortune. Colonel Rivers did me the honor to spend a day with me here, and I have not often lately passed a pleasant turn one. The desire I had not to discredit your partial recommendation, and my very strong in clinicians to seduce them to come again, made me entirely discard the old man, and I believe your friend will tell you the hours did not pass on London wings. I expect you, with Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald, to pass some time with me at Richmond, on the best clarinet in the universe and as lively a relish for it as it five and twenty. I do your affectionate age.

13:28Chapter 185 To Colonel Rivers at Bellfield, Rutland, Rosehill, September 18th. Since I sent away my letter, I have your last. You tell me my dear Rivers, the strong emotion I betrayed at seeing Sir George, when you came together to Montreal, made you fear I loved him, that you were jealous of the blush which glowed on my cheek, when he entered the room, that you still remember it with regret, that you still fancy I had once, some degree of tenderness for him, and beg me to account for the apparent confusion I betrayed at his sight. I own that emotion. My confusion was indeed too great to be concealed, but was he alone, my Rivers? Can you forget that he had with him the most lovely of mankind? Sir George was handsome, I have often regarded his person with admiration, but it was the admiration we give to a statue. I listened coldly to his love, I felt no emotion at his sight, but when you appeared, my heart

14:31beat, I blushed, I turned pale by turns, my eyes assumed a new softness, I trembled, and every pulse confessed the master of my soul. My friends are come, I am cold down, Ajia, be assured you're Emily never breathed a sigh, but for her Rivers. Ajia, yours, Emily Montague. Letter 186. Turkernel Rivers at Bellfield, Rutland, London, September 18th. I have this moment your letter, we are setting out in ten minutes for Rosehill, where I will finish this, and hope to give you a pleasing account of your Emily. You are certainly right in keeping this proposal secret at present, depend on our silence. I could, however, wish you the fortune, were it possible to have it without the lady. Were I to praise your delicacy on this occasion? I should injure you.

15:32It was not in your power to act differently. You are only consistent with yourself. I am pleased with your idea of a situation. A house embusened in the grove, where all the view is what the eye can take in speaks a happy master, contented home. A wide extended prospect, one who is looking abroad for happiness. I love the country. The taste for rural scenes is the taste born with us. After seeking pleasure and vain amongst the works of art, we are forced to come back to the point from whence we set out, and find our enjoyment in the lovely simplicity of nature. Rose Hill Evening. I am afraid Emily knows your secret. She has been in tears almost ever since we came. The servant is going to the post office, and I have but a moment to tell you we will stay here till you are arrival, which you will hasten as much as possible. Adieu. Your affection to J. Fitzgerald.

16:37Chapter 187 To Colonel Rivers at Bellfield, Rutherland, Rose Hill, September 18. If I was not certain of your esteem and friendship my dear Rivers, I should tremble at the request I am going to make you. It is to suspend our marriage for some time, and not ask me the reason of this delay. Be assured of my tenderness. Be assured my whole soul is yours. That you are dear to me than life, that I love you as never woman loved, that I live I breathe but for you, that I would die to make you happy. In what words shall I convey to the most beloved of his sex, the ardent tenderness of my soul? How convincing of what I suffer from being forced to make a request so contrary to the dictates of my heart? He cannot, will not doubt his Emily's affection, I cannot support the idea that it is possible he should for one instant. What I suffer at this moment is inexpressible.

17:38My heart is too agitated to say more, I will write again in a few days. I know not what I would say, but indeed my Rivers, I love you. You yourself can scarce form an idea to what excess? Adia, you're faithful, Emily Montague. You are one hundred and eighty-eight. To Miss Montague, Rose Hill, Barcher, Bellfield, September twenty. No, Emily, you never loved. I've been long hurt by your tranquility in regard to our marriage. Your two screwpulous attention to decor and leaving my sister's house might have alarmed me if love had not placed a bandage before my eyes. Cruel girl, I repeat it, you never loved. I have your friendship, but you know nothing of that ardent passion, that dear enthusiasm, which makes us indifferent to all but itself. Your love is from the imagination, not the heart. The very professions of tenderness in your last or a proof of your consciousness of

18:43indifference, you repeat too often that you love me. You say too much that anxiety to persuade me of your affection shows to blame, that you are sensible, I have reason to doubt it. You have placed me on the rack a thousand fears, a thousand doubts, succeed each other in my soul. Has some happier man? No, my Emily, distracted as I am, I will not be unjust, I do not suspect you of inconstancy, deserve your coldness only I complain. You never felt the lively impatience of love or you would not condemn a man whom you at least esteem to suffer longer, it's unaudurable tortures. If there is a real cause for this delay, why conceal it from me? Have I not a right to know what so nearly interests me? But what cause are you not misprous of yourself? My Emily, you blushed to own to me the insensibility of your heart. You once fancied you loved, you are ashamed to say you were mistaken. You cannot surely have been influenced by any motive relative to our fortune, no idle

19:45tale can have made you retract a promise which rendered me the happiest of mankind. If I have your heart, I enricher than an oriental man art. Short as like is, my dearest girl, is it of consequence what pop we play in it, is wealth at all essential to happiness. The tender affections are the only sources of true pleasure, the highest, the most respectable titles and the eye of reason are the tender ones of friend, of husband and of father. It is from the dear soft eyes of social love, your rivers expects his felicity. You have but one way my dear Emily to condense me of your tenderness, I shall set off for rose hill. In twelve hours you must give me your hand, the moment I ride, or confess your rivers was never dear to you. Right and send us servant instantly to meet me at my mother's house in town, I cannot support the torment of suspense. There is not an earth so rich to be as I am at this moment, I never knew till now to

20:46what excess I loved, you must be mine my Emily, or I must cease to live. Letter 189. To Captain Fitzgerald, Rose Hill, Bartre, Bellfield, September 20th. All I feared has suddenly happened, Emily has undoubtedly heard of this proposal, and from a parade of generosity, a generosity however inconsistent with love wishes to postpone our marriage to my relation arrives. I am hurt beyond words at the man in which she has wrote to me on this subject I have in regard to Sir George, experienced that these are not the sentiments of a heart truly enamored. I therefore fear this romantic step is the effect of a coldness of which I thought are incapable and that her affection is only a more lively degree of friendship with which I will own to eat my heart will not be satisfied.

21:47I would embrace, I would employ, I would absorb every faculty of that lovely mind. I have too long suffered grudeness to delay my happiness, I cannot longer live without it if she loves me, I shall entose the color mine. Do you, as shall be with you, almost as soon as this letter, your affectionate ed rivers? Letter 190. To Colonel Rivers, Clarges Street, Rose Hill, September 21. Is it then possible, can my rivers doubt his Emily's tenderness? Do I only esteem you, my rivers? Can my eyes have so ill explained the feelings of my heart? Do you accuse me of not sharing your impatience? Do you then allow nothing to the modesty, the blushing delicacy of my sex? Could you see into my soul, you would cease to call me cold and insensible? Can you forget my rivers, those moments, when doubtful of the sentiments of your heart,

22:49mine, every instant betrayed its weakness? When every look spoke the resisteless fondness of my soul, when lost in the delight of seeing you, I forgot I was almost the wife of another. But I will say no more, my rivers tells me I have already said too much, he is displeased with his Emily's tenderness, he complains that I tell him too often I love him. You say I can give but one certain proof of my affection. I will give you that proof, I will be yours whenever you please, though ruin should be the consequence to both. I despise every other consideration when my river's happiness is at stake. Is there any request he is capable of making, which his Emily will refuse? You are the arbiter of my fate, I have no will but yours, yet I entreat you to believe no common cause could have made me hazard giving a moment's pain to that dear bosom. You will one time know to what excess I have loved you.

23:50For the empire of the world or your affection offered me, I should not hesitate one moment on the choice, even where I certain, never to see you more. I cannot form an idea of happiness equal to that of being beloved by the most amiable of mankind. Judge then if I would lightly wish to defer an event which is to give me the transport of passing my life in the dear employment of making him happy. I only entreat that you will decline asking me till I judge proper to tell you why I first begged our marriage might be deferred, let it be till then forgot I ever made such a request. You will not my dear rivers refuse this proof of complacence to her who to plainly shows she can refuse you nothing. Adieu yours, Emily Montague. End of section 1 Section 2 of the history of Emily Montague volume 4 by Francis Moore Brook.

24:55This is a Libravox recording all Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Letters 191 through 202. To Miss Montague, Rose Hill, Barcher, Largest Street, September 21, 2 o'clock. Can you, my angel, forgive my insolent impatience and attribute it to the true cause, excessive love? Could I be such a monster as to blame my sweet Emily's dear expressions of tenderness? I hate myself for being capable of writing such a letter. Be assured I will strictly comply with all she desires what condition is there on which I would not make the loveliest of women mine. I will follow the servant in two hours I shall be at Rose Hill by eight o'clock. Adieu, my dear's Emily, your faithful Ed Rivers. Letter 192.

25:55To John Temple Esquire, Temple House Rutland, September 21, 9 at night. The loveliest of women has consented to make me happy. She remonstrated, she doubted, but her tenderness conquered all her reluctance. Tomorrow I shall call her mine. We shall set out immediately for your house where we hope to be the next day to dinner. You will therefore postpone your journey to town, a week at the end of which we intend going to Bellefield. Captain Furmer and Mrs. Fitzgerald accompanied us down. His relation, Mrs. H. Blank has business which prevents her. And Fitzgerald is obliged to stay another month in town to dry and sack the affair of his majority. Never did Emily look so lovelies as this evening. There is a sweet confusion mixed with tenderness in her whole look and manner, which is charming beyond all expression. Adieu, I have not a moment to spare even this absence from her is trees and to love. Say everything for me to my mother and Lucy.

26:58First Ed Rivers. Letter 193. To John Temple S. Quarad, Temple House Rutland, Rose Hill, September 22, 10 o'clock. She is mine, my dear temple, and I am happy almost above mortality. I cannot paint to you her loveliness. The grace, the dignity, the mild majesty, hover air is softened by a smile like that of angels. Her eyes have a tender sweetness or cheeks a blush of refined affection, which must be seen to be imagined. I am the captain firmer, the happiness of being in the same chase with her. I shall be very bad company to bell who insists on my being her shell, cis bio for the journey. Adieu, the chases are at the door. Your affectionate Ed Rivers. Out at 194. To Captain Fitzgerald Temple House September 29. I regret you not being with us more than I can express.

27:59I would have every friend I love, a witness of my happiness. I thought my tenderness for Emily as great as man could feel. Yet find it every moment to increase. Every moment she is more dear to my soul. The angel delicacy of that lovely mind is inconceivable. Yet she, no other charm, I should adore her. What a luster does modesty throw round beauty. We remove tomorrow to Bellfield. I am impatient to see my sweet girl in her little empire. I am tired of the continual crowd in which we live at temples. I would not pass the life he does for all his fortune. I sigh for the power of spending my time. As I please for the dear shades of retirement and friendship. Our little demand kind know their own happiness. Every pleasure worth a wish is in the power of almost all mankind. Blind to true joy ever engaged in a wild pursuit of what is always in our power. Anxious for that wealth which we false the imagined necessary to our enjoyments.

28:59We suffer our best hours to pass tastelessly away. We neglect the pleasures which are suited to our nature's and intent on ideal schemes of establishments at which we'd never arrive. Yet the dear hours of social delight escape us. Hase and to us my dear Fitzgerald we want only you to fill our little circle of friends. Your affectionate Ed Rivers. Letter 195. Decaptain Fitzgerald Bellfield, October 3. What delight is there in obliging those we love. My heart dilated with joy at seeing Emily please with a little embellishments of her apartment which I've made as gay and smiling as the mourn. It looked indeed as if the hand of love had adorned it. She has a dressing room and closet of books into which I shall never intrude. There's a pleasure in having some place which we can say is peculiarly our own, some sanctum sanctum with it we can retire even from those most dear to us. This is a pleasure in which I have been indulged almost from infancy and therefore one of

30:01the first I thought of procuring for my sweet Emily. I told her I should however sometimes expect to be amongst her guests in this little retirement. Her look, her tender smile, the speaking glance of grateful love gave me a transport which only minds turn to affection can conceive. I never my dear Fitzgerald was happy before the attachment I once mentioned was pleasing but I felt regret at knowing the object of my tenderness had forfeited the good opinion of the world which embittered all my happiness. She possessed my esteem because I knew her heart but I wanted to see her esteem by others. With Emily I enjoy this pleasure in its utmost extent. She is the adoration of all who see her. She is equally admired esteem respected. She seems to value the admiration she excites only as it appears to gratify the pride of her lover. What transport when all eyes are fixed to her to see her searching around for mine and attentive to no other object as if insensible to all other approbation.

31:01I enjoy the pleasures of friendship as well as those of love. Were you here my dear Fitzgerald we should be the happiest group on that globe but all bells, brightness cannot preserve her from an air of chagrin in your absence. Come as soon as possible my dear friend and leave us nothing to wish for. I do your affectionate ad rivers. Enter 196. To Colonel Rivers' Bellfield, Rusland. London, October 8th. You are very cruel my dear rivers to tantalize me with your pictures of happiness. Notwithstanding this fight I am sorry I must break ye at non-year group of friends but it is absolutely necessary for Bell and my father to return immediately to town in order to settle some family business, previous to my purchase of the majority. Indeed, I am not very fond of letting Bell stay long amongst us, for she gives me such an account of your attention and complases to Mrs. Rivers that I am afraid she will think

32:03me a careless fellow when we meet again. You seem in the high road not only to spoil your own wife but mine too, which it is certainly my affair to prevent. Say everything for me to the ladies of your family. Do you your affectionate J Fitzgerald? Better 197. Decaptain Fitzgerald Bellfield, October 10th. You are malicious fellow Fitzgerald and I am having a client to keep the sweet Bell by force. Take all them in a way if you please but I cannot bear the loss of a woman, especially of such a woman. If I was not more a lover than a husband, I am not sure I should not wish to take my revenge. To make me happy, you must place me in a circle of females. All is pleasing as those now with me and turn every male creature out of the house. I am a most intolerable monopolizer of the sex. In short, I have very little relish for any conversation but theirs. I love their sweet product beyond all the sense and learning in the world.

33:07Not that I would insinuate they have less understanding that we or are less capable of learning or even that it less becomes them. In the country or such knowledge as tends to adorn and soften human life in manners is in my opinion peculiarly becoming in women. You don't deserve a longer letter. Adieu yours Ed Rivers. Letter 198. To Mrs Fitzgerald, Bellfield, October 12th. I am very conscious my dear Bell, of not meriting the praises my rivers lavishes on me, yet the pleasure I receive from them is not the less lively for that consideration. On the contrary, the less I deserve these praises, the more flattering they are to me as the stronger proofs of his love, of that love which gives ideal charms, which adorns which embellishes its object. I had rather be lovely in his eyes than in those of all mankind. Or to speak more exactly if I continue to police him the admiration of all the world is

34:12indifferent to me. It is for his sake alone I wish for beauty to justify the dear preference he has given me. How pleasing are these sweet shades, where they less so, my rivers presence would give them every charm, every object has appeared to me more lovely since the dear moment when I first saw him. I seem to have acquired a new existence from his tenderness. You say true, my dear Bell, heaven doubtless formed us to be happy, even in this world, when we obey its dictates in being so, when we can, without encroaching on the happiness of others. This lesson is, I think, plain from the book Providence has spread before us. The whole universe smiles. The earth is closed in lively colors. The animals are playful. The birds sing. In being cheerful with innocence, we seem to conform to the order of nature and the will of that beneficent power to whom we owe our being. If the supreme creator had meant us to be gloomy, he would, it seems to me, have closed the

35:17earth in black, not in that lively glean, which is the livery of cheerfulness and joy. I am called away. Ajia, my dearest bell, your faithful and my Lee rivers. Elder 199, to Captain Fitzgerald Bellfield, October 14. You flatter me, most agreeably, my dear Fitzgerald, by praising Emily. I want you to see her again. She is every hour, more charming. I must astonished any man can be holder without love. Yet lovely as she is, her beauty is her least merit, the finest understanding, the most pleasing kind of knowledge, tenderness, sensibility, modesty and truth, adorn her, almost with rays of divinity. She has, beyond all I ever saw in either sex, the polish of the world, about having lost that sweet simplicity of manner, that unaffected innocence and integrity of heart, which are so very apt to evaporate in a crowd. I ride out often alone in order to have the pleasure of returning to her.

36:21These little absences give new spirit to our tenderness. Be care for six me at the sight of this temple of real love. My sweet Emily meets me with smiles, her eyes brighten. When I approach, she receives my friends with the most lively pleasure, because they are my friends. I almost envy them, her attention, though given for my sake, elegant in her dress and house, she is all transport when any little ornament, so either pleases me, but what charms me most is her tenderness from my mother, in whose heart she rivals, both me and Lucy. My happiness, my friend, is beyond every idea I had formed, where I, a little richer, I should not have a wish remaining. Do not, however, imagine this wish takes from my felicity. I have enough for myself, have even enough for Emily. Love makes us indifferent to the parade of life, but I have not enough to entertain my friends as I wish, nor to enjoy the godlike pleasure of beneficence. We shall be obliged in order to support the little appearance necessary to our connections

37:24to give and attention, rather to strict to our affairs, even this, however, our affection for each other will make easy to us. My whole soul is so taken up with this charming woman, I am afraid I shall become tedious, even to you I must learn to restrain my tenderness and write on common subjects. I more and more pleased with the way of life I have chosen, and were my fortune, ever so large would pass the greatest part of the year in the country. I would only enlarge my house and fill it with friends. My situation is a very fine one, though not like the magnificent scenes to which we have been accustomed in Canada. The house stands on the sunny side of a hill, at the foot of which the garden intervening, runs a little trout stream which do the right, seems to be lost in an island of osiers, and over which is a rustic bridge into a very beautiful meadow, where a present graze a numerous flock of sheep. Emily is planning a thousand embellishments for the garden, and one next year make it a

38:25wilderness of sweets, a paradise worthy, it's lovely, inhabitant. She is already forming walks and flowery arbors in the wood, and giving the whole scene every charm which tastes that little expense can bestow. I, on my side, am selecting spots for plantations of trees, and mean like a good citizen to serve at once myself and the public by raising oaks which may hereafter bear the British thunder to distant lands. I believe we country gentlemen, whilst we have the spirit to keep ourselves independent, are the best citizens as well as subjects in the world. Happy ourselves, we wish not to destroy the tranquility of others. Intent on cares equally useful and pleasing, with no views but to improve our fortunes, by means equally profitable to ourselves and to our country, we form no schemes of dishonest ambition and therefore disturb no government to serve our private designs. It is the proof use, the visions, the profugate, the needy, who are the Claudios and guidelines

39:29of this world. Love of order of more harmony, so natural to virtuous minds, to minds at ease is the strongest high of rational obedience. The man who feels himself prosperous and happy will not easily be persuaded by a factious declamation that he is undone, convinced of the excellency of our constitution in which liberty and prerogative are balanced with those studies, hand, he will not endeavour to remove the boundaries which secure both. He will not endeavour to root it up, whilst he is pretending to give it nourishment, he will not strive to cut down the lovely and venerable tree under whose shade he enjoys, security and peace. In short, and I am sure you will hear me of my opinion, the man who has competence, virtue, true liberty and the woman he loves, will cheerfully obey the laws which secure him these blessings, and the prince under whose mouths weigh he enjoys them. How do you, you're faithful, Ed Rivers?

40:29Letter 200. To Captain Fitzgerald, October 17. I, every hour, see more strongly my dear Fitzgerald, the wisdom, as to our own happiness, of not letting our hearts be worn out by a multitude of intrigues before marriage. Temple loves my sister, he is happy with her, but his happiness is by no means of the same kind with yours in mind. She is beautiful, and he thinks her so, she is amiable, and he esteems her, he prefers her to all other women, but he feels nothing of that trembling delicacy of sentiment, that quick sensibility which gives to love its most exquisite pleasures in which I would not give up for the wealth of worlds. His affection is mere passion, and therefore a subject to change. Hours is that heartfelt tenderness which time renders every moment more pleasing. The tumult of desire is the fever of the soul, its health, that delicious tranquility where the heart is gently moved, not violently agitated.

41:32That tranquility which is only to be found where friendship is the basis of love, and where we are happy without injuring the object beloved, in other words in a marriage of choice. In the voyage of life passion is the tempest love that gentle gale. Disappation and a continued round of amusaments at home will probably secure my sister, all of temple's heart which remains, but his love will grow languid in that state of retirement which would have a thousand charms from minds like ours. I will own to you, I of fears, for Lucy's happiness, but let us drop so painful a subject. Adieu your affectionate Ed Rivers. Chapter 201 Turkernel Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland, October 19th. Nothing my dear Rivers shows the value of friendship more than the envy it excites. The world will soon impart in us any advantage, even wealth, genius, or beauty, than that of having a faithful friend.

42:34Every selfish bosom swells with envy at the sight of those social connections which are the cordials of life, and of which are narrow prejudices alone prevent our enjoyment. Those who have neither hearts to feel this generous affection, nor merit to deserve it, hate all who are in this respect happier than themselves. They look on a friend as an invaluable blessing, and a blessing out of their reach, and a poor all those who possess the treasure for which they sigh in vain. For my own part I had rather be the dupe of a thousand false professions of friendship, than for fear of being deceived give up the pursuit. Dupes are happy at least for a time, but the cold, narrow, suspicious heart never knows the glow of social pleasure. In the same proportion as we lose our confidence in the virtues of others, we lose our proper happiness. The observation of this mean jealousy, so humiliating to human nature, as influenced Lord Halifax,

43:38in his advice to a daughter, the school of art, prudery, and selfish morals, to caution her against all friendships, or as he calls them, dearnesses, as what will make the world envy and hate her. After my sweet bells tinderness, I know no pleasure equal to our friendship. Nor would I give it up for the revenue of an Eastern monarch. I esteem temple, I love his conversation. He is gay and amusing, but I shall never have for him the affection I feel for you. I think you are too apprehensive in regard to your sister's happiness. He loves her, and there is a certain variety in her manner, a kind of agreeable caprice, that I think will secure the heart of a man of his turn, much more than her merit, or even the loveliness of her person. She is handsome, exquisitely so, handsomeer than Bell, and if you will allow me to say so, then Emily. I mean that she is so in the eye of a painter, for in that of a lover his mistress is the

44:43only beautiful object on earth. I allow your sister to be very lovely, but I think Bell more desirable a thousand times. Conrassally speaking, she who has, as to me, the art of inspiring the most tenderness is, as to me, to all intents and purposes the most beautiful woman, in which faith I choose to live and die. I have an idea, Rivers, that you and I shall continue to be happy. A real sympathy, a lively taste mixed with esteem, let us to marry. The delgacy, tenderness and virtue of the two most charming of women, promised to keep our love alive. We have both strong affections, both love conversation of women, and neither of our hearts are depraved by ill chosen connections with the sex. I am broken upon and must bid you a do you, your affectionate J. Fitzgerald. Bell is writing to you, I shall be jealous. I die to come to Bellfield again, my dear Rivers.

45:46I have a passion for your little wood. It is a mighty pretty wood for an English wood, but nothing to your Montporencie. The dear little slurry too. But to return to the shades of Bellfield, your little wood is charming and beautiful. Not too particularised, detached pieces of your scenery. The two ensemble is very inviting. Observe however, I have no notion of paradise without an atom, and therefore shall bring Fitzgerald with me next time. Not could induce you, with this sweet little retreat, to cross that vile ocean to Canada. I am astonished at the madness of mankind, who can expose themselves to pain, misery and danger, and range the world from motives of avarice and ambition, when the rural

46:51cot, the fanning gale, the clear stream, and flowery bank offer such delicious enjoyment at home. You men are horrid, rapacious animals, with your spirit of enterprise and your nonsense, ever wanting more land that you can cultivate, and more money than you can spend. That eternal pursuit of gain, that rage of accumulation in which you are educated, corrupt your hearts, and robs you of half the pleasures of life. I should not however make so free with this sex, if you and my caros balls are, were not exception. You too have really something of the sensibility and generosity of women. 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.

47:51You have built 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 circumstance of you being married to the two of the most agreeable women breathing. To speak unfollowed soft, 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. No emily and eye, without vanity, besides being handsome and amazingly sensible, the 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.

48:54All 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. Timple 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 Maya Quaintons. 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 in six. 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

49:59the 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 nabble best 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, certain are no, and so ends my sermon, and you, your most obedient aith it's jolt. End of section 2 Section 3 of the history of Emily Montague, volume 4 by Francis Moore Brook. This is the Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Letters 203-207 Letter 203

51:02To John Temple Esquire, Temple House Rutland, Bellefield, October 21. Eriticule, 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, languages, all that refines, adorns, softens, exhausts, innobels, life, has its source in this animating principle. I glory in being an enthusiast in everything, but in nothing so much as in my tenderness for this charming woman. I'm a perfect coyote in love, and would storm in chanted 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.

52:06I thank you for your wishes that I was rich, but in 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'm 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 finally 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, good bestow with another. The flowers in my garden bloom as fair, the peach glows as deep

53:07as 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 longer from being too constantly together, which is all that love bounded on, taste and friendship past 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 thank you at our duty to make life as agreeable as is consistent with what we owe to others, but a true pleasurable philosopher seeks his enjoyment where they are really to be found, not in the gratifications of a childish pride,

54:07but of those affections which are born with us and which are the only rational sources of enjoyment. When I'm 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 and observed but by the prying side 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 endy. 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'm 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

55:10in an intercourse and livened 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 in a certain awakened manner which is not to be acquired but in mixed conversation. Remember you and I, dear Lucy Dine, with us tomorrow 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. How do you, your affectionate Ed Rivers? I will tomorrow show you better grapes than any you have at Temple House. You rich men dancing nobody has anything good but yourselves. But I hope next year to show you that you are mistaken in a thousand instances. I will have such roses and just mine such powers of intermingled sweets. You shall see what astonishing things Emily's taste

56:13and my industry can do. Letter 204 To Mrs. Fitzgerald, Bellfield, October 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 confidant of my tenderness. A friend like my Bell, indulgent to all my follies, to talk 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

57:16as happy as myself. Fitzgerald in the tenderness and delicacy of his mind resemble strongly. I am interrupted, a jiu for a moment. It was my rivers, he brought me a bouquet. I opened the door supposing it was my mother conscious of what I had been writing. I was confused at seeing him. He smiled, and guessing the reason of my embarrassment. I must leave you Emily, you are writing, and by your blushes I know you have been talking of your lover. I should have told you he insists on never seeing the letters I write, and gives this reason for it, that he should be a great loser by seeing them, as it would restrain my pen when I talk of him. I believe I am very foolish in my tenderness, but you will forgive me. Rivers yesterday was throwing flowers at me and Lucy in play, as we were walking in the garden, I catched a wall flower, and by an involuntary impulse

58:16pissed it, and placed it in my bosom. He observed me, and his look of pleasure and affection is impossible to be described. What exquisite pleasure there is in these agreeable follies. He is the sweetest trifler in the world, my dear Bill, but in what does he not excel, all mankind? As the season of autumnal flowers is almost over, he is sending for all those which blow early in the spring. He prevents every wish his Emily can form. Did you ever, my dear, see so fine and autumn as this? You will perhaps smile when I say, I never saw one so pleasing, such a season is more lovely than even the spring. I want you down before this agreeable weather is all over. I am going to air with my mother. My rivers attend us on horseback. You cannot think how amiable his attention is to both. Adia, my dear, my mother has sent to let me know she is ready. Your affectionate Emily Rivers.

59:18Let her 205 to Captain Fitzgerald Bellfield, October 24. Some author has said the happiness of the next world to the virtuous will consist in enjoying the society of minds like their own. Why then should we not do our best to possess as much as possible of this happiness here? You will see this as a preface to a very earnest request to see Captain Fitzgerald and the lovely bell immediately at our farm. Take notice I will not admit even business as an excuse much longer. I'm just come from a walk in the wood behind the house with my mother and Emily. I want you to see it before it loses all its charms. In another fortnight its present variegated foliage will be literally humbled in the dust. There is something very pleasing in this season if it did not give us the idea of the winter which is approaching too fast. The dryness of the air, the soft western breeze, the tremulous motion of the falling leaves,

1:00:20the wrestling of those already fallen under our feet, their variety of lively colors give a certain spirit and agreeable fluctuation to the scene which is unspeakably pleasing. By the way, we people of warm imaginations have vast advantages over others. We's going to be confined to present scenes or to give attention to such trifling objects as times and seasons. I already anticipate the spring see the woodbinds and while roses bloom in night growth and almost catch the gale of perfume. Twelve o'clock I have this moment received your letter. I'm sorry for what you tell me of Ms. H. Blank who's want of art has led her into indiscretions. It is too common to see the most innocent may even the most laudable actions centered by the world. As we cannot however eradicate the prejudices of others, it is wisdom to yield to them in things which are indifferent. One ought to conform to and respect the customs as well as the laws and religion of our country where they

1:01:20are not contrary to virtue and to that moral sense which haven't has imprinted on our souls, where they are contrary. Every generous mind will despise them. I agree with you, my dear friend, that two persons who love not only seen but really are, handsomer to each other, then to the rest of the world. When we look at those we ardently love, a new softness steals unperceived into the eyes. The countenance is more animated and the whole form has that air of tender, langer which has such charms for sensible minds. To prove the truth of this, my Emily approaches fair as the rising mourn, led by the hand of the graces, she sees her lover, and every charm is redoubled and involuntary smile. A blush of pleasure, speak a passion which is the pride of my soul. Even her voice, melodious, as it is by nature's softened when she addresses her happy rivers. She comes to ask my attendants on her and my mother, they are going to pay, a morning visit a few miles off. A do you tell the little bell, I kiss her hand, your affectionate

1:02:20ed rivers. Letter 206 to Captain Fitzgerald three o'clock. We are returned and have met with an adventure which I must tell you. About six miles from home at the entrance of a small village, as I was riding very fast a little before the chase, a boy about four years old, beautiful as a keeper, came out of a cottage on the right hand and running across the road fell almost under my horse's feet. After myself off in a moment and snatching up the child who was however unheard, carried him to the house, I was met at the door by a young woman plainly dressed but of a form uncommonly elegant. She's seen the child fall and her terror for him was plainly marked in her accountinance. She received him from me, pressed him to her bosom and without speaking melted into tears. My mother and Emily had by this time reached the cottage. The humanity of both was too much interested to let them pass. They allowed it, came into the house and inquired about the child with an air of tenderness which was not lost on the young person whom we supposed his mother.

1:03:24She appeared about two and twenty was handsome but the air of the world which the plainness of her dress could not hide. Her countenance was pennsy with a mixture of sensibility which instantly prejudiced us all in her favor. Her looks seemed to say she was unhappy and that she deserved to be otherwise. Her manner was respectful but easy and unconstrained polite without being servile and she acknowledged the interest we all seemed to take in what related to her in a manner that convinced us she deserved it. Though everything about us the extreme neatness the elegance simplicity of her house and little garden. Her own person that of the child both perfectly gentil her politeness her air of the world in a cottage like that of the meanest laborer tended to excite the most lively curiosity. Neither good breeding humanity nor the respect due to those who appear unfortunate would allow us to make any inquiries. We left the placeful of this adventure convinced of the merit as well as unhappiness of its fair inhabitant and resolved to find out if possible whether

1:04:25her misfortunes were of a kind to be alleviated and without our little power to alleviate. I will own to you my dear Fitzgerald I at that moment felt the smallness of my fortune and I believe Emily had the same sensations though her delicacy prevented her naming them to me who have made her poor. We can talk of nothing but the stranger and Emily is determined to call on her again tomorrow on pretense of inquiring after the health of the child. I tremble at lester's story for she something has won should be such as however it may entitle her to compassion may make it impossible for Emily to show it in the manner she seems to wish. Adieu your faithful ad rivers. Letter 207 to Captain Fitzgerald Bellfield October 24. We've been again at the cottage and are more convinced than ever that this aminebot girl is not in the station in which she was born. We stayed two hours and buried the conversation in a manner which in spite of her extreme modesty made it

1:05:26impossible for her to avoid showing she had been educated with uncommon care. Her style is correct and elegant her sentiments noble yet unaffected. We talked of books she said little on the subject but that little show to taste which astonished us. Anxious as we are to know her true situation in order if she merits it to endeavor to serve her yet delicacy made it impossible for us to give the least hint of her curiosity which might make her suppose we entertained ideas to her prejudices. She seemed greatly affected with the humane concern Emily expressed for the child's danger yesterday as well as with the polite and even affectionate manner in which she appeared to interest herself in all which related to her. Emily made her general offers of service with a timid kind of softness in her air which seemed to speak rather a person asking a favor than wishing to confer an obligation. She thanked my sweet Emily with a look of surprise and gratitude to which it is not easy to do justice. There was however an embarrassment in her countenance of those offers

1:06:30which a little alarms me she absolutely declined coming to Bellefield. I know not what to think. Emily who has taken a strong prejudice in her favor will answer for her conduct with her life but I will own to you I'm not without my doubts when I consider the inhuman arts of the abandoned part of one sex and the romantic generosity and two unguarded confidence of the most amiable of the other when I reflect that where women love they love without reserve that they finally imagine the man who is dear to them possessed a very virtue that their very integrity of mine prevents their suspicions when I think of her present retirement so apparently you'll suited to her education when I see your beauty her elegance of person with that tender and melancholy air so strongly expressive of the most exquisite sensibility when in short I see the child and observe her fondness for him I have fears for her which I cannot conquer I am as firmly convinced as Emily of the goodness of her heart but I'm not so certain that even that very goodness may not have been from an unhappy concurrence

1:07:32of circumstances her misfortune we have company to die a duet of the evening ten at night about three hours ago Emily received the enclosed from our fair cottager a duet your affectionate ed rivers two Mrs. Rivers madam though I have every reason to wish the melancholy event which brought me here might continue unknown yet your generous concern for a stranger who had no recommendation to your notice but her appearing unhappy and whose suspicious situation would have injured her in a mindless noble than yours has determined me to lay before you a story which it was my resolution to conceal forever I saw madam in your accountonance when you honored me by calling at my house this morning and I saw with an admiration no words can speak the amiable struggle between the desire of knowing the nature of my distress in order to soften it and the delicacy which

1:08:39forbade your inquiries lest they should warrant my sensibility and self-love to such a heart I run no hazard in relating what in the world would perhaps draw on me a thousand reproaches reproaches however I flatter myself undeserved you have had the politeness to say there is something in my appearance which speaks my birth above my present situation in this madam I am so happy as not to deceive your generous partiality my father who was an officer of family and married had them as fortunate to lose my mother whilst I was an infant he had the goodness to take on himself the care of directing my education and to have me taught whatever he thought becoming my sex though at an expense much too great for his income as he had little more than his commission his parental tenderness got so far the better of his love for his profession that when I was about

1:09:4415 he determined on quitting the army in order to provide better for me but whilst he was in treaty for this purpose a fever carried him off in a few days and left me to the world with little more than five hundred pounds which however was by his will immediately in my power I felt too strongly the loss of this excellent parent to attend to any other consideration and before I was enough myself to think what I was to do for a subsistence a friend of my own age who my tenderly loved who was just returning from school to her fathers in the north of England insisted on my accompanying her and spending some time with her in the country I found in my ideas of fear all the consolation my grief could receive and at her pressing solicitation and that of her father who saw his daughter's happiness depended on having me with her

1:10:47I continued their three years blessed in the calm delights of friendship and those blameless pleasures with which we should be too happy if the heart could content itself when a young baronette whose form was as lovely as his soul was dark came to interrupt our felicity my Sophia at a bowl had the misfortune to attract his notice she was rather handsome though without regular features her form was elegant and feminine and she had an air of youth of softness of sensibility of blushing innocence which seemed intended to inspire delicate passions alone and which would have disarmed any mind lest depraved than that of the man who only admired to destroy she was the rose but yet impervious to the sun her heart was tender but had never met an object which seemed worthy of it her sentiments were disinterested and romantic to excess

1:11:53her father was at that time in Holland with at a death of a relation who had left him a small estate had called him we were alone unprotected delivered up to the unhappy inexperience of youth mistresses of our own conduct myself the eldest of the two but just eighteen when my Sophia's ill fate conducted search Charles Wavel to the bowl where she first saw him he danced with her and endeavoured to recommend himself by all those little unmeaning but flattering attentions by which our credulous sex are so often misled his manner was tender yet timid modest respectful his eyes were continually fixed on her but when he met her is artfully cast down as if afraid of offending he asked permission to inquire after her health the next day he came he was enchanting polite

1:12:53lively soft incine waiting adorant with every outward grace which could embellish virtue or high advice from view to see and to love him was almost the same thing he intreated leave to continue his visits which he found no difficulty in obtaining during two months not a day passed without our seeing him his behavior was such as would scarce have alarmed the most suspicious heart what then could be expected of us young sincere totally ignorant of the world and strongly prejudiced in a favor of a man whose conversation spoke his soul the abode of every virtue blushing I must own nothing but the apparent preference he gave to my lovely friend could have saved my heart from being afraid to the same tenderness which ruined her he addressed her with all the species arts which vice would invent to seduce innocence

1:13:54his respect his esteem seemed equal to his passion he talked of honor of the delight of a union where the tender affections alone were consulted wished for her father's return to ask her of him in marriage pretended to count impatiently the hours of his absence which delayed his happiness he even prevailed on her to write her father an account of his addresses new to love my Sophia's young heart too easily gave way to the soft impression she loved she idolized this most base of mankind she would have thought it a kind of sacrilege to have had any will in opposition to his after some months of unremitted aciduity her father being expected in a few days he dropped a hint as if my accident that he wished his fortune less that he might be the most certain he was loved for himself alone he blamed himself for his delicacy but charged it on excess of love vowed he would rather die than injure her yet wished to

1:15:01be convinced her fondness was without reserve generous disinterested eager to prove the excess and sincerity of her passion she fell into the snare she agreed to go off with him and live some time in a retirement where she was to see only himself after which he engaged to marry her publicly he pretended ecstasy is at disprove of affection yet hesitated to accept it and by peaking the generosity of her soul which knew no guile and therefore a suspected nun let her to insist on devoting herself to wretchedness in order however that this step might be as little known as possible as he pretended the utmost concern for that honour he was contriving to destroy it was agreed between them that he should go immediately to London and that she should follow him on the pretense of a visit to a relation at some distance the greatest difficulty was how to hide the

1:16:04design from me she had never before concealed the thought from her beloved Fanny nor could he now have prevailed on her to deceive me had he not utterly persuaded her I was myself in love with him and that therefore it would be cruel as well as imprudent to trust me with the secret nothing shows so strongly the power of love in absorbing every faculty of the soul as my dear Sophia has been prevailed on to use art with the friend most dear to her on earth by an unworthy piece of deceit I was sent to a relation for some weeks and the next day Sophia followed her infamous lover leaving letters for me and her father calculated to persuade us they were privately married my distress and that of the unhappy parent may more easily be conceived than described Sophia by nature he cast her from his heart and fortune forever and settled his estate on a

1:17:09nephew then at the university as to me grief and tenderness were the only sensations I felt I went to town and took every private method to discover her retreat but in vain till near a year after when being in London with a friend of my mother's a servant who had lived with my Sophia saw me in the street and knew me by her means I discovered that she was in distress abandoned by her lover in that moment when his tenderness was most necessary I flew to her and found her in a miserable apartment in which nothing but an extreme needness would have made me suppose she had ever seen happier days the servant who brought me to her attended her she was in bed pale emaciated the lovely baby who saw with me in her arms though prepared for my visit she was unable to bear the shock of seeing me I ran to her she raised herself in the bed and throwing her feeble arms round my

1:18:15neck could only say my fanny is disposable and fainted away our cares having recovered her she endeavoured to compose herself her eyes were fixed tenderly on me she pressed my hand between hers the tears stole silently down her cheeks she looked at her child then at me she would have spoke but the feelings of her heart were too strong for expression I begged her to be calm and promised to spend the day with her I did not yet dare lest the emotion should be too much for her weak state to tell her we would part no more I took a room in the house and determined to give all my attention to the restoration of her health after which I hoped to contrive to make my little fortune with industry support us both I set up with her that night she got a little rest she seemed better in the morning she told me the particulars I have

1:19:19already related she however endeavoured to soften the cruel behaviour of the wretch whose name I could not hear without horror she had in the afternoon a little fever I sent for a physician he thought her in danger what did not my heart feel from this information she grew worse I never left her one moment the next morning she called me to her she took my hand and looking at me with a tenderness no language can describe my dear my only friend said she I am dying you are come to receive the last breath of your unhappy Sophia I wish with order for my father's blessing and forgiveness but they are not ask him the weakness of my heart has undone me I am lost abandoned by him on whom my soul dote it by him for whom I would have sacrificed a thousand lives he has left

1:20:20me with my babe to perish yet I still love him with unabated fondness the pang of losing him sinks me to the grave a speech he have failed her for a time but recovering she proceeded hardest this request may seem and to whatever miseries it may expose my angel friend I adore you not to desert my child save him from the wretchedness that threatens him let him find in you a mother not less tender but more virtuous than his own I know my fanny I undo you by this cruel confidence but who else will have mercy on this innocent unable to answer my hard torn with unatterable anguish I snatched the lovely babe to my bosom I kissed him I bathed him with my tears she understood me the gleam of pleasure brightened her dying eyes the child was still pressed to my heart

1:21:21she gazed on us both with a look of wild affection then clasping her hands together and breathing a fervent prayer to heaven sunk down and expired without a groan to you mad at my need not say the rest the eloquence of angels could not paint my distress I saw the friend of my soul the best and most gentle of her sex a breathless corpse before me her heart broke by the ingratitude of the man she loved her honor the sport of fools her guiltless child a share in her shame and all this ruin brought on by a sensibility of which the best minds alone are susceptible by that noble integrity of soul which made it impossible for her to suspect another distracted with grief I kissed my Sophia's pale lips talked to her lifeless form I promised to protect the sweet babe who smiled on me and with

1:22:22his little hand pressed mine as if sensible of what I said as soon as my grief was enough calmed to render me capable of anything I wrote an account of Sophia's death to her father who had the inhumanity to refuse to see her child I distained an application to her murderer and retiring to this place where I was and resolved to continue unknown determined to devote my life to the sweet infant and to support him by an industry which I did not doubt heaven would prosper the faithful girl who had attended Sophia begged to continue with me we work for the milleners in the neighboring towns and with the little kittens I have keep above want I know the consequence of what I have undertaken I know I give up the world and all hopes of happiness to myself yet will I not deserve this friend this little innocent nor betrayed a confidence of my expiring friend whose last moments were

1:23:26soothed with the hope of his finding a parent's care in me you have had the goodness to wish to serve me so child's where will is dead a fever the consequence of his ungoverned intemperance carried him off suddenly his brother Sir William has a worthy character if Colonel reverse by his general acquaintance with the great worlds can represent this story to him it possibly may procure my little child's happier prospects than my poverty can give him you are goodness madam makes it unnecessary to be more explicit to be unhappy and not to have married it is a sufficient claim to your protection you are above the low prejudices of common minds you will pity the wretched victim of her own unsuspecting heart you will abhor the memory of her savage undua you will approve my complying with her dying request though in contradiction to the selfish maxims of the world you will if in your power endeavor to serve my little pretler

1:24:34till I had explained my situation I could not think of accepting the honor you allowed me to hope for of inquiring after your health at Bellfield if the step I have taken meets with your approbation I shall be most happy to thank you and Colonel Rivers for your attention to one whom you would before have seen justified in supposing unworthy of it I am madam with the most perfect respect and gratitude you are obliged and obedient servant if Williams your own heart my dear first journal will tell you what were our reflections on reading the enclosed Emily whose gentle heart feels for the weaknesses as well as misfortunes of others will tomorrow fetch this heroic girl and a little word to spend a week at Bellfield and we will then consider what is to be done for them you know Sir William there will go to him from me with the enclosed letter he is a man of honor and will I am certain provide for the poor babe who had not his father been a monster of unfeeling

1:25:39inhumanity would have inherited the estate entitled Sir William now enjoys is not the midnight murderer my dear friend white a snow to this vile seducer this betrayer of unsuspecting trusting in a sense what transport is it to me to reflect that not one wasn't ever heaved aside of remorse of which I was the cause I agree for the poor victim of a tenderness amiable in itself though productive of such dreadful consequences when not under the guidance of reason it ought to be a double tie on the honor of men that the woman who truly loves gives up her will without reserve to the object of her affection virtuous less from reasoning and fixed principle than from elegance and a lovely delicacy of mind naturally tender even to excess carried away by a romance of sentiment the helps the sex are too easily seduced by engaging their confidence and peaking their generosity I cannot write my heart is softened to a degree which makes me incapable of anything do not neglect one moment going to Sir William there will do your affection

1:26:45at rivers end of section three section four of the history of Emily Montague volume four by Francis Moore Brooke this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org Letters 208 through 216 Letter 208 To Colonel Rivers October 28th The story you have told me has equally shocked and astonished me my sweet bell has dropped a pity and tear on porcophé as grave thank heaven we meet with few minds like that of Sir Charles Verville Such a degree of savage insensibility is unnatural the human heart is created weak not wicked evid of pleasure and of gain but with a mixture of benevolence which prevents our seeking either

1:27:48to the destruction of others nothing can be more false than that we are naturally inclined to evil we are indeed naturally inclined to gratify the selfish passions of every kind but those passions are not evil in themselves but only become so from excess the malevolent passions are not inherent in our nature they are only to be acquired by degrees and generally are born from chagrin and disappointment a wicked character is a depraved one what must this unhappy girl have suffered no misery can equal the struggles of a virtuous mind wishing to act in a manner becoming its own dignity yet carried by passions to do otherwise one o'clock i have been at Sir William Verville who is at bath i will write and enclose the letter to him this evening you shall have his answer the moment i receive it we are going to dine at Richmond with Lord H a do my dear rivers bell complains you have never answered her letter

1:28:55i own i thought you a man of more gallantry then to neglect a lady a do your faithful jay Fitzgerald letter 209 to captain Fitzgerald bellfield october 30 i'm very impatient my dear friend till you hear from Sir William though i have no doubt of his acting as he ought our cottagers shall not leave us till their fate is determined i've not told miss Williams the step i've taken Emily is more and more pleased with the same yearful girl i wish extremely to be able to keep her here as an agreeable companion of her own agent sex whose ideas are similar and do from being in the same season of life sees things in the same point of view is all that is wanting to Emily's happiness it is impossible to mention similarity of ideas without observing how exactly hours coincide in all my acquaintance with mankind i never yet met a mind so nearly resembling my own a

1:29:59tie of affection much stronger than all your merit would be without that similarity i agree with you that mankind are born virtuous and that it is education and example which make them otherwise the believing other men naves is not only the way to make them so but is also an infallible method of becoming such ourselves a false and ill judge method of instruction by which we invite prejudices instead of truths makes us regard the human race as beasts of prey not as brothers united by one common bond and promoting the general interest by pursuing our own particular one there's nothing of which i am more convinced than that true self love and social are the same that those passions which make the happiness of individuals tend directly to the general good of the species the beneficent author of nature has made public and private happiness the same man has in vain endeavour to divide them but in the endeavour he has almost destroyed both it is with pain i say that the business of

1:31:04legislation in most countries seems to have been to counter work this wise order of providence which has ordained that we shall make others happy in being so ourselves this is in nothing so glaring as in the point on which not only the happiness but the virtue of almost the whole human race is concerned i mean marriage the restraints on which in almost every country not only tend to encourage celibacy and a destructive liberty nism the consequence of it to give fresh strength to domestic tyranny and subject to generous affections of uncorrupted youth to the guidance of those in whom every motive to action but average is dead to condemn the blameless victims of duty to a life of indifference of disgust and possibly of guilt but by opposing the very spirit of our constitution throwing property into a few hands and favoring that excessive inequality which renders one part of the species wretched without adding to the happiness of the other to destroy it once the domestic

1:32:06felicity of individuals contradict the will of the supreme being as clearly wrote in the book of nature and sapped the very foundations of the most perfect form of government on earth that pretty long-winter period this bell would call it true cisteronian and quote rivers for a period of our mile but to proceed the only equality to which parents in general attend is that a fortune whereas a resemblance in age and temper in personal attractions and birth and education understanding and sentiment are the only foundations of that lively taste that tender friendship without which no union deserves the sacred name of marriage timid compliant youth may be forced into the arms of age and disease a lord may invite a citizen's daughter he despises to his bed to repair a shattered fortune and she may accept him allured by the rays of a cornet but such conjunctions are only a more shameful species of prostitution men who marry from interested motives are inexcusable but the

1:33:12very modesty of women makes against their happiness in this point by giving them a kind of bashful fear of objecting to such persons as their parents recommend as proper objects of their tenderness i am prevented by company from saying all i intended a view you're faithful at rivers letter 210 to kernel rivers temple house november the first you wrong me excessively my dear rivers in accusing me of a natural levity in love and friendship as to the latter my frequent changes which i freely acknowledge have not been owing to any inconstancy but to precipitation and want of caution in contracting them my general fault has been the folly of choosing my friends

1:34:13for some striking and agreeable accomplishment instead of giving to solid merit the preference most certainly is its Jew my inconstancy in love has been merely from vanity there is something so flattering in the general favor of women that it requires great firmness of mind to resist that kind of gallantry which indulges it though absolutely destructive to real happiness i blush to say that when i first married i have more than once been in danger from the mere boyish desire of conquest notwithstanding my adoration for your lovely sister such is the force of habit for i must have been infinitely a loser by changing i am now perfectly safe my vanity has

1:35:16taken another turn i peek myself on keeping the heart of the loveliest woman that ever existed as a nobler conquest than attracting the notice of a hundred caucas who would be equally flattered by the attentions of any other man at least by any other man who had the good fortune to be fashionable everything conspires to keep me in the road of domestic happiness the manner of life i am engaged in your friendship your example and society and the very fear i am in of losing your esteem that i have the seeds of constancy in my nature i call on you and your lovely sister to witness i have been your friend from almost infancy and i am every hour more

1:36:17her lover she is my friend my companion as well as mistress her wit her sprightliness her pleasing kind of knowledge fill with delight those hours which are so tedious with a fool however lovely with my Lucy possession can never cure the wounded heart her modesty her angel purity of mind and person render her literally my ever new delight she has convinced me that if beauty is the mother delicacy is the nurse of love Venus has lent her her sestus and shares with her the attendance of the graces my vagrant passions like the rays of the sun collected in a burning glass are now

1:37:21united in one point Lucy is here add you i must not let her know her power you spend tomorrow with us we have a little ball and are to have a masquerade next week Lucy wants to consult Emily on her dress you and i are not to be in the secret we have wrote to ask the Fitzgeralds to the masquerade i will send Lucy's postcode for them the day before or perhaps fetch them myself add your affectionate jay temple letter 211 to captain Fitzgerald bellfield november 1 i have this moment a letter from temple which has set my heart at rest he writes like a lover it owns his past danger with a frankness

1:38:23which speaks more strongly than any professions could do the real present state of his heart my anxiety for my sister has a little broken on my own happiness in England where the married women are in general the most virtuous in the world it is of infinite consequence they should love their husbands and be loved by them in countries where gallantry is more committed it is less necessary temple will make her happy whilst you preserve his heart but if she loses it everything is to be feared from the vivacity of his nature which can never support one moment a life of indifference he has that warmth of temper which is the natural soil of the virtues for which is unhappily at the same time most apt to produce indiscretions tame cold despatient minds resemble barren lands warm animated ones rich ground which if properly cultivated yields the noblest fruit but if neglected

1:39:23from its luxuriance is most productive of weeds his misfortune has been losing both his parents when almost an infant and having the master of himself and a noble fortune at an age when the passions hurry us beyond the bounds of reason i am the only person on earth by whom he would ever bear to be controlled in anything happily for lucy i preserve the influence over him which friendship first gave me that influence and her extreme attention to study his taste in everything with those uncommon graces both of mind and person she has received from nature will i hope effectively fix this wandering star she tells me she has asked you to a masquerade at temple house to which you will extremely oblige us all by coming you do not tell us whether the affair of your majority is settled if obliged to return immediately temple will send you back ado your faithful adrivers i have this moment your last letter your right we american travelers are under great

1:40:27disadvantages our imaginations are restrained we have not the comp of the orient to describe but the simple and unadorned charms of nature letter two hundred twelve the kernel rivers bell filled ruttland november fourth sir william verville is coming back to town i was with him this morning he desires to see the child he tells me his brother in his last moments mentioned this story in all the agony of remorse and begged him to provide for the little innocent if to be found that he had made many inquiries but hitherto in vain and that he thought himself happy in the discovery he talks of settling three thousand pounds on the child and taking the care of educating him into his own hands i handed it some little provision for the amiable girl who had saved him from perishing and had the pleasure to find sir william listen to me with attention i am sorry it is

1:41:29not possible for me to be at your masquerade but my affair is just at the crisis bell expects a particular account of it from missus rivers and desires to be immediately in the secret of the ladies dresses though you are not she begs you will send your fair collager and a little charged to us and we will take care to introduce them properly to sir william i'm too much hurried to say more adieu my dear rivers your affectionate jayf is jerald letter 213 to missus Fitzgerald november eight yes my dear bell politeness is undoubtedly a moral virtue as we are beings formed for and not capable of being happy without society it is the duty of everyone to endeavor to make it as easy and agreeable as they can which is only to be done by such an attention to others as is consistent with what we owe to ourselves all we give them in civility will be repaid us in respect

1:42:33insolence and ill breeding are detestable to all mankind i long to see you my dear bell the delight i have in your society has spoiled my relish for that of mere acquaintance however agreeable it is dangerous to indulge in the pleasures of friendship they weaken one's taste too much for common conversation yet what other pleasures are worth the name what others have spirit and delicacy too i am preparing for the masquerade which is to be the 18th i am extremely disappointed you will not be with us my dress is simple and unornamented but i think becoming and prickly fancied it is that of a french pizan lucy is to be a sultana blazing with diamonds my mother a roman matron i choose this dress because i have heard my dear rivers admirate to be one moment more pleasing in his eyes is an object worthy all my attention adieu your faithful and mily rivers

1:43:37letter 214 two Mrs. Rivers belfield rottland london november the 10th certainly my dear friendship is a mighty pretty invention and next to love gives of all things a greater spirit a society and yet the prudery of the age will hardly allow us poor women even this pleasure innocent as it is i remember my aunt cesselly who died at 66 without ever having felt the least spark of attention to any human being used to tell me a prudent bodhisht woman never loved anything but herself for my part i think all the kind propensities of the heart ought rather to be cherished than checked that one is allowed to esteem merit even in the naughty creature man i love you very sincerely mily but i like friendships for the men best and think prudery by forbidding them rob us of some of the most lively as well as innocent pleasures of the

1:44:42heart that desire of pleasing which one feels much the most strongly for a male friend is in itself a very agreeable emotion you will say i am a co-cat even in friendship and i am not quite sure you are not in the right i am extremely in love with my husband yet choose other men should regard me with complacency i am as fond of attracting the attention of the dear creatures as ever and though i do justice to your wit understanding sentiment and all that but for rivers as conversation infinitely to use women cannot say civil things to each other and if they could they would be something in sippard whereas a male friend it is absolutely another thing my dear and the first system of ethics i write will have a hundred pages on the subject observe my dear i have not the least objection to your having a friendship for its jerald i'm the best-natured creature in the world and the fondest of increasing the circle of my

1:45:46husband's innocence and musements i prefer to innocent and musements i think your fair sister-in-law an exquisite politician calling the pleasures to temple at home is the best method in the world to prevent his going abroad in pursuit of them i am mortified i cannot be at your masquerade it is my passion and i have the prettiest dress in the world by me i'm half inclined to a loop for a day or two a dear your faithful a for jerald letter 215 to captain fistero by elfield november 12 please do inform the little bell i won't allow her to spoil my Emily i enter a caveat against male friendships which are only fit for ladies of the salamandrian order i desire to engross all emily's kind propensities to myself and should grudge the least share in her heart or a few please in her friendship to an art angel

1:46:50however not to be too severe since broodery expects women to have no propensities at all i allow single ladies of all ranks sizes ages and complexions to spread the veil of friendship between their hearts and the world it is the finest day i ever saw for the middle of november a dry soft west wind the air is mild as an apel and an almost canadian sunshine i've been bathing in the clear stream at the end of my garden the same stream in which i laid my careless bosom at thirteen an idea which gave me inconceivable delight and the more as my bosom is as gay and tranquil at this moment as in those dear hours of cheerfulness and innocence of all local prejudices that is the strongest as well as most pleasing which attaches us to the place of our birth sweet home only seat of true and genuine happiness i'm extremely in the humor to write a poem to the household gods we neglect these amoeba deities but they are revenge true pleasure is only to be

1:47:57found under their auspices i know not how it is my dear fridge sure but i don't find my passion for the country a bay i still find the scenes around me lovely though from the change of season less smuggling than when i first fixed that bellfield we have rural business enough to amuse not embarrassed us we have a small but excellent library of books given us by my mother she and Emily are two of the most pleasing companions on earth the neighborhood is full of agreeable people and what should always be attended to and fixing in the country of fortunes not superior to our own the evenings grew long but they are only the more jovial i love the pleasures of the table not for their own sakes for no man is more indifferent on this subject but because they promote social convivial joy and bring people together and grew humor with themselves and each other my amoea's suppers are enchanting but our little income obliges us to have few if i was rich this

1:48:58would be my principal extravagance to fill up my measure of content amoea is pleased with my retirement and finds all the happiness in my affection we are so little alone that i find our moments of unreserved conversation too short whenever i leave her i recollect a thousand things i have to say a thousand new ideas to communicate in an impatient for the hour of seeing again without restraint the most amiable and pleasing of woman kind my happiness would be complete if i did not sometimes see a cloud of anxiety on that dear countenance which however is dissipated the moment my eyes meet hers i'm going to temples and the jazes at the door i do my dear friend your affectionate adverbus let her 260 to kernel rivers november the 14th so you disapprove male friendship my sweet kernel i thought you had better ideas of things in general if it's Gerald and i have been disputing

1:50:02on french and english manners in regard to gallantry the great question is whether a man is more hurt by the imprude and conduct of his daughter or his wife much maybe said on both sides there is some hazard in suffering cockatooine either both contribute to give charms to conversation and introduce ease and politeness into society but both are dangerous to manners our customs however are most likely to produce good effects as they give opportunity for love marriages the only ones which can make worthy minds happy the cockatooine of single women has a point of view consistent with honor that of married women has generally no point of view at all it is however of use poor pa cell atop as to real gallantry the french style depraved the mind of men least hours is more favorable to the piece of families i think i preserve the balance of argument admirably my opinion

1:51:08however is that if people married from affection there would be no such things as gallantry at all pride and the parade of life destroy all happiness our whole felicity depends on our choice in marriage yet we choose from mortars more trifling than would determine us in the common affairs of i knew a gentleman who fancied himself in love yet delayed marrying his mistress till he could afford a set of plate modern manners are very unfavorable to the tender affections ancient lovers had only dragons to combat ours have the worst monsters of avarice and ambition as i shall say further on the subject is that the two happiest people i ever knew were a country clergyman and his wife whose whole income did not exceed one hundred pounds a year a pretty philosophical sentimental dull kind of epistel this but you deserve it for not answering my last which was

1:52:12divine i am pleased with Emily's ideas about her dress at the masquerade it is a proof you are still lovers i remember the first symptoms i discovered of my tendress for fits jerald was my excessive attention to the sarticle i have tried on twenty different caps when i expected him at salary before we drop the subject of gallantries i must tell you i'm charmed with you and my spores or for never giving the least hint before Emily and me that you have had any it is a piece of delicacy which convinces me of your tenderness more than all the vows that ever lovers broke would do i have been hurt at the contrary behavior in temple and have observed lucy to be so too though her excessive attention not to give him pain prevented her shooing it i have on such an occasion seen a smile on her countenance and a tear of tender regret starting into her eyes

1:53:15a woman who has vanity without affection will be pleased to hear of your past conquests and regard them as victims emulator to her superior charms to her therefore it is right to talk of them but to flatter the heart and give delight to a woman who truly loves you should appear too much taken up with the present passion to look back to the past you should not even present her imagination the thought that you have had other engagements we know such things are but had rather the idea should not be awakened i may be wrong but i speak from my own feelings i am excessively pleased with the thought i met in a little french novel an om can a puplu contère se bon fortune éditu se lui qui conwille les moins les faver c'est le coeur qui les accords et ce n'est pas le coeur que norme à la mode d'adresse plus on les prende pas la femme plus il est facile de les

1:54:19avoir mais moins il est possible de les inflamères to which truth i most heartily set my hand to overclock i have just heard from your sister who tells me emiles turned a little natural philosopher reads ray d'urum and fifty other strange old fellows that knew and ever heard of and is eternally pouring through a microscope to discover the wonders of creation how amazingly learned matrimony makes young ladies i suppose we shall have a volume of her discoveries by and by she says to you have little pets like sweethearts quarrel and make it up again in the most engaging manner in the world this is just what i want to bring fits jerald to but the perverse monkey won't quarrel with me do all i can i am sure this is not my fault for i give him reason every day of his life shenstone says admirably that reconciliation is the tendrous part of love and friendship the soul

1:55:28here discovers a kind of elasticity and being forced back returns with an additional violence who would not quarrel for the pleasure of reconciliation i shall be very angry with fits jerald if he goes on in this mild way tell your sister she cannot be more mortified than i am that it is impossible for me to be of her masquerade but your your affectionate afe its jerald don't you think my dear rivers that marriage on prudent principles is a horrid sort of affair it is really cruel of papas and mamas to shut up to poor innocent creatures in a house together to plague and torment one another who might have been very happy separate where people take their own time and choose for themselves it is another affair and i begin to think it possible affection may last through life i sometimes fancy to myself its jerald and i loving on from the impassioned

1:56:32hour when i first honoured him with my hand to that tranquil one when we shall take our afternoons nap vis-à-vis in two arm chairs by the fireside he a grave country justice and i his worships good sort of a life the lazy bountiful of the parish i have a notion there is nothing so very shocking in being an oldest gentle woman what one loses in charms is made up in the happy liberty of doing and saying whatever one pleases i do end of section four section five of the history of amelie montecu volume four by france is more broke this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org letters two seventeen through two twenty eight

1:57:34letter two hundred and seventeen two captain Fitzgerald bellfield november of sixteen my relation kernel will not is just arrived from the east indies rich and full of the project of marrying his daughter to me my mother has this morning received a letter from him pressing the affair with an earnestness which rather makes me feel for his disappointment and wish to break it to him as gently as possible he talks of being at bellfield on wednesday evening which is temples masquerade i shall stay behind at bellfield to receive him have a domino ready and take him to temple house he seems to know nothing of my marriage or my sisters and i wish him not to know of the former tell you seen amelie the best apology i can make for declining his offer is to show him the lovely cause i will contrive they shall converse together at the masquerade

1:58:36and that he shall sit next to its supper without there knowing anything of each other if he sees her if he talks with her without that prejudice which the knowledge of her being the cause of his disappointment might give he cannot fail of having for her that admiration which i never yet met with a mind savage enough to refuse her his daughter has been educated abroad which is a circumstance i am pleased with as it gives me the power of refusing her without wounding either her vanity or her fathers which had we been acquainted might have been peaked at my giving the preference to another she is not in england but is hourly expected the moment she arrives lucina will fetch her to temple house i shall be anxious to see her married to a man who deserves her pernal will not tells me she is very amiable at least as he is told for he has never seen her i could wish it were possible to conceal this offer forever from amelie my delicacy is hurt at

1:59:38the idea of her knowing it at least for me or my family my mother behaves like an angel on this occasion expresses herself perfectly happy and my having consulted my heart alone in marrying and speaks of amelie's tenderness as a treasure above all price she does not even hint to wish to see me richer than i am had i ever seen amelie i would not have married this lady unless love had united us do not however suppose i have that romantic contempt for fortune which is so partenable i'd almost said so becoming at nineteen i've seen more of the world than most men of my age and i have seen the advantages of affluence in their strongest life i think a worthy man not only may have but ought to have an attention to making his way in the world and improving his situation in it by every means consistent with probity and honor and with his own real happiness i've ever had this attention and ever will but not by base means and in my opinion the very basis does that of selling one's hand

2:00:41in marriage with what horror do we regard a man who was kept and a man who marries from interest of use alone is kept in the strongest sense of the word he is equally a purchase slave with no distinction but that his bondage is of longer continuance at you i may possibly write again on Wednesday your faithful ad riverus letter two hundred and eighteen two kernel rivers bellfield ruttland london november the eighteenth fits Gerald is busy and begs me to write to you your cottages are arrived there is something very interesting in miswilliams and the little boy is an infant adornous heaven sent he may be an honest a man and his father or i foresee terrible divastations among the sags we have this moment your letter and i'm angry with you for blaspheming the sweet season of nineteen oh lovely source of generous foibles youth when opening minds are

2:01:45honest as the light lucid as air as fostering breezes kind as linets gay tender as buds and lavish as the spring you will find out i am in a course of shenstone which i prescribed to all minds tinctured with the uncomfortable selfishness of the present age the only way to be good is to retain the generous mistakes if they are such of nineteen through life as to you my dear rivers with all your heirs of prudence and knowing the world you are in this respect as much a boy as ever witness your extreme joy at having married a woman with two thousand pounds when you might have had one with twenty times a sum you are a boy rivers i am a girl and i hope we shall remain so as long as we live do you know my dear friend that i'm a daughter of the muses that i

2:02:46wrote pastoral that seven years old i am charmed with this because an old physician once told me it was a symptom not only of long life but of long youth which is much better he explained this by saying something about animal spirit which i do not at all understand but which perhaps you may i should have been a pretty enough kind of poetess if papar had not attempted to teach me how to be one and insisted on seeing my scribbles as i went on the same uses are such bashful misses they want bear to be looked at genius is like the sensitive plant it shrinks from the touch so your nabokasin is arrived i hope he will fall in love with himily and remember if he had obligations to miss his rivers his father he had exactly the same to your grandfather he might spare ten thousand pounds very well which would improve your petite super but you

2:03:53serve William verville dine here and i have but just time to dress yours afeet's jerald letter two hundred and nineteen two captain Fitzgerald bellfield november seventeen morning i have had a letter from kernel will not myself today he is still quite unequainted with the state of our domestic affairs suppose is me a bachelor and talks of my being his son-in-law as a certainty not attending to the probability of my having other engagements his history which he tells me in this letter is a very romantic one he was a younger brother and provided for accordingly he loved when about twenty a lady who was as little a favorite a fortune as himself their families who on both sides had other views joined their interest to get him sent to the east in these and the young lady was removed to the house of a friend in london where she was to continue till he had left England before he went however they contrived to meet and were privately married

2:04:55the marriage was known only to her brother who was Wilmot's friend he left here in the care of her brother who under pretence of diverting her melancholy and endeavoring to cure her passion obtained leave of his father to take her with them to France she was there delivered of this child and expired a few days after her brother without letting her family know the secret educated the infant as the daughter of a younger brother who had been just before killed in the duel in France her parents who died in a few years were almost in their last moments informed of these circumstances and made a small provision for the child in the meantime Colonel Wilmot after experiencing a great variety of misfortunes for many years during which he maintained a constant correspondence with his brother-in-law and with no other person in Europe by a train of lucky accidents acquired very rapidly considerable fortune with which he resolved to return to England and marry his daughter to me as the only method to discharge fully his obligations to my grandfather who alone of all

2:05:56his family had given him the least assistance when he left England he wrote to his daughter letting her know his design and directing her to meet him in london but she has not yet arrived six in the evening my mother and Emily went to temples to dinner they are to dress there and armed to be surprised seven Colonel Wilmot has come he has an extreme handsome man tall well made with an air of dignity which one seldom sees he's very brown and what will please bell has an aqua-line nose he looks about 50 but is not so much change of climate has almost always the disagreeable effect of adding some years to the look he is dressing to accompany me to the master rate I must attend him I've only time to say I'm yours at rivers let's at 220 two Mrs. Rivers Bellfield-Brockland London November the 18th 12 at night who should I dine and sup with today at a merchants in the city but your old love Sir George Clayton

2:07:00has gained them using as ever what an entertaining companion have you lost my dear Emily he was a little disconcerted at seeing me and blushed extremely but soon recovered his amiable uniform in stupidity of countenance and smiled and simpered as usual he never inquired after you nor even mentioned your name being asked for a toast I have the malice to give rivers he drank him without seeming ever to have heard of him before the city misses admire him prodigiously and he then they are charmed with his beauty and he with their wit his mother poor woman could not bring the match she wrote about to bear the family approved him but the fair one made a better choice and gave herself last week at St George's Hannover Square to a very agreeable fellow of our acquaintance Mr. Palmer a man of sense and

2:08:05honour who deserves her had she been ten times richer he has a small estate in Lincolnshire and his house is not above 20 miles from you I must bring you and Mrs. Palmer acquainted I suppose you are now the happiest of beings rivers finding a thousand new beauties in his bell paise and you exalting in your charms or in other words gloring in your strength so the maiden aunts in your neighborhood think Miss Williams so better than she should be either somebody has said or the idea is my own after all I believe it chen stones that those are generally the best people whose characters have been most injured by Sanders as we usually find that the best fruit which the birds have been pecking at I will however allow appearances were a little against your cottager and I would forgive the good old versions if they had always a suspicious circumstances to

2:09:07determine from but they generally condemn from trifling in discretion and settle the characters of their own sex from their conduct at a time of life when they are themselves new judges of its propriety the past sentence on them for small errors when it is an amazing proof of prudence not to commit great ones for my own part I think those who never have been guilty of any in discretion are generally people who have very little active virtue the waving line holds in moral as well as incorporeal beauty do you yours ever a if it's jailed all I can say is that if imprudence is a sin heaven help you poor little bell on those principles so George is the most virtuous man in the world to which assertion I believe you will enter a cave it letter 221 to Colonel Rivers at Belfield

2:10:11London November the 19 you are right my little rivers I like your friend Colonel Wilmot vastly better for his aqualine nose I never yet saw one on the face of a fool he is a fortunate man to be introduced to such a party of fine women at his arrival it is literally to feed among the lilies if it's jailed says he should be jealous of him in your esteem if he was 15 years younger but that the strongest friendships are where there is an equality in age because people of the same age have the same train of thinking and see things in the same light every season of life has it peculiar set of ideas and we are greatly inclined to think nobody in the right but those who are of the same opinion with ourselves don't you think it's a strong proof of my passion for my spores or that I repeat his sentiments but a business so William is charmed with his little

2:11:12nephew has promised to settle on him what he before mentioned to allow Miss Williams a hundred pounds a year which is to go to the child after her death and to be at the expense of his education himself I die to hear whether your oriental Colonel is in love with Emily pre tell us everything and you your affectionate afe its child letter 222 to captain Fitzgerald temple house Thursday morning 11 o'clock our master raid last night was really charming I never saw anything equal to it out of London temple has tased and had spared no expense to make it agreeable the decorations of the grand saloon were magnificent Emily was the loveliest a pa's son that ever was beheld her dress without losing sight of the character was infinitely becoming her beauty never appeared to such advantage there was a noble simplicity in her air which it is impossible to describe the easy turn ever shaped the lovely roundness of her arm

2:12:17the natural elegance of her whole form the waving ringlets of her beautiful dark hair carelessly fastened with a ribbon the unaffected grace of her every motion all together conveyed more strongly than imagination campaign the pleasing idea of a wooden imp designing to visit some favored mortal Colonel well-mock gazed on her with rapture and asked me if the rural deities had left their verdant abodes to visit temple house I introduced him to her and left her to improve the impression to as well I was married in time a nabob is a dangerous rival Lucy look lovely but in another style she was a sultana in all the pride of imperial beauty her charms odd but Emily's invited her look spoke possessed this command Emily's soft persuasion there were many fine women but I will own to you ahead as to beauty no eyes but for Emily we're going this morning to see burly when we return I shall announce Colonel will not to Emily and it to do some properly to each other they are to go in the same chase she a present only knows him as a friend of mine and he her

2:13:18s is bell pa's on a do you I am summon your faithful ad rivers I should have told you I acquainted Colonel well-mock with my sister's marriage before I took him to temple house and found an opportunity of introducing him to temple and observe Emily is the only one here to whom he is a stranger I will caution him not to mention to her his past generous design in my favor a do you you let her to twenty three to Mrs Fitzgerald temple house Thursday morning your Emily was happy beyond words last night amongst a crowd of beauties her river's eyes continually followed her he seemed to see no other object he would scarce let me wait till supper to unmask but you will call me a foolish romantic girl therefore I will only say I had the delight to see him pleased with my dress and charmed with the complacence which was showed me by others there was a gentleman who came with rivers who was particularly attentive to me he is not young but extremely

2:14:20amiable has a very fine person with a commanding air great politeness and as far as one can judge by a few hours conversation an excellent understanding I never in my life met with a man for whom I felt such a partiality at first sight except rivers who tells me I have made a conquest of his friend he is to be my cavalier this morning to burly it has this moment struck me that rivers never introduced his friend and me to each other but as masks I never thought of this before I suppose he forgot it in the hurry of the mask raid I do not even know this agreeable stranger's name I only found out by his conversation he had served in the army there is no saying how beautiful Lucy looked last night her dress was rich elegantly fancied and particularly becoming to her graceful form which I never saw look so graceful before all who attempted to be fine figures shrunk into

2:15:21nothing before her Lucy carries her head you know remarkably well which with the advantage of her height the perfect standard of women her fine proportion the native dignity of her air the majestic flow of her robe and the blaze of her diamonds gave her a look of infinite superiority a superiority which some of the company seemed to feel in a manner which rather I will own gave me pain in a place consecrated to joy I hate to see anything like an uneasy sensation yet whilst human passions are what they are it is difficult to avoid them there were four or five other sultanas who seemed only the slaves of her train in short she looked agatus and she moved a queen I was happy the unassuming simplicity of the character in which I appeared prevented comparisons which must have been extremely to my disadvantage I was safe in my littleness like a modest shrub by the

2:16:21side of a cedar and being in so different a style had the better chance to be taken notice of even where Lucy was she was radiant as the morning star and even dazzlingly lovely her complexion for temple would not suffer her to wear a mask at all had the vivid glow of youth and health heightened by pleasure and the consciousness of universal admiration her eyes had a fire which one could scarce look at temples vanity and tenderness were gratified to the utmost he drank eagerly the praises which envy itself could not have refused her my mother extremely became her character and when talking to rivers gave me the idea of the roman arelia whose virtues she has equaled he looked at her with a delight which rendered him a thousand times more dear to me she is really one of the most pleasing women that ever existed i am called we are just setting out for burly

2:17:22which i have not yet seen adia yours amalie rivers letter 224 to captain fiss jerald bellfield Thursday two o'clock we are returned kernel will not is charmed with burly and more in love with emily than ever he has gone to his apartment with her eyes shall follow him and acquaint him with my is exactly in the disposition i could wish he will i'm sure pardon any offense of which is bell pie zon is the cause i'm returned he is disappointed but not surprised owns no human heart could have resisted emily thanks she will allow his daughter a place in her friendship he insists on making her a present of diamonds the only condition he tells me on which he will forgive my marriage i'm going to introduce him to her in her apartment adieu for a moment fiss jerald i scarce respire the tumult of my joy this daughter whom i have refused my emily could you have believed my emily is the daughter of kernel will not when i announced to him to her

2:18:27by that name her color changed but when i added that he was just returned from the east indies she trembled her cheeks had a dying paleness her voice faltered she pronounced faintly my father and sung breathless on of sofa he ran to her he pressed her wildly to his bosom he kissed her pale cheeky demanded if she was indeed his jaw he is emily the dear pledge of his emily montaguse tenderness her senses returned she fixed her eyes eagerly on him she kissed his hand she would have spoke but to stop her voice the scene that followed is beyond my powers of description i've left them a moment to share my joy with you the time has two questions to say more tomorrow you shall hear from me adieu yours adribus letter 225 to captain fiss jerald temple house friday your friend is the happiest of mankind every anxiety is removed from my emily's dear bosom of father's sanctioned leafs are nothing to desire you may remember she wished to delay our marriage her motive was to wait kernel will not

2:19:31return though promised by him to another she hoped to bring him to leave her heart free little did she think the man destined for her by her father was the happy rivers her heart had chosen bound by a salam d'oeu she concealed the circumstances of her birth even from me she resolved never to marry another yet thought duty obliged to deweight her father's arrival she kindly supposed he would see me with her eyes and when he knew me changes design in my favor she fanceted he would crown her love as the reward of her obedience and delaying her marriage my opportunity and the fear of giving me room to doubt her tenderness as her vow prevented such an explanation as would have satisfied me or down her duty to a father whom she had never seen and whom she has supposed dead till the arrival of Mrs. Melmoth's letters having been to years without hearing anything of him she married me determined to give up her right to have his fortune in favor of the person for whom he designed her and hope by that means to discharge her father's obligations which he could not pay at the expense of sacrificing her heart but she writes

2:20:34to Mrs. Fitzgerald and will tell you all comments share the happiness of your friends of your faithful ed rivers letter to 26 to Mrs. Fitzgerald temple house friday my rivers has told you my sweet friend in what words shall I convey to you an adequate idea of your emily's transport at a discovery which has reconciled all her duties those anxieties that sense of having failed infillial obedience which cast a damp on the joy of being wife to the most beloved of mankind are at an end this husband whom I so dreaded whom my determined never to accept was my rivers my father forgives me he pardons the crime of love he blesses that kind providence which conducted us to happiness how many has this event made happy the most amiable of mothers shares my joy

2:21:36she bends in grateful thanks to that indulgent power who has rewarded her son for all his goodness to her rivers hear her and turns away to hide his tears her tenderness belts him to the softness of a woman what gratitude do we not owe to heaven may the sense of it be ever engraven on our hearts my Lucy too all all are happy but I will tell you rivers has already acquainted you with part of my story my uncle placed me with a servant in whom he could confide in a convent in France till I was seven years old he then sent for me to England and left me at school eight years longer after which he took me with him to his regiment in Kent where you know our friendship began and continued till he changed into another then in America wither I attended him my fathers of Ferris were at that time in a situation which determined my uncle to take the first opportunity

2:22:39of marrying me to advantage I regarded him as a father he had always been more than a parent to me I had the most implicit deference to his will he engaged me to Sir George Clayton and when dying told me the story of my birth to which I had till then been a stranger exacting from me however an oath of secrecy till I saw my father he died leaving me with a trifle left in trust to him for my use from my grandfather about two thousand pounds which was all I at that time ever expected to possess my father was then thought ruined there was even a report of his death and I imagined myself absolute mistress of my own actions I was near two years without hearing anything of him nor did I know I had still a father to the letters you brought me from Mrs. Melmouth a variety of accidents and air being both abroad and in such distant parts of the world

2:23:41prevented his letters arriving in this situation the kind hand of heaven conducted my rivers to Montreal I saw him and from that moment my whole soul was his formed for each other our love was sudden and resisteless as the bolt of heaven the first glance of those deer speaking eyes gave me a new being and awakened me ideas never known before the strongest sympathy attached me to him in spite of myself I thought it friendship but felt that friendship more lively than what I called my love for Sir George all conversation but his became insupportable to me every moment that he passed for me I counted as lost in my existence I loved him that tenderness hourly increased I hated Sir George I fancied him changed I studied to find errors in a man who had a few weeks before appeared to me amiable and whom I had consented to marry I broke with him and felt a weight removed

2:24:44from my soul I trembled when rivers appeared I died to tell him my whole soul was his I watched his looks to find there the same sentiments with which he had inspired me that transporting moment at length arrived I had the delight to find our tenderness was mutual and to devote my life to making happy the Lord of my desires Mrs. Melmos Leather brought me my father's commands if unmarried to continue so till his return he added that he intended me for a relation to whose family he had obligations that his affairs having suffered such a happy revolution he had it in his power and therefore thought it his duty to pay this debt of gratitude and at the same time hoping to make me happy by connecting me with an amiable family allied to him by blood and friendship and uniting me to a man whom reports spoke worthy of all my tenderness you may remember my dearest

2:25:48bell how strongly I was affected on reading those letters I wrote to rivers to beg him to defer our marriage but the manner in which he took that request and the fear of appearing indifferent to him conquered all sense of what I owed to my father and I married him making it however a condition that he should ask no explanation of my conduct till I chose to give it I knew not the character of my father he might be a tyrant and divide us from each other rivers doubted my tenderness would not my waiting if my father had afterwards refused his consent to our union have added to those cruel suspicions might he not have supposed I had ceased to love him and waited for the excuse of paternal authority to justify a change of sentiment in short love bore down every other consideration if I persisted in this delay I might hazard losing all my soul held dear the only object for which life was worth my care I determined if I married to give up all claim to

2:26:52my father's fortune which I should justly forfeit by my disobedience to his commands I hoped however rivers merit and my father's paternal affection when he knew us both would influence him to make some provision for me as his daughter half his fortune was all I ever hoped for or even would have chose to accept the rest I determined to give up to the man whom I refused to marry I gave my hand to rivers and was happy yet the idea of my father's return and the consciousness of having disobeyed him cast sometimes a damp on my felicity and threw a gloom over my soul which all my endeavors could scarce hide from rivers though his delicacy prevented his asking the cause I know now what was then a secret to me that my father had offered his daughter to rivers was a fortune which could however have been no temptation to a mind like his had he not been attached to me he declined the offer and lest I should hear of it and from a romantic disinterestedness

2:27:58want him to accept it pressed our marriage with more imprecunity than ever yet had the generosity to conceal this sacrifice from me and to wish it should be concealed forever these sentiments so noble so peculiar to my rivers prevented an explanation and hid from us for some time the circumstances which now make our happiness so perfect how infinitely worthy is rivers of all my tenderness my father has sent to speak with me in his apartment I should have told you I this morning went to Belfield and brought from dense my mother's picture which I have just sent him Adia your faithful Emily Rivers Let a 227 2 Mrs Rivers Belfield, Drotland, London, Sunday No words my dear Emily can speak of our joy at the receipt of your two last letters You are then as happy as you deserve to be we hope in a few days to be witnesses of your

2:29:04felicity we knew from the first of your father's proposal to rivers but he extorted a promise from us never on any account to communicate it to you he also desired us to detain you in by lengthening our visit to your marriage lest any friend of your father's in London should know his design and chance a quaint you with it if it's Gerald is Monsieur le Mourer at your leadership service he received his commission this morning I once again congratulate you my dear on this triumph of tenderness you see love like virtue is not only its own reward but sometimes entitles us to other awards too it should always be considered that those who marry from love may grow rich but those who marry to be rich will never love the very idea that love will come after marriage is shocking to minds which have the least spark of delicacy to such minds a marriage

2:30:10which begins within difference was certainly ended this gust and aversion I bespeak your papar for my cheesy bail mine is extremely at your service in return but I am peaked my dear sentiment so noble so peculiar to your rivers I am apt to believe there are men in the world that nobleness of mind is not so very peculiar and that some people sentiments may be as noble as other peoples in short I am inclined to fancy if it's Gerald would have acted just the same part in the same situation but it is your great fault my dear Emily to suppose your love of Phoenix whereas here's only an agreeable worthy handsome fellow common order I suppose you will be very angry but who cares I will be angry too surely my Fitzgerald I allow rivers

2:31:13all his merit but comparisons my dear birth are fellows to be sure are charming creatures and I would not change them for a couple of aduncies yet I don't insist upon it that there is nothing agreeable in the world but them you should remember my dear the beauty is in the lover's eye and that however highly you may think of rivers every woman breathing has the same idea of the dear man oh heaven I must tell you because it will flatter your vanity about your charm I have heard a letter from an old lover of mine Quebec who tells me my down day rosh has just refused one of the best matches in the country and vows she will live and die a bachelor there's a mighty foolish resolution and yet I cannot help liking her the better for making it my dear per part talks of taking a house near you and of having a garden to rival yours

2:32:15we shall spend a good deal of time with him and I shall make love to rivers which you know will be vastly pretty one must do something to give a little variety to life and nothing is so amusing or keeps the mind so pleasingly awake especially in the country as the flattery of an agreeable fellow I am not however quite sure I shall not look abroad for a flirt for one's friend's husband is almost as insipid as one's own our romantic adventures being at an end my dear and we being all degenerated into sober people who marry and settle we seem in great danger of sinking into vegetation on which subject I desire rivers' opinion being I know a most exquisite inquirer into the laws of nature love is a pretty invention but I am told his aptum mellow into friendship a degree of perfection at which I by no means desire fit shells attachment for me to arrive on this

2:33:20side 70 what must be due my dear to very our days cards you will own are an agreeable relief and the least subject to palve any pleasures under the sun and really philosophically speaking what is life but an intermittent pool at quadril I am interrupted by a divine kernel in the guards but you your faithful afeet's child letter 228 to Mrs Fitzgerald Bell Field Tuesday I accept your challenge bell and I'm greatly mistaken if you find me so very insipid as you are pleased to suppose I have no fear of falling into vegetation not one amongst us has the least vegetative quality I have a thousand ideas of little amusement to keep the mind awake none of our party are of that sleepy order of beings who want perpetual events to make them feel their existence this is the defect of the cold and inanimate who have not speared in vivacity enough to taste the natural pleasures of life our

2:34:23adventures of one kind are at an end but we shall see others as entertaining springing up every moment I dare say our whole lives will be pindari my only plan of life is to have none at all which I think my little bell will approve pleased observed my as we built to make life pleasant we must not only have great pleasures but little ones like the smaller auxiliary parts of a building we must have our trifling amusements as well as our sublime transports my first second pleasure if you will allow the expression is gardening and for this reason that it is my divine emilys I must teach you to love rural pleasures kernel wellman has made me just as rich as I wish to be you must know my fair friend that whilst I thought of fortunate emily incompatible I had infinite contempt for the former and fancy that it would rather take from them to my happiness but now I can possess it with her I allow it all its value my father with what delight do I call the father of emily by that name hinted at my taking a larger house but I would not leave my native dry ads for imperial palace

2:35:27I have however agreed to let him build a wing to bellfield which it wants to complete the original plan and to furnish it in whatever manner he thinks fit he is to have a house in London and we are to ramble from one to the other as fancy leads us he insists on our having no rule but inclination do you think we are in any danger of educating my dear bill the great science of life is to keep in constant employment that restless act of principle within us which if not direct the right will be eternally drawing us from real to imaginary happiness love all charming as it is requires to be kept alive by such a variety of amusements or other occasions as may prevent the language to which all human pleasures are subject emily's tenderness and delicacy make me ever an expecting lover she contrives little parties of pleasure and by surprise of which she is always the ornament and the soul her own attention is given to make her rivers happy I am the the man who attends her on these little excursions love with us is ever led by the sports and the smiles

2:36:27upon the whole people who have the spirit to act as we have done to dare to choose their own companions for life will generally be happy the affections are the true sources of enjoyment love friendship and if you will allow me to anticipate paternal tenderness all the domestic attachments are sweet beyond words the beneficent offer of nature who gave us these affections for the wisest purposes salah a biann d mong share rivers may you for cool tv no to jadan you write my dear bell and i am operating coxcom lucy's post jesus just setting off to rate your commands i send this by temple servant on Thursday i hope to see our dear group of friends reunite and have nothing to wish but our continuance of our present happiness i do your faithful ad rivers the end end of section five end of the history of emily monqueue volume four by franceus moore brook