The History of Emily Montague Part 34

Thus far Madame De Maintenon, who must be allowed to have known the heart of man, since, after having been above twenty years a widow, she enflamed, even to the degree of bringing him to marry her, that of a great monarch, younger than herself, surrounded by beauties, habituated to flattery, in the plenitude of power, and covered with glory; and retained him in her chains to the last moment of his life.

Do not, however, my dear, be alarmed at the picture she has drawn of marriage; nor fancy with her, that women are only born to suffer and to obey.

That we are generally tyrannical, I am obliged to own; but such of us as know how to be happy, willingly give up the harsh t.i.tle of master, for the more tender and endearing one of friend; men of sense abhor those customs which treat your s.e.x as if created meerly for the happiness of the other; a supposition injurious to the Deity, though flattering to our tyranny and self-love; and wish only to bind you in the soft chains of affection.

Equality is the soul of friends.h.i.+p: marriage, to give delight, must join two minds, not devote a slave to the will of an imperious lord; whatever conveys the idea of subjection necessarily destroys that of love, of which I am so convinced, that I have always wished the word obey expunged from the marriage ceremony.

If you will permit me to add my sentiments to those of a lady so learned in the art of pleasing; I would wish you to study the taste of your husband, and endeavor to acquire a relish for those pleasures which appear most to affect him; let him find amus.e.m.e.nt at home, but never be peevish at his going abroad; he will return to you with the higher gust for your conversation: have separate apartments, since your fortune makes it not inconvenient; be always elegant, but not too expensive, in your dress; retain your present exquisite delicacy of every kind; receive his friends with good-breeding and complacency; contrive such little parties of pleasure as you know are agreable to him, and with the most agreable people you can select: be lively even to playfulness in your general turn of conversation with him; but, at the same time, spare no pains so to improve your understanding, which is an excellent one, as to be no less capable of being the companion of his graver hours: be ignorant of nothing which it becomes your s.e.x to know, but avoid all affectation of knowledge: let your oeconomy be exact, but without appearing otherwise than by the effect.

Do not imitate those of your s.e.x who by ill temper make a husband pay dear for their fidelity; let virtue in you be drest in smiles; and be a.s.sured that chearfulness is the native garb of innocence.

In one word, my dear, do not lose the mistress in the wife, but let your behaviour to him as a husband be such as you would have thought most proper to attract him as a lover: have always the idea of pleasing before you, and you cannot fail to please.

Having lectured you, my dear Lucy, I must say a word to Temple: a great variety of rules have been given for the conduct of women in marriage; scarce any for that of men; as if it was not essential to domestic happiness, that the man should preserve the heart of her with whom he is to spend his life; or as if bestowing happiness were not worth a man's attention, so he possessed it: if, however, it is possible to feel true happiness without giving it.

You, my dear Temple, have too just an idea of pleasure to think in this manner: you would be beloved; it has been the pursuit of your life, though never really attained perhaps before. You at present possess a heart full of sensibility, a heart capable of loving with ardor, and from the same cause as capable of being estranged by neglect: give your whole attention to preserving this invaluable treasure; observe every rule I have given to her, if you would be happy; and believe me, the heart of woman is not less delicate than tender; their sensibility is more keen, they feel more strongly than we do, their tenderness is more easily wounded, and their hearts are more difficult to recover if once lost.

At the same time, they are both by nature and education more constant, and scarce ever change the object of their affections but from ill treatment: for which reason there is some excuse for a custom which appears cruel, that of throwing contempt on the husband for the ill conduct of the wife.

Above all things, retain the politeness and attention of a lover; and avoid that careless manner which wounds the vanity of human nature, a pa.s.sion given us, as were all pa.s.sions, for the wisest ends, and which never quits us but with life.

There is a certain attentive tenderness, difficult to be described, which the manly of our s.e.x feel, and which is peculiarly pleasing to woman: 'tis also a very delightful sensation to ourselves, as well as productive of the happiest consequences: regarding them as creatures placed by Providence under our protection, and depending on us for their happiness, is the strongest possible tie of affection to a well-turned mind.

If I did not know Lucy perfectly, I should perhaps hesitate in the next advice I am going to give you; which is, to make her the confidante, and the _only_ confidante, of your gallantries, if you are so unhappy as to be inadvertently betrayed into any: her heart will possibly be at first a little wounded by the confession, but this proof of perfect esteem will increase her friends.h.i.+p for you; she will regard your error with compa.s.sion and indulgence, and lead you gently back by her endearing tenderness to honor and herself.

Of all tasks I detest that of giving advice; you are therefore under infinite obligation to me for this letter.

Be a.s.sured of my tenderest affection; and believe me,

Yours, &c.

Ed. Rivers.

LETTER 117.

To the Earl of ----.

Silleri, April 8.

Nothing can be more true, my Lord, than that poverty is ever the inseparable companion of indolence.

I see proofs of it every moment before me; with a soil fruitful beyond all belief, the Canadians are poor on lands which are their own property, and for which they pay only a trifling quit-rent to their seigneurs.

This indolence appears in every thing: you scarce see the meanest peasant walking; even riding on horseback appears to them a fatigue insupportable; you see them lolling at ease, like their lazy lords, in carrioles and calashes, according to the season; a boy to guide the horse on a seat in the front of the carriage, too lazy even to take the trouble of driving themselves, their hands in winter folded in an immense m.u.f.f, though perhaps their families are in want of bread to eat at home.

The winter is pa.s.sed in a mixture of festivity and inaction; dancing and feasting in their gayer hours; in their graver smoking, and drinking brandy, by the side of a warm stove: and when obliged to cultivate the ground in spring to procure the means of subsistence, you see them just turn the turf once lightly over, and, without manuring the ground, or even breaking the clods of earth, throw in the seed in the same careless manner, and leave the event to chance, without troubling themselves further till it is fit to reap.

I must, however, observe, as some alleviation, that there is something in the climate which strongly inclines both the body and mind, but rather the latter, to indolence: the heat of the summer, though pleasing, enervates the very soul, and gives a certain la.s.situde unfavorable to industry; and the winter, at its extreme, binds up and chills all the active faculties of the soul.

Add to this, that the general spirit of amus.e.m.e.nt, so universal here in winter, and so necessary to prevent the ill effects of the season, gives a habit of dissipation and pleasure, which makes labor doubly irksome at its return.

Their religion, to which they are extremely bigoted, is another great bar, as well to industry as population: their numerous festivals inure them to idleness; their religious houses rob the state of many subjects who might be highly useful at present, and at the same time r.e.t.a.r.d the increase of the colony.

Sloth and superst.i.tion equally counterwork providence, and render the bounty of heaven of no effect.

I am surprized the French, who generally make their religion subservient to the purposes of policy, do not discourage convents, and lessen the number of festivals, in the colonies, where both are so peculiarly pernicious.

It is to this circ.u.mstance one may in great measure attribute the superior increase of the British American settlements compared to those of France: a religion which encourages idleness, and makes a virtue of celibacy, is particularly unfavorable to colonization.

However religious prejudice may have been suffered to counterwork policy under a French government, it is scarce to be doubted that this cause of the poverty of Canada will by degrees be removed; that these people, slaves at present to ignorance and superst.i.tion, will in time be enlightened by a more liberal education, and gently led by reason to a religion which is not only preferable, as being that of the country to which they are now annexed, but which is so much more calculated to make them happy and prosperous as a people.

Till that time, till their prejudices subside, it is equally just, humane, and wise, to leave them the free right of wors.h.i.+ping the Deity in the manner which they have been early taught to believe the best, and to which they are consequently attached.

It would be unjust to deprive them of any of the rights of citizens on account of religion, in America, where every other sect of dissenters are equally capable of employ with those of the established church; nay where, from whatever cause, the church of England is on a footing in many colonies little better than a toleration.

It is undoubtedly, in a political light, an object of consequence every where, that the national religion, whatever it is, should be as universal as possible, agreement in religious wors.h.i.+p being the strongest tie to unity and obedience; had all prudent means been used to lessen the number of dissenters in our colonies, I cannot avoid believing, from what I observe and hear, that we should have found in them a spirit of rational loyalty, and true freedom, instead of that factious one from which so much is to be apprehended.

It seems consonant to reason, that the religion of every country should have a relation to, and coherence with, the civil const.i.tution: the Romish religion is best adapted to a despotic government, the presbyterian to a republican, and that of the church of England to a limited monarchy like ours.

As therefore the civil government of America is on the same plan with that of the mother country, it were to be wished the religious establishment was also the same, especially in those colonies where the people are generally of the national church; though with the fullest liberty of conscience to dissenters of all denominations.

I would be clearly understood, my Lord; from all I have observed here, I am convinced, nothing would so much contribute to diffuse a spirit of order, and rational obedience, in the colonies, as the appointment, under proper restrictions, of bishops: I am equally convinced that nothing would so much strengthen the hands of government, or give such pleasure to the well-affected in the colonies, who are by much the most numerous, as such an appointment, however clamored against by a few abettors of sedition.

I am called upon for this letter, and must remit to another time what I wished to say more to your Lords.h.i.+p in regard to this country.

I have the honor to be, My Lord, &c.

Wm. Fermor.

LETTER 118.

To Mrs. Melmoth, at Montreal.

Silleri, April 8.

I am indeed, Madam, this inconsistent creature. I have at once refused to marry Colonel Rivers, and owned to him all the tenderness of my soul.

Do not however think me mad, or suppose my refusal the effect of an unmeaning childish affectation of disinterestedness: I can form to myself no idea of happiness equal to that of spending my life with Rivers, the best, the most tender, the most amiable of mankind; nor can I support the idea of his marrying any other woman: I would therefore marry him to-morrow were it possible without ruining him, without dooming him to a perpetual exile, and obstructing those views of honest ambition at home, which become his birth, his connexions, his talents, his time of life; and with which, as his friend, it is my duty to inspire him.

His affection for me at present blinds him, he sees no object but me in the whole universe; but shall I take advantage of that inebriation of tenderness, to seduce him into a measure inconsistent with his real happiness and interest? He must return to England, must pursue fortune in that world for which he was formed: shall his Emily r.e.t.a.r.d him in the glorious race? shall she not rather encourage him in every laudable attempt? shall she suffer him to hide that s.h.i.+ning merit in the uncultivated wilds of Canada, the seat of barbarism and ignorance, which ent.i.tles him to hope a happy fate in the dear land of arts and arms?

I entreat you to do all you can to discourage his design. Remind him that his sister's marriage has in some degree removed the cause of his coming hither; that he can have now no motive for fixing here, but his tenderness for me; that I shall be justly blamed by all who love him for keeping him here. Tell him, I will not marry him in Canada; that his stay makes the best mother in the world wretched; that he owes his return to himself, nay to his Emily, whose whole heart is set on seeing him in a situation worthy of him: though without ambition as to myself, I am proud, I am ambitious for him; if he loves me, he will gratify that pride, that ambition; and leave Canada to those whose duty confines them here, or whose interest it is to remain unseen. Let him not once think of me in his determination: I am content to be beloved, and will leave all else to time. You cannot so much oblige or serve me, as by persuading Colonel Rivers to return to England.

Believe me, my dear Madam, Your affectionate Emily Montague.