 Section 5 of the History of Emily Montague, Volume 4 by Francis Moore-Brook. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Letters 217 through 228. Letter 217. To Captain Fitzgerald Balfield, November 16. My relation, Colonel Wilmot, 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 Balfield on Wednesday evening, which is Temple's masquerade. I shall stay behind at Balfield 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, till he is seen, Emily. 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 and that he shall sit next to her at supper without their 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 father's, 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, Lucy and I will fetch her to Temple House. I shall be anxious to see her married to a man who deserves her. Colonel Wilmot 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 Emily. My delicacy is heard at the idea of her knowing it, at least from 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 Emily's tenderness as a treasure above all price. She does not even hint a wish to see me richer than I am. Had I ever seen Emily, 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 pardonable. I'd almost said so, becoming at nineteen. I have seen more of the world than most men of my age, and I have seen the advantages of affluence in their strongest light. 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 never will, but not by base means, and in my opinion the very basis does that of selling one's hand in marriage. With what horror do we regard a man who is kept, and a man who marries from interest of use alone is kept in the strongest sense of the word? He is equally a purchased slave with no distinction, but that his bondage is of longer continuance. Adieu, I may possibly write again on Wednesday, Your Faithful at Riverus. Letter two hundred and eighteen. Two Colonel Rivers, Bellefield, Rutland. London, November the eighteenth. Fitzgerald is busy, and begs me to write to you. Your cottages are arrived. There is something very interesting in Miss Williams, and the little boy is an infundedowness. Heaven's send he may be an honester man than his father, or I foresee terrible devastations among the sex. We have this moment, your letter, and I am angry with you for blaspheming the sweet season of nineteen. O lovely source of generous foibles, youth, when opening minds are honest 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 prescribe 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 am a daughter of the Muses, that I wrote pastorals at 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 Papa had not attempted to teach me how to be one, and insisted on seeing my scribbles as I went on. These same Muses are such bashful Misses, they won't bear to be looked at. Genius is like the sensitive plant, it shrinks from the touch. So your Nabok cousin is arrived. I hope he will fall in love with Emily. And remember, if he had obligations to Mrs. Rivers' father, he had exactly the same to your grandfather. He might spare ten thousand pounds very well, which would improve your petit super. Adieu, Sir William Verville dines here, and I have but just time to dress. Yours, A. Fitzgerald. Letter two hundred and nineteen. To Captain Fitzgerald, Bellefield, November seventeen, morning. I have had a letter from Colonel Wilmot, myself, today. He is still quite unacquainted with the state of our domestic affairs, supposes 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 of fortune as himself. Their families, who on both sides had other views, joined their interest to get him sent to the East Indies. 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. The marriage was known only to her brother, who was Wilmot's friend. He left her 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 him 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 a 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 his 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 I am to be surprised. Seven. Colonel Wilmot has come. He is an extreme, handsome man, tall, well-made, with an air of dignity which one seldom sees. He is very brown, and what will please bell has an aquiline nose. He looks about fifty, 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 masquerade, I must attend him. I have only time to say. I am yours at Rivers. Letter two hundred and twenty. Two Mrs. Rivers, Bellefield, Brotland, London, November the eighteenth, twelve at night. Who should I dine and sup with today, at a merchants in the city, but your old love, Sir George Clayton, as gay and amusing 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 sepidity 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 them. 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 Hanover Square, to a very agreeable fellow of our acquaintance, Mr. Palmer, a man of sense and honour, who deserves her had she been ten times richer. He has a small estate in Lincolnshire, and his house is not above twenty 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 belle parisane, and you exulting in your charms, or, in other words, glories in your strength. So the maiden aunts in your neighbourhood think Miss Williams no better than she should be. Either somebody has said, or the idea is my own. After all, I believe it shenstones, that those are generally the best people, whose characters have been most injured by slanderers, 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 virgins if they had always a suspicious circumstances to determine from. But they generally condemn from trifling in discretions, and settle the characters of their own sex from their conduct, at a time of life when they are themselves no judges of its propriety. They pass 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 indiscretion are generally people who have very little active virtue. The waving line holds in moral as well as in corporal beauty. Adieu, yours ever, aif it's jailed. All I can say is, that if imprudence is a sin, heaven help your poor little bell. On those principles Sir George is the most virtuous man in the world, to which assertion, I believe, you will enter a caveate. Letter 221 Two Colonel Rivers at Bellefield, Rotland, London, November the 19th. You are right, my little rivers, I like your friend, Colonel Wilmot, vastly better for his aquiline 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. Fitzgerald says he should be jealous of him in your esteem, if he was fifteen years younger, but that the strongest friendships are where there is inequality 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 its 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 to business, Sir William is charmed with his little nephew, has promised to settle on him what he before mentioned to allow Miss Williams a hundred pounds a year, 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. Pray tell us everything, and you, your affectionate A. Fitzgerald. Letter 222 to Captain Fitzgerald, Temple House Thursday morning, eleven o'clock. Our masquerade last night was really charming. I never saw anything equal to it out of London. Temple has taste, and had spared no expense to make it agreeable. The decorations of the Grand Saloon were magnificent. Emily was the loveliest Pazan 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. Her turn ever shaped the lovely roundness of her arm, the 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 can paint, the pleasing idea of a wooden imp, designing to visit some favored mortal. Colonel Wellmott gazed on her with raptor 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 her impression, to as well I was married in time. A Nabop is a dangerous rival. Lucy looked 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 with thisless 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 are going this morning to see Burley. When we return I shall announce Colonel Wellmott to Emily and introduce them properly to each other. They are to go in the same chase. She at present only knows him as a friend of mine and he, her asses, bell, buzzed on. Adieu, I am summoned. You're faithful, Ed Rivers. I should have told you I acquainted Colonel Wellmott with my sister's marriage before I took him to Temple House and found an opportunity of introducing him to Temple unobserved. 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. Adieu. Clutter 223 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 armed 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 amiable, 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 of the rivers. Who tells me I have made a conquest of his friend. He is to be my cavalier this morning to Burleigh. 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 masquerade. I do not even know this agreeable stranger's name. I only found out by his conversation he had served in the army. Seeing 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 nothing 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 a goddess 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 side 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. Temple's 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 Aurelia 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 Burley which I have not yet seen. Adieu. Yours. Emily Rivers. Letter 224 to Captain Fitzgerald Belfield Thursday 2 o'clock. We are returned. Colonel Wilmot is charmed with Burley and more in love with Emily than ever. He is gone to his apartment with her eyes shall follow him and acquaint him with my marriage. He is exactly in the disposition I could wish. He will I am sure pardon any offence of which his Belfi zone is that cause. I am returned. He is disappointed but not surprised when a human heart could have resisted Emily that she will allow his daughter a place in her friendship. He insists on making her a president of diamonds. The only condition he tells me on which he will forgive my marriage. I am going to introduce him to her in her apartment. Adieu for a moment. Fitzgerald 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 Colonel Wilmot. I am going to announce to him to her by 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 sunk breathless on a sofa. He ran to her. He pressed her wildly to his bosom. He kissed her pale cheek. He demanded if she was indeed his child. He is Emily the dear pledge of his Emily Montague's tenderness. Her senses returned. She fixed her eyes eagerly on him. She kissed his hand. She would have spoke but tears stopped her voice. The scene that followed is beyond my powers of description. I have left them a moment to share my joy with you. The time is too precious to say more. Tomorrow you shall hear from me. Adieu yours, Ed Rivers. Letter 225 to Captain Fitzgerald Temple House Friday. Your friend is the happiest of mankind. Every anxiety is removed from our Emily's dear bosom. A father's sanction leaves her nothing to desire. You may remember she wished to delay our marriage. Her motive was to wait Colonel Wilmot's return. 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 solemn bow she concealed the circumstances of her birth even from me. She resolved never to marry another yet thought. She obliged her to wait her father's arrival. She kindly supposed he would see me with her eyes and when he knew me changed his design in my favor she fancied he would crown her love as the reward of her obedience in delaying her marriage. My importunity and the fear of giving me room to doubt her tenderness as her vow prevented such an explanation as would have satisfied me bore down her duty to a father whom she had never seen and whom she had supposed dead till the arrival of his 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 hoped by that means to discharge her father's obligations which she could not pay at the expense of sacrificing her heart but she writes to Mrs. Fitzgerald and will tell you all come and share the happiness of your friends adieu your faithful Ed Rivers. 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 in filial 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 I 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 she bends in grateful thanks to that indulgent power who has rewarded her son for all his goodness to her rivers hears 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 father's affairs were at that time in a situation which determined my uncle to take the first opportunity of 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 till the letters you brought me from Mrs. Melmouth a variety of accidents and our being both abroad and in such distant parts of the world prevented 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 resistless as the bolt of heaven the first glance of those dear speaking eyes gave me a new being and awaked in 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 from me I counted as lost in my existence I loved him that tenderness hourly increased I hated Sir George I sensed him changed I studied to find errors in a man who had a few weeks before appeared to me amiable in whom I had consented to marry I broke with him and felt a weight removed from 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 when my strength 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. Malmas letter 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 and therefore thought at 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 Belle how strongly I was affected on reading those letters I wrote to rivers to beg him to defer our marriage 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 have used 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 my 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 endeavours 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 with 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 unless I should hear of it and from my romantic disinterestedness want him to accept it pressed our marriage with more importunity 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 Bellefield and brought from thence my mother's picture which I have just sent him adieu your faithful Emily Rivers letter 227 to Mrs. Rivers Bellefield Rutland 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 felicity 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 Berkshire by lengthening our visit to your marriage lest any friend of your father's in London should know his design and chance acquaint you with it Fitzgerald is Monsieur le Meurre 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 rewards 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 which begins with indifference will certainly end in disgust and aversion I bespeak your papa for my cheesy bail mine is extremely at your service in return but I am peaked my dear sentiments 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's sentiments may be as noble as other people's in short I am inclined to fancy Fitzgerald would have acted just the same part in the same situation but it is your great fault my dear Emily to suppose your lover Phoenix whereas he is 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 all his merit but comparisons my dear both our fellows to be sure are charming creatures and I would not change them for a couple of adonises 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 charmer I have had a letter from an old lover of mine Quebec who tells me Madame de Roche has just refused one of the best matches in the country and vows she will live and die a bachelor it is a mighty foolish resolution and yet I cannot help liking her the better for making it my dear papa talks of taking a house near you and of having a garden to rival yours we 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 it is apt to mellow into friendship a degree of perfection at which I by no means desire fits Gerald's attachment for me to arrive on this side, haven't I what must we do, my dear to vary 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 colonel in the guards Adieu, your faithful A. Fitzgerald Letter 228 to Mrs. Fitzgerald Bellefield Tuesday I accept your challenge, Belle and am 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 amusements 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 and hold an inanimate who have not spirit and vivacity enough to taste the natural pleasures of life our adventures of one kind are at an end but we shall see others as entertaining springing up every moment I daresay our whole lives will be pindaric my only plan of life is to have none at all which I think my little Belle will approve pleased to observe my sweet Belle to make life pleasant we must not only have great pleasures but little ones like the smaller auxiliary parts of a building we must not only have great pleasure of trifling amusements as well as our sublime transports my first second pleasure if you will allow the expression as gardening and for this reason that it is my divine Emily's I must teach you to love rural pleasures Colonel Wellmont has made me just as rich as I wish to be you must know my fair friend that whilst I thought of fortune and Emily incompatible I had infinite contempt for the former and fancy that it would rather 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 adds for an imperial palace I have however agreed to let him build a wing to Belle Field 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 insist on no rule but inclination do you think we are in any danger of vegetating my dear Belle the great science of life is to keep in constant employment that restless active principle within us which if not directed 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 avocations as may prevent the languor to which all human pleasures are subject Emily's tenderness 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 whole attention is given to make her rivers happy I envy the man who attends her on these little excursions love with us is ever led by the sports and the smiles up on 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 BND Mon Cher rivers may you for cool TV not or Jada you're right my dear bell and I am operating Coxcombe Lucy's post jays is just setting off to wait your commands I send this by temple seven on Thursday I hope to see our dear group of friends reunited and have nothing to wish but a continuance of our present happiness adieu your faithful ed rivers the end end of section five end of the history of Emily Montague volume four by Francis Morebrook