Chapter 179

To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland.

London, Sept. 15.

Every mark of your friendship, my dear Rivers, must be particularly pleasing to one who knows your worth as I do: I have, therefore, to thank you as well for your letter, as for those obliging offers of service, which I shall make no scruple of accepting, if I have occasion for them.

I rejoice in the prospect of your being as happy as myself: nothing can be more just than your ideas of marriage; I mean, of a marriage founded on inclination: all that you describe, I am so happy as to experience.

I never loved my sweet girl so tenderly as since she has been mine; my heart acknowledges the obligation of her having trusted the future happiness or misery of her life in my hands. She is every hour more dear to me; I value as I ought those thousand little attentions, by which a new softness is every moment given to our affection.

I do not indeed feel the same tumultuous emotion at seeing her; but I feel a sensation equally delightful: a joy more tranquil, but not less lively.

I will own to you, that I had strong prejudices against marriage, which nothing but love could have conquered; the idea of an indissoluble union deterred me from thinking of a serious engagement: I attached myself to the most seducing, most attractive of women, without thinking the pleasure I found in seeing her of any consequence; I thought her lovely, but never suspected I loved; I thought the delight I tasted in hearing her, merely the effects of those charms which all the world found in her conversation; my vanity was gratified by the flattering preference she gave me to the rest of my sex; I fancied this all, and imagined I could cease seeing the little syren whenever I pleased.

I was, however, mistaken; love stole upon me imperceptibly, and _en badinant_; I was enslaved, when I only thought myself amused.

We have not yet seen Miss Montague; we go down on Friday to Berkshire, Bell having some letters for her, which she was desired to deliver herself.

I will write to you again the moment I have seen her.

The invitation Mr. and Mrs. Temple have been so obliging as to give us, is too pleasing to ourselves not to be accepted; we also expect with impatience the time of visiting you at your farm.

Adieu! Your affectionate J. Fitzgerald.