Kindle Notes & Highlights
“A kind indulgent sleep O’er works of length allowably may creep.” Horace.
As the scene of so great a part of the following work is laid in Canada, I flatter myself there is a peculiar propriety in addressing it to your excellency, to whose probity and enlightened attention the colony owes its happiness, and individuals that tranquillity of mind, without which there can be no exertion of the powers of either the understanding or imagination.
On enquiry and mature deliberation, I prefer Canada to New-York for two reasons, that it is wilder, and that the women are handsomer: the first, perhaps, every body will not approve; the latter, I am sure, you will.
I am not surpriz’d the heathens rais’d altars to friendship: ’twas natural for untaught superstition to deify the source of every good; they worship’d friendship, which animates the moral world, on the same principle as they paid adoration to the sun, which gives life to the world of nature.
It is impossible to behold a scene like this without lamenting the madness of mankind, who, more merciless than the fierce inhabitants of the howling wilderness, destroy millions of their own species in the wild contention for a little portion of that earth, the far greater part of which remains yet unpossest, and courts the hand of labour for cultivation.
if I chose to give you the political state of the country, I could fill volumes with the pours and the contres; but I am not one of those sagacious observers, who, by staying a week in a place, think themselves qualified to give, not only its natural, but it’s its moral and political history: besides which, you and I are rather too young to be very profound politicians.
Indeed! gone to people the wilds of America, Ned, and multiply the human face divine? ’tis a project worthy a tall handsome colonel of twenty seven: let me see; five feet, eleven inches, well made, with fine teeth, speaking eyes, a military air, and the look of a man of fashion: spirit, generosity, a good understanding, some knowledge, an easy address, a compassionate heart, a strong inclination for the ladies, and in short every quality a gentleman should have:
Our fair friend Mrs. H—— says, “Colonel Rivers wants nothing to make him the most agreeable man breathing but a little dash of the coxcomb.”
I hate humility in a man of the world; ’tis worse than even the hypocrisy of the saints: I am not ignorant, and therefore never deny, that I am a very handsome fellow; and I have the pleasure to find all the women of the same opinion.
’tis a happiness, as we are friends, that ’tis impossible we can ever be rivals; a woman is grown out of my taste some years before she comes up to yours: absolutely, Ned, you are too nice; for my part, I am not so delicate; youth and beauty are sufficient for me; give me blooming seventeen, and I cede to you the whole empire of sentiment.
I am most gloriously indolent this morning, and would not write another line if the empire of the world (observe I do not mean the female world) depended on it. Adieu!
’Tis very true, Jack; I have no relish for the Misses; for puling girls in hanging sleeves, who feel no passion but vanity, and, without any distinguishing taste, are dying for the first man who tells them they are handsome. Take your boarding-school girls; but give me a woman; one, in short, who has a soul; not a cold inamimate inanimate form, insensible to the lively impressions of real love, and unfeeling as the wax baby she has just thrown away.
a coquet and a prude in the bud are equally disagreeable; the former expects universal adoration, the latter is alarm’d even at that general civility which is the right of all their sex; of the two however the last is, I think, much the most troublesome; I wish these very apprehensive young ladies knew, their virtue is not half so often in danger as they imagine, and that there are many male creatures to whom they may safely shew politeness without being drawn into any concessions inconsistent with the strictest honor.
the moment they commence wives, they give up the very idea of pleasing, and turn all their thoughts to the cares, and those not the most delicate cares, of domestic life: laborious, hardy, active, they plough the ground, they sow, they reap; whilst the haughty husband amuses himself with hunting, shooting, fishing, and such exercises only as are the image of war; all other employments being, according to his idea, unworthy the dignity of man.
To compensate however for the loss of their charms, they acquire a new empire in marrying; are consulted in all affairs of state, chuse a chief on every vacancy of the throne, are sovereign arbiters of peace and war, as well as of the fate of those unhappy captives that have the misfortune to fall into their hands, who are adopted as children, or put to the most cruel death, as the wives of the conquerors smile or frown.
There is not perhaps on earth a race of females, who talk so much, or feel so little, of love as the French; the very reverse is in general true of the English: my fair countrywomen seem ashamed of the charming sentiment to which they are indebted for all their power.
we gaze at first transported on the charms of nature, and fancy they will please for ever; but, alas! it will not do; we sigh for society, the conversation of those dear to us; the more animated pleasures of the heart.
the general eagerness with which they tell you unask’d they are happy, is a strong proof of the contrary.
for my part, I was charm’d with them, and eat my homely fare with as much pleasure as if I had been feasting on ortolans in a palace. Their conversation is lively and amusing; all the little knowledge of Canada is confined to the sex; very few, even of the seigneurs, being able to write their own names.
I have no relish for this visit; I hate misses that are going to be married; they are always so full of the dear man, that they have not common civility to other people. I am told however both the ladies are agreeable.
Agreeable, Lucy! she is an angel: ’tis happy for me she is engag’d; nothing else could secure my heart, of which you know I am very tenacious: only think of finding beauty, delicacy, sensibility, all that can charm in woman, hid in a wood in Canada!
I adore beauty, but it is not meer features or complexion to which I give that name; ’tis life, ’tis spirit, ’tis animation, ’tis—in one word, ’tis Emily Montague—without being regularly beautiful, she charms every sensible heart; all other women, however lovely, appear marble statues near her:
As I am a philosopher in these matters, and have made the heart my study, I want extremely to see her with her lover, and to observe the gradual encrease of her charms in his presence; love, which embellishes the most unmeaning countenance, must give to her’s a fire irresistible: what eyes! when animated by tenderness! The very soul acquires a new force and beauty by loving; a woman of honor never appears half so amiable, or displays half so many virtues, as when sensible to the merit of a man who deserves her affection.
Nothing is, in my opinion, so favorable to the display of beauty as a ball. A state of rest is ungraceful; all nature is most beautiful in motion; trees agitated by the wind, a ship under sail, a horse in the course, a fine woman dancing: never any human being had such an aversion to still life as I have.
were she but vain, one had some chance, but she will take upon her to have no consciousness, at least no apparent consciousness, of her perfections, which is really intolerable.
Idleness being the root of all evil, and the nurse of love, I am determin’d to keep myself employed;
I feel much more on this occasion than I can express: a mind like hers must, in marriage, be exquisitely happy or miserable:
I know not what the winter may be, but I am enchanted with the beauty of this country in summer; bold, picturesque, romantic, nature reigns here in all her wanton luxuriance, adorned by a thousand wild graces which mock the cultivated beauties of Europe.
But to my savages: other nations talk of liberty, they possess it; nothing can be more astonishing than to see a little village of about thirty or forty families, the small remains of the Hurons, almost exterminated by long and continual war with the Iroquoise, preserve their independence in the midst of an European colony consisting of seventy thousand inhabitants; yet the fact is true of the savages of Lorette; they assert and they maintain that independence with a spirit truly noble.
In the true sense of the word, we are the savages, who so impolitely deprive you of the common rights of citizenship, and leave you no power but that of which we cannot deprive you, the resistless power of your charms.
Their general character is difficult to describe; made up of contrary and even contradictory qualities, they are indolent, tranquil, quiet, humane in peace; active, restless, cruel, ferocious in war: courteous, attentive, hospitable, and even polite, when kindly treated; haughty, stern, vindictive, when they are not; and their resentment is the more to be dreaded, as they hold it a point of honor to dissemble their sense of an injury till they find an opportunity to revenge it.
They despise death, and suffer the most excruciating tortures not only without a groan, but with an air of triumph; singing their death song, deriding their tormentors, and threatening them with the vengeance of their surviving friends: yet hold it honorable to fly before an enemy that appears the least superior in number or force.
What a charm, my dear Lucy, is there in sensibility! ’Tis the magnet which attracts all to itself: virtue may command esteem, understanding and talents admiration, beauty a transient desire; but ’tis sensibility alone which can inspire love.
without giving positive offence, he will every moment wound, because he is a stranger to, all the fine feelings of a heart like hers; she will seek in vain the friend, the lover, she expected; yet, scarce knowing of what to complain, she will accuse herself of caprice, and be astonish’d to find herself wretched with the best husband in the world.
Did I tell you all the men here are in love with your friend Bell Fermor? The women all hate her, which is an unequivocal proof that she pleases the other sex.
could indeed wish my tenderness for him more lively, but perhaps my wishes are romantic. I prefer him to all his sex, but wish my preference was of a less languid nature; there is something in it more like friendship than love; I see him with pleasure, but I part from him without regret; yet he deserves my affection, and I can have no objection to him which is not founded in caprice.
your eager pursuit of pleasure defeats itself; love gives no true delight but where the heart is attach’d, and you do not give yours time to fix.
yet you are discontented, because you have not for him at twenty-four the romantic passion of fifteen, or rather that ideal passion which perhaps never existed but in imagination.
I should not hesitate one moment about marrying; but sit down contented with ease, affluence, and an agreeable man, without expecting to find life what it certainly is not, a state of continual rapture. ’Tis, I am afraid, my dear, your misfortune to have too much sensibility to be happy.
I think all the moral writers, who have set off with promising to shew us the road to happiness, have obligingly ended with telling us there is no such thing; a conclusion extremely consoling, and which if they had drawn before they set pen to paper, would have saved both themselves and their readers an infinity of trouble.
The men here, as I said before, are all dying for me; there are many handsomer women, but I flatter them, and the dear creatures cannot resist it.
Love is indeed the child of caprice;
I will not descend to suppose he presumes on this increase of fortune, but he presumes on the inclination he supposes I have for him; an inclination, however, not violent enough to make me submit to the least ill treatment from him.
With as much beauty, good sense, sensibility, and softness, at least, as any women on earth, no women please so little as the English: depending on their native charms, and on those really amiable qualities which envy cannot deny them, they are too careless in acquiring those enchanting nameless graces, which no language can define, which give resistless force to beauty, and even supply its place where it is wanting.
I wish my amiable countrywomen would consider one moment, that virtue is never so lovely as when dressed in smiles: the virtue of women should have all the softness of the sex; it should be gentle, it should be even playful, to please.
her manner is irresistible: she has all the smiling graces of France, all the blushing delicacy and native softness of England.
but love, the gay child of sympathy and esteem, is, when attended by delicacy, the only happiness worth a reasonable man’s pursuit, and the choicest gift of heaven: it is a softer, tenderer friendship, enlivened by taste, and by the most ardent desire of pleasing, which time, instead of destroying, will render every hour more dear and interesting.
“’Tis true, few men are capable of the purity of these sentiments, and ’tis for that reason we so very seldom see perfect friendship in marriage, at least for any long time: the object which a sensual passion has in view cannot long sustain a commerce so noble as that of friendship.”
You see, the pleasures you so much boast are the least of those which true tenderness has to give, and this in the opinion of a voluptuary.
You have seen beauty, and it has inspired a momentary emotion, but you have never yet had a real attachment; you yet know nothing of that irresistible tenderness, that delirium of the soul, which, whilst it refines, adds strength to passion.
