The History of Emily Montague

by Frances Brooke

Believe me, Jack, the meer pleasure of loving, even without a return, is superior to all the joys of sense where the heart is untouched: the French poet does not exaggerate when he says, —Amour; Tous les autres plaisirs ne valent pas tes peines. You will perhaps call me mad; I am just come from a woman who is capable of making all mankind so. Adieu!

should tell you, they are so indolent as never to manure their lands, or even their gardens; and that, till the English came, all the manure of Quebec was thrown into the river.

We, the ladies I mean, drink chocolate with the general to-morrow, and he gives us a ball on Thursday; you would not know Quebec again; nothing but smiling faces now; all so gay as never was, the sweetest country in the world; never expect to see me in England again; one is really somebody here: I have been asked to dance by only twenty-seven.

It is really pretty enough that every absurd animal, who takes upon him to make love to one, is to fancy himself entitled to a return: I have no patience with the men’s ridiculousness: have you, Lucy?

I respect her engagements, and pretend to no more from her than her friendship; but, as to myself, will love her in whatever manner I please: to shew you my prudence, however, I intend to dance with the handsomest unmarried Frenchwoman here on Thursday, and to shew her an attention which shall destroy all suspicion of my tenderness for Emily. I am jealous of Sir George, and hate him; but I dissemble it better than I thought it possible for me to do.

An enchanting ball, my dear; your little friend’s head is turned. I was more admired than Emily, which to be sure did not flatter my vanity at all: I see she must content herself with being beloved, for without coquetry ’tis in vain to expect admiration. We had more than three hundred persons at the ball; above three fourths men; all gay and well dressed, an elegant supper; in short, it was charming.

I will think further of it: there is nothing more easy than to have him if I chuse it: ’tis only saying to some of his friends, that I think Captain Fitzgerald the most agreable fellow here, and he will immediately be astonished he did not sooner find out I was the handsomest woman. I will consider this affair seriously; one must marry, ’tis the mode; every body marries; why don’t you marry, Lucy?

Adieu! I shall be about a fortnight absent: by that time she will be embarked for England. I cannot bring myself to see her the wife of another. Do not be alarmed for me; reason and the impossibility of success will conquer my passion for this angelic woman; I have been to blame in allowing myself to see her so often.

What an escape have I had! I was within four and twenty hours of either determining to marry a man with whom I fear I have little chance to be happy, or of breaking with him in a manner that would have subjected one or both of us to the censures of a prying impertinent world,

’Tis with pain I see that Sir George, with a splendid income, is avaricious, selfish, proud, vain, and profuse; lavish to every caprice of vanity and ostentation which regards himself, coldly inattentive to the real wants of others.

London, July 23. You have no idea, Ned, how much your absence is lamented by the dowagers, to whom, it must be owned, your charity has been pretty extensive. It would delight you to see them condoling with each other on the loss of the dear charming man, the man of sentiment, of true taste, who admires the maturer beauties, and thinks no woman worth pursuing till turned of twenty-five: ’tis a loss not to be made up; for your taste, it must be owned, is pretty singular.

Married women are, on my principles, forbidden fruit; I abhor the seduction of innocence; I am too delicate, and (with all my modesty) too vain, to be pleased with venal beauty: what was I then to do, with a heart too active to be absolutely at rest, and which had not met with it’s its counterpart? Widows were, I thought, fair prey, as being sufficiently experienced to take care of themselves.

Do you know I am almost angry? Your ideas of love are narrow and pedantic; custom has done enough to make the life of one half of our species tasteless; but you would reduce them to a state of still greater insipidity than even that to which our tyranny has doomed them.

As to myself, I persist in my opinion, that women are most charming when they join the attractions of the mind to those of the person, when they feel the passion they inspire; or rather, that they are never charming till then. A woman in the first bloom of youth resembles a tree in blossom; when mature, in fruit: but a woman who retains the charms of her person till her understanding is in its full perfection, is like those trees in happier climes, which produce blossoms and fruit together.

tell you that I would wish you to be as little acquainted with him as politeness allows? He is a most agreable man, perhaps too agreable, with a thousand amiable qualities; he is the man I love above all others; and, where women are not concerned, a man of the most unblemished honor: but his manner of life is extremely libertine, and his ideas of women unworthy the rest of his character; he knows not the perfections which adorn the valuable part of your sex, he is a stranger to your virtues, and incapable, at least I fear so, of that tender affection which alone can make an amiable woman happy.

he has all the splendid virtues which command esteem; is noble, generous, disinterested, open, brave; and is the most dangerous man on earth to a woman of honor, who is unacquainted with the arts of man.

Fitzgerald was my partner, who grows upon me extremely; the monkey has a way of being attentive and careless by turns, which has an amazing effect; nothing attaches a woman of my temper so much to a lover as her being a little in fear of losing him; and he keeps up the spirit of the thing admirably.

savages assure us, my dear, on the information of the beavers, that we shall have a very mild winter: it seems, these creatures have laid in a less winter stock than usual. I take it very ill, Lucy, that the beavers have better intelligence than we have.

have a doubt. Though I approve your contempt of the false glitter of the world, yet I think it a little strained at your time of life: did I not know you as well as I do, I should say that philosophy in a young and especially a female mind, is so out of season, as to be extremely suspicious. The pleasures which attend on affluence are too great, and too pleasing to youth, to be overlooked, except when under the influence of a livelier passion.

I am very fond of him, though he never makes love to me, in which circumstance he is very singular: our friendship is quite platonic, at least on his side, for I am not quite so sure on the other.

I must also be well convinced of her tenderness before I make a declaration of mine: she must not distinguish me because I flatter her, but because she thinks I have merit; those fancied passions, where gratified vanity assumes the form of love, will not satisfy my heart: the eyes, the air, the voice of the woman I love, a thousand little indiscretions dear to the heart, must convince me I am beloved, before I confess I love.

After all, I am a little droll; I am angry with Emily for concluding an advantageous match with a man she does not absolutely dislike, which all good mammas say is sufficient;

you intend, my dear Jack, to marry when you are quite tired of a life of gallantry: the lady will be much obliged to you for a heart, the refuse of half the prostitutes in town; a heart, the best feelings of which will be entirely obliterated; a heart hardened by a long commerce with the most unworthy of the sex; and which will bring disgust, suspicion, coldness, and depravity of taste, to the bosom of sensibility and innocence.

You judge perfectly well, my dear, in checking the natural vivacity of your temper, however pleasing it is to all who converse with you: coquetry is dangerous to English women, because they have sensibility; it is more suited to the French, who are naturally something of the salamander kind.

Emily persists in resolving to break with Sir George; he thinks it decent to combat her resolution, lest he should lose the praise of generosity: he is also piqued to see her give him up with such perfect composure, though I am convinced he will not be sorry upon the whole to be given up; he has, from the first receipt of the letter, plainly wished her to resign him, but hoped for a few faintings and tears, as a sacrifice to his vanity on the occasion.

Have you not observed that, when I have timidly hazarded my ideas on the delicacy necessary to keep love alive in marriage, and the difficulty of preserving the heart of the object beloved in so intimate an union, he has indolently assented, with a coldness not to be described, to sentiments which it is plain from his manner he did not understand; whilst another, not interested in the conversation, has, by his countenance, by the fire of his eyes, by looks more eloquent than all language, shewed his soul was of intelligence with mine!

“Whatever is my fate, no situation can be equally unhappy with that of being wife to a man for whom I have not even the slightest friendship or esteem, for whose conversation I have not the least taste, and who, if I know him, would for ever think me under an obligation to him for marrying me.

“I have the pleasure to see I give no pain to his heart, by a step which has relieved mine from misery: his feelings are those of wounded vanity, not of love.

The vulgar of every rank expect happiness where it is not to be found, in the ideal advantages of splendor and dissipation; those who dare to think, those minds who partake of the celestial fire, seek it in the real solid pleasures of nature and soft affection.

I love her with a tenderness of which few of my sex are capable: you have often told me, and you were right, that my heart has all the sensibility of woman.

However, she has, in my opinion, done the wisest thing in the world; that is, she has pleased herself.

If beauty, as I will take the liberty to assert, is given us for the purpose of pleasing, she who pleases most, that is to say, she who excites the most passion, is to all intents and purposes the most beautiful woman;

The man who from vanity, or perhaps only to amuse an idle hour, can appear to be attached where he is not, and by that means seduce the heart of a deserving woman, or indeed of any woman, falls in my opinion very little short in baseness of him who practises a greater degree of seduction.

I considered that the ladies, though another may be the object, always regard with a kind of complacency a man who loves, as one who acknowledges the power of the sex, whereas an indifferent is a kind of rebel to their empire;

she had heard, no love was so tender as that which was the child of friendship; but that of this she was convinced, that no friendship was so tender as that which was the child of love; that she offered me this tender, this lively friendship, and would for the future find her happiness in the consideration of mine.

You cannot conceive what pleasure I find in her conversation; she has an admirable understanding, a feeling heart, and a mixture of softness and spirit in her manner, which is peculiarly pleasing to men.

and as to love, I begin to think men incapable of feeling it: some of them can indeed talk well on the subject; but self-interest and vanity are the real passions of their souls. I detest the whole sex.

Why should any man retire from society whilst he is capable of contributing to the pleasures of it? Wit, vivacity, good-nature, and politeness, give an eternal youth, as stupidity and moroseness a premature old age.

I however know too well the free spirit of woman, of which she has her full share, to let Bell know I approve her choice; I am even in doubt whether it would not be good policy to seem to dislike the match, in order to secure her consent: there is something very pleasing to a young girl, in opposing the will of her father.

I wanted her to treat him with a saucy, unconcerned, flippant air; but her whole appearance is gentle, tender, I had almost said, supplicating: I am ashamed of the folly of my own sex: O, that I could to-day inspire her with a little of my spirit! she is a poor tame household dove, and there is no making any thing of her.

I think I am not angry now; as to Emily, her eyes dance with pleasure; she has not the same countenance as in the morning; this love is the finest cosmetick in the world. After all, he is a charming fellow, and has eyes, Lucy—Heaven be praised, he never pointed their fire at me!

I took an opportunity of hinting my concern at having, though without knowing it, offended her: she blushed, she looked down, she again raised her lovely eyes, they met mine, she sighed; I took her hand, she withdrew it, but not in anger; a smile, like that of the poet’s Hebe, told me I was forgiven.

I flew to meet him, and left my love to finish the conversation alone.

I am the happiest of all possible women; Fitzgerald is in the sullens about your brother; surely there is no pleasure in nature equal to that of plaguing a fellow who really loves one, especially if he has as much merit as Fitzgerald, for otherwise he would not be worth tormenting. He had better not pout with me: I believe I know who will be tired first.

There is something very interesting to female curiosity in the idea of these very formidable men, whom no woman can see without danger; we gaze on the terrible creature at a distance, see nothing in him so very alarming; he approaches, our little hearts palpitate with fear, he is gentle, attentive, respectful; we are surprized at this respect, we are sure the world wrongs the dear civil creature; he flatters, we are pleased with his flattery; our little hearts still palpitate—but not with fear. In short, my dear brother, if you wish to serve a friend with us, describe him as the most dangerous of his sex; the very idea that he is so, makes us think resistance vain, and we throw down our defensive arms in absolute despair.

If she is yours, may you know her value, and you cannot fail of being happy:

Good people, as your Lordship observes, are generally too retired and abstracted to let their example be of much service to the world: whereas the bad, on the contrary, are conspicuous to all; they stand forth, they appear on the fore ground of the picture, and force themselves into observation.

It is much easier to commence an affair of this kind than to break it off; and a man, though his heart was disengaged, should be always on his guard against any thing like an attachment where his affections are not really interested: meer passion or meer vanity will support an affair en passant; but, where the least degree of constancy and attention are expected, the heart must feel, or the lover is subjecting himself to a slavery as irksome as a marriage without inclination.

Both were to blame, but I always love to save the ladies from any thing mortifying to the dignity of their characters; a little pride in love becomes them, but not us; and ’tis always our part to submit on these occasions.

These Frenchwomen are not to be supported; they fancy vanity and assurance are to make up for the want of every other virtue; forgetting that delicacy, softness, sensibility, tenderness, are attractions to which they are strangers: some of them here are however tolerably handsome, and have a degree of liveliness which makes them not quite insupportable.