e proof: had I staid
three days longer, it would have been impossible to have continued my
journey.

The ice cracks under us at every step the horses set, a rather
unpleasant circumstance on a river twenty fathom deep: I should not
have attempted the journey had I been aware of this particular. I hope
no man meets inevitable danger with more spirit, but no man is less
fond of seeking it where it is honorably to be avoided.

I am going to sup with the seigneur of the village, who is, I am
told, married to one of the handsomest women in the province.

Adieu! my dear! I shall write to you from Montreal.

Your affectionate
Ed. Rivers.

LETTER 116.

To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.

Montreal, April 3.

I am arrived, my dear, after a very disagreable and dangerous
journey; I was obliged to leave the river soon after I left Des
Chambeaux, and to pursue my way on the land over melting snow, into
which the horses feet sunk half a yard every step.

An officer just come from New York has given me a letter from you,
which came thither by a private ship: I am happy to hear of your
health, and that Temple's affection for you seems rather to increase
than lessen since your marriage.

You ask me, my dear Lucy, how to preserve this affection, on the
continuance of which, you justly say, your whole happiness depends.

The question is perhaps the most delicate and important which
respects human life; the caprice, the inconstancy, the injustice of
men, makes the task of women in marriage infinitely difficult.

Prudence and virtue will certainly secure esteem; but,
unfortunately, esteem alone will not make a happy marriage; passion
must also be kept alive, which the continual presence of the object
beloved is too apt to make subside into that apathy, so insupportable
to sensible minds.

The higher your rank, and the less your manner of life separates you
from each other, the more danger there will be of this indifference.

The poor, whose necessary avocations divide them all day, and whose
sensibility is blunted by the coarseness of their education, are in no
danger of being weary of each other; and, unless naturally vicious, you
will see them generally happy in marriage; whereas even the virtuous,
in more affluent situations, are not secure from this unhappy cessation
of tenderness.

When I received your letter, I was reading Madame De Maintenon's
advice to the Dutchess of Burgundy, on this subject. I w