me, Rivers? I am not quite clear I understand
myself.

All that I would insinuate is, that Emily and I are, take us for all
in all, the two most charming women in the world, and that, whoever
leaves us, must change immensely for the worse.

I believe Lucy equally pleasing, but I think her charms have not so
good a subject to work upon.

Temple is a handsome fellow, and loves her; but he has not the
tenderness of heart that I so much admire in two certain youths of my
acquaintance.

He is rich indeed; but who cares?

Certainly, my dear Rivers, nothing can be more absurd, or more
destructive to happiness, than the very wrong turn we give our
children's imaginations about marriage.

If miss and master are good, she is promised a rich husband, and a
coach and six, and he a wife with a monstrous great fortune.

Most of these fine promises must fail; and where they do not, the
poor things have only the consolation of finding, when too late to
retreat, that the objects to which all their wishes were pointed have
really nothing to do with happiness.

Is there a nabobess on earth half as happy as the two foolish little
girls about whom I have been writing, though married to such poor
devils as you and Fitzgerald? _Certainement_ no.

And so ends my sermon.

Adieu!
Your most obedient,
A. Fitzgerald.

LETTER 203.

To John Temple, Esq; Temple-house, Rutland.

Bellfield, Oct. 21.

You ridicule my enthusiasm, my dear Temple, without considering
there is no exertion of the human mind, no effort of the understanding,
imagination, or heart, without a spark of this divine fire.

Without enthusiasm, genius, virtue, pleasure, even love itself,
languishes; all that refines, adorns, softens, exalts, ennobles life,
has its source in this animating principle.

I glory in being an enthusiast in every thing; but in nothing so
much as in my tenderness for this charming woman.

I am a perfect Quixote in love, and would storm enchanted castles,
and fight giants, for my Emily.

Coldness of temper damps every spring that moves the human heart; it
is equally an enemy to pleasure, riches, fame, to all which is worth
living for.

I thank you for your wishes that I was rich, but am by no means
anxious myself on the subject.

You sons of fortune, who possess your thousands a year, and find
them too little for your desires, desires which grow from that very
abundance, imagine every man miserable wh