LETTER CXII.114.
To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.
Silleri, March 29.
We are going to dine at a farm house in the country, where we are to meet other company, and have a ball: the snow begins a little to soften, from the warmth of the sun, which is greater than in England in May. Our winter parties are almost at an end.
My father drives Madame Des Roches, who is of our party, and your brother Emily; I hope the little fool will be easy now, Lucy; she is very humble, to be jealous of one, who, though really very pleasing, is neither so young nor so handsome as herself; and who professes to wish only for Rivers’s friendship.
But I have no right to say a word on this subject, after having been so extremely hurt at Fitzgerald’s attention to such a woman as Madame La Brosse; an attention too which was so plainly meant to pique me.
We are all, I am afraid, a little absurd in these affairs, and therefore ought to have some degree of indulgence for others.
Emily and I, however, differ in our ideas of love: it is the business of her life, the amusement of mine; ’tis the food of her hours, the seasoning of mine.
Or, in other words, she loves like a foolish woman, I like a sensible man: for men, you know, compared to women, love in about the proportion of one to twenty.
’Tis a mighty wrong thing, after all, Lucy, that parents will educate creatures so differently, who are to live with and for each other.