I die to build a house on this island; it is pity such a sweet spot should be uninhabited: I should like excessively to be Queen of Bic.
Fitzgerald has carved my name on a maple, near the shore; a pretty piece of gallantry in a husband, you will allow: perhaps he means it as taking possession for me of the island.
We are going to cards. Adieu! for the present.
Aug. 18.
’Tis one of the loveliest days I ever saw: we are fishing under the Magdalen islands; the weather is perfectly calm, the sea just dimpled, the sun-beams dance on the waves, the fish are playing on the surface of the water: the island is at a proper distance to form an agreable point of view; and upon the whole the scene is divine.
There is one house on the island, which, at a distance, seems so beautifully situated, that I have lost all desire of fixing at Bic: I want to land, and go to the house for milk, but there is no good landing place on this side; the island seems here to be fenced in by a regular wall of rock.
A breeze springs up; our fishing is at an end for the present: I am afraid we shall not pass many days so agreably as we have done this. I feel horror at the idea of so soon losing sight of land, and launching on the vast Atlantic.
Adieu! yours,
A. Fitzgerald.
LETTER CLXX.174.
To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.