You say true, my dear Bell: heaven doubtless formed us to be happy, even in this world; and we obey its dictates in being so, when we can without encroaching on the happiness of others.
This lesson is, I think, plain from the book providence has spread before us: the whole universe smiles, the earth is clothed in lively colors, the animals are playful, the birds sing: in being chearful with innocence, we seem to conform to the order of nature, and the will of that beneficent Power to whom we owe our being.
If the Supreme Creator had meant us to be gloomy, he would, it seems to me, have clothed the earth in black, not in that lively green, which is the livery of chearfulness and joy.
I am called away.
Adieu! my dearest Bell.
Your faithful
Emily Rivers.
LETTER CXCV.199.
To Captain Fitzgerald.
Bellfield, Oct. 14.
You flatter me most agreably, my dear Fitzgerald, by praising Emily; I want you to see her again; she is every hour more charming: I am astonished any man can behold her without love.
Yet, lovely as she is, her beauty is her least merit; the finest understanding, the most pleasing kind of knowledge; tenderness, sensibility, modesty, and truth, adorn her almost with rays of divinity.