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 childrenschildren’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 CXCI.203.
To John Temple, Esq; Temple-house, Rutland.