I agree to visit every body, but think it mighty absurd I must not take a ride without asking a hundred people I scarce know to go with me: yet this is the style here; they will neither be happy themselves, nor let any body else. Adieu!
Dec. 29.
I will never take a beaver’s word again as long as I live: there is no supporting this cold; the Canadians say it is seventeen years since there has been so severe a season. I thought beavers had been people of more honor.
Adieu! I can no more: the ink freezes as I take it from the standish to the paper, though close to a large stove. Don’t expect me to write again till May; one’s faculties are absolutely congealed this weather.
Yours,
A. Fermor.
LETTER XLIX.49.
To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.
Silleri, Jan. 1.
It is with difficulty I breathe, my dear; the cold is so amazingly intense as almost totally to stop respiration. I have business, the business of pleasure, at Quebec; but have not courage to stir from the stove.
We have had five days, the severity of which none of the natives remember to have ever seen equaled: ’tis said, the cold is beyond all the thermometers here, tho’ intended for the climate.