My brother will write to Mr. Fitzgerald next post: say every thing affectionate for us all to him and Captain Fermor. Adieu! Yours, Lucy Temple. LETTER 177. To Captain Fitzgerald. Bellfield, Sept. 13. I congratulate you, my dear friend, on your safe arrival, and on your marriage. You have got the start of me in happiness; I love you, however, too sincerely to envy you. Emily has promised me her hand, as soon as some little family affairs are settled, which I flatter myself will not take above another week. When she gave me this promise, she begged me to allow her to return to Berkshire till our marriage took place; I felt the propriety of this step, and therefore would not oppose it: she pleaded having some business also to settle with her relation there. My mother has given back the deed of settlement of my estate, and accepted of an assignment on my half pay: she is greatly a loser; but she insisted on making me happy, with such an air of tenderness, that I could not deny her that satisfaction. I shall keep some land in my own hands, and farm; which will enable me to have a post chaise for Emily, and my mother, who will be a good deal with us; and a constant decent table for a friend. Emily is to superintend the dairy and garden; she has a passion for flowers, with which I am extremely pleased, as it will be to her a continual source of pleasure. I feel such delight in the idea of making her happy, that I think nothing a trifle which can be in the least degree pleasing to her. I could even wish to invent new pleasures for her gratification. I hope to be happy; and to make the loveliest of womankind so, because my notions of the state, into which I am entering, are I hope just, and free from that romantic turn so destructive to happiness. I have, once in my life, had an attachment nearly resembling marriage, to a widow of rank, with whom I was acquainted abroad; and with whom I almost secluded myself from the world near a twelvemonth, when she died of a fever, a stroke I was long before I recovered. I loved her with tenderness; but that love, compared to what I feel for Emily, was as a grain of sand to the globe of earth, or the weight of a feather to the universe. A marriage where not only esteem, but passion is kept awake, is, I am convinced, the most perfect state of sublunary happiness: but it requires great care to keep this tender plant alive; especially, I blush to say it, on our side. Women are naturally more constant, education improves this happy disposition: the husband who has the politeness, the attention, and delicacy of a lover, will always be beloved. The same is generally, but not always, true on the other side: I have sometimes seen the most amiable, the most delicate of the sex, fail in keeping the affection of their husbands.