Yours,
A. Fermor.



LETTER 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.

The strongest wine freezes in a room which has a stove in it; even
brandy is thickened to the consistence of oil: the largest wood fire,
in a wide chimney, does not throw out its heat a quarter of a yard.

I must venture to Quebec to-morrow, or have company at home:
amusements are here necessary to life; we must be jovial, or the blood
will freeze in our veins.

I no longer wonder the elegant arts are unknown here; the rigour of