To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.

Quebec, July 4.

What an inconstant animal is man! do you know, Lucy, I begin to be
tir'd of the lovely landscape round me? I have enjoy'd from it all the
pleasure meer inanimate objects can give, and find 'tis a pleasure that
soon satiates, if not relieved by others which are more lively. The
scenery is to be sure divine, but one grows weary of meer scenery: the
most enchanting prospect soon loses its power of pleasing, when the eye
is accustom'd to it: we gaze at first transported on the charms of
nature, and fancy they will please for ever; but, alas! it will not
do; we sigh for society, the conversation of those dear to us; the
more animated pleasures of the heart. There are fine women, and men of
merit here; but, as the affections are not in our power, I have not
yet felt my heart gravitate towards any of them. I must absolutely set
in earnest about my settlement, in order to emerge from the state of
vegetation into which I seem falling.

But to your last: you ask me a particular account of the convents
here. Have you an inclination, my dear, to turn nun? if you have, you
could not have applied to a properer person; my extreme modesty and
reserve, and my speaking French, having made me already a great
favourite with the older part of all the three communities, who
unanimously declare colonel Rivers to be _un tres aimable homme_,
and have given me an unlimited liberty of visiting them whenever I
please: they now and then treat _me_ with a sight of some of the
young ones, but this is a favor not allow'd to all the world.