Yours,
A. Fermor.



LETTER 21.


To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall.

Montreal, Sept. 24.

What you say, my dear friend, is more true than I wish it was; our
English women of character are generally too reserved; their manner is
cold and forbidding; they seem to think it a crime to be too
attractive; they appear almost afraid to please.

'Tis to this ill-judged reserve I attribute the low profligacy of
too many of our young men; the grave faces and distant behaviour of
the generality of virtuous women fright them from their acquaintance,
and drive them into the society of those wretched votaries of vice,
whose conversation debases every sentiment of their souls.

With as much beauty, good sense, sensibility, and softness, at
least, as any women on earth, no women please so little as the English:
depending on their native charms, and on those really amiable qualities
which envy cannot deny them, they are too careless in acquiring those
enchanting nameless graces, which no language can define, which give
resistless force to beauty, and even supply its place where it is
wanting.