The probability to which all the intelligence from my sister has pointed¹ of late turns out to be a fact.  There is an engagement, or almost an engagement, announced between my dear Caroline and M. de la Feste—to Caroline’s sublime² happiness, and my mother’s entire satisfaction; as well as to that of the Marlets.  They and my mother seem to know all about the young man—which is more than I do, though a little extended information about him, considering that I am Caroline’s elder sister, would not have been amiss.  I half feel with my father, who is much surprised, and, I am sure, not altogether satisfied, that he should not have been consulted at all before matters reached such a definite stage, though he is too amiable³ to say so openly.  I don’t quite say that a good thing should have been hindered for the sake of our opinion, if it is a good thing; but the announcement comes very suddenly.  It must have been foreseen by my mother for some time that this upshot was probable, and Caroline might have told me more distinctly that M. de la Feste was her lover, instead of alluding⁴ so mysteriously to him as only a friend of the Marlets, and lately dropping his name altogether.  My father, without exactly objecting to him as a Frenchman, ‘wishes he were of English or some other reasonable nationality for one’s son-in-law,’ but I tell him that the demarcations of races, kingdoms, and creeds⁵, are wearing down every day, that patriotism⁶ is a sort of vice⁷, and that the character of the individual is all we need think about in this case.  I wonder if, in the event of their marriage, he will continue to live at Versailles, or if he will come to England.

 

August 7.—A supplemental letter from Caroline, answering, by

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