My letters to you are an odd mixture. They would appear to a stranger
like the dish which is sometimes called _omnium gatherum_. This is the
first time, I believe, that these two words were ever put together in
writing. The literal interpretation I take to be "a collection of all
things." But, as I said before, the words having never before been
written, it is not possible to be very learned in telling you what the
Arabic, Syriac, Chaldaic, Greek, and Roman commentators say upon the
subject. Amidst all the rubbish that constitutes the heap, you will see
a proportion of affection for my friends, my family, and country, that
gives a complexion to the whole. I have a very tender, feeling heart.
This country knows not, and never can know, the torments I have endured
for its sake. I am glad it never can know, for it would give more pain
to the benevolent and humane than I could wish even the wicked and
malicious to feel.
I have seen in this world but a little of that pure flame of patriotism
which certainly burns in some breasts. There is much of the ostentation
and affectation of it. I have known a few who could not bear to
entertain a selfish design, nor to be suspected by others of such a
meanness; but these are not the most respected by the world. A man must
be selfish, even to acquire great popularity. He must grasp for himself,
under specious pretenses for the public good, and he must attach himself
to his relations, connections, and friends, by becoming a champion for
their interests, in order to form a phalanx about him for his own
defense, to make them trumpeters of his praise, and sticklers for his
fame, fortune, and honor.
My friend Warren, the late Governor Ward, and Mr. Gadsden are three
characters in which I have seen the most generous disdain of every spice
and species of such meanness. The two last had not great abilities; but
they had pure hearts. Yet they had less influence than many others, who
had neither so considerable parts nor any share at all of their purity
of intention. Warren has both talents and virtues beyond most men in
this world, yet his character has never been in proportion. Thus it
always is and has been and will be. Nothing has ever given me more
mortification than a suspicion that has been propagated of me, that I am
actuated by private views and have been aiming at high places. The
office of Chief Justice has occasioned this jealousy, and it never will
be allayed until I resign it. Let me have my farm, family, and
goosequill, and all the honors and offices this world has to bestow may
go to those who deserve them better and desire them more. I court them
not. There are very few people in this world with whom I can bear to
converse. I can treat all with decency and civility, and converse with
them, when it is necessary, on points of business. But I am never happy
in their company. This has made me a recluse and will one day make me a
hermit. I had rather build stone wall upon Penn's hill, than to be the
first Prince in Europe, or the first General or first Senator in
America.
Our expectations are very high of some great affair at New York.