Sunday Evening, 27 December, 1778.
How lonely are my days! how solitary are my nights! secluded from all
society but my two little boys and my domestics. By the mountains of
snow which surround me, I could almost fancy myself in Greenland. We
have had four of the coldest days I ever knew, and they were followed by
the severest snow-storm I ever remember. The wind, blowing like a
hurricane for fifteen or twenty hours, rendered it impossible for man or
beast to live abroad, and has blocked up the roads so that they are
impassable. A week ago I parted with my daughter, at the request of our
Plymouth friends, to spend a month with them; so that I am solitary
indeed.
Can the best of friends recollect that for fourteen years past I have
not spent a whole winter alone? Some part of the dismal season has
heretofore been mitigated and softened by the social converse and
participation of the friend of my youth.
How insupportable the idea that three thousand miles and the vast ocean
now divide us! but divide only our persons, for the heart of my friend
is in the bosom of his partner. More than half a score of years has so
riveted it there, that the fabric which contains it must crumble into
dust ere the particles can be separated; for
"In one fate, our hearts, our fortunes,
And our beings blend."
I cannot describe to you how much I was affected the other day with a
Scotch song, which was sung to me by a young lady in order to divert a
melancholy hour; but it had quite a different effect, and the native
simplicity of it had all the power of a well-wrought tragedy. When I
could conquer my sensibility I begged the song, and Master Charles has
learned it, and consoles his mamma by singing it to her. I will inclose
it to you. It has beauties in it to me which an indifferent person would
not feel, perhaps.
"His very foot has music in 't,
As he comes up the stairs."
How oft has my heart danced to the sound of that music!
"And shall I see his face again?
And shall I hear him speak?"
Gracious Heaven! hear and answer my daily petition, by banishing all my
grief.
I am sometimes quite discouraged from writing. So many vessels are taken
that there is little chance of a letter's reaching your hands. That I
meet with so few returns is a circumstance that lies heavy at my heart.
If this finds its way to you, it will go by the _Alliance_. By her I
have written before. She has not yet sailed, and I love to amuse myself
with my pen, and pour out some of the tender sentiments of a heart
overflowing with affection, not for the eye of a cruel enemy, who, no
doubt, would ridicule every humane and social sentiment, long ago grown
callous to the finer sensibilities, but for the sympathetic heart that
beats in unison with