Cousin, I wish you would write a list of your mother’s children, names
and ages, those that have died together with the others. We are going to
send them out to Uncle Rufus, as he requested it some time since. By
Martha it will be a fine opportunity,—as soon as convenient send them
over.
Mr. Moses Porter,
Biddeford.
Scarborough, August 6, 1801.
Hon. Rufus King.
Pardon, my dear Sir, the liberty I take in addressing you, and let my
motives shield me from the imputation of presumption. Some time since,
you requested a list of my Aunt Porter’s and our family. It has never
been sent, and as we have now a very favorable opportunity, my father
has requested me to make it out and enclose it to you. I tremble while I
write, lest I should appear disrespectful in my manner of addressing
you. Unused as I am to writing to any one so much superior in years, I
cannot but feel embarrassed. A degree of confidence in ourselves is
necessary in every undertaking to ensure success; as I feel at this
moment destitute of that confidence, I likewise despair of succeeding in
my wishes, yet I entreat you to attribute whatever may appear assuming
rather to an incapacity of expressing myself as I wish than to a want of
respect. When I consider you as a public character esteemed and
respected by your country, I would willingly shrink from observation,
lest my intruding myself on your attention should be thought
impertinence. But when I think how nearly I am allied, I flatter myself
I shall obtain that indulgence which I now earnestly solicit. Mr. and
Mrs. Derby, by whom I shall send this, intend taking the tour of Europe
after having taken that of the United States. Mrs. Derby is my
particular friend, and as she is intimately acquainted in our family,
can give you whatever information you wish respecting us. I say nothing
to remind her, for I have too high an opinion of your discernment to
suppose any recommendation necessary. My mother joins me in desiring you
would make our respects acceptable to Mrs. King, and all the family
unite in earnest wishes for the complete restoration of her health. Our
family are all in good health.... My mother really looks young! My Aunt
Porter [Pauline] is not wholly restored to her former health, but is
much better than she has been for many years past.
[Illustration:
Mrs. RUFUS KING.
After a portrait by Trumbull.
ARTOTYPE. E. BIERSTADT, N. Y.
]
I cannot conclude this without earnestly intreating you to receive it
with the candor of an Uncle rather than the severity of a critic. I feel
I do not write as I ought to, yet I entreat you not to think me
deficient in that respect and esteem with which I shall ever remain.
Your niece ELIZA SOUTHGATE.
Scarborough, August 4, 1801.
Dr. Southgate to Rufus King in London.
You will receive this by Mr. Richard Derby, youngest son of the late H.
Derby of Salem. His lady who accompanies him is the daughter of Dr. N.
Coffin of Portland. The Doctor’s family and mine have ever been on terms
of intimacy and friendship. Mrs. Derby in particular has ever been a
favorite of my daughters Octavia and Eliza. They can give you all
particulars about friends at home.
Bath, Sunday, Sept. 13.
There are some kinds of indisposition that instead of weakening the
faculties of the mind, serve only to render them more vigorous and
sprightly, and in proportion as the body is debilitated, the mind is
strengthened. I have every reason to believe that the imagination never
soars to such lofty heights as it sometimes does in sickness. But where
am I! What about—Well may _you_ ask the question. Believe me, Cousin, I
have attempted to finish this letter 4 times this day. I cannot account
for my inability to write. It used to be the joy of my life, nothing
delighted me so much as to steal into the chamber by myself and scribble
an hour, but since I received your last I have often attempted to answer
it, but in vain. I have a stubborn brain; it must be coaxed, not driven.
I find there is nothing so tedious as to write when we are not in the
mood for it. You may easily see that I am not in one at present. Now for
Heaven’s sake see what I have written—find the chain that connects. When
I began I meant to say I had been quite unwell ever since I left
Portland, that some disorders only served to give vigor to the mind,
&c., &c., but I _meant_ also to say mine was altogether of a different
nature. But as I left that out, so I had better have done the other.
Oh—’tis too, too bad! I’ll not write another till I think I can
understand it after it is written. I am low-spirited, stupid and
everything else.
Wednesday.
Now I shall really think I have no _soul_ if I find myself as destitute
of ideas as I was on Sunday. I have just been viewing the most
delightful prospect I have seen this long time, and if it has left no
more impression on my mind than objects passing before a mirror, I shall
think myself devoid of every quality that constitutes us rational
beings. I think nature has done everything to render Bath pleasant: the
window at which I now sit commands a most delightful water prospect; the
river is about a mile in breadth at this place, the opposite banks are
neither sublime nor beautiful. What if I for a moment should take a
poet’s license, and by the force of imagination project steep and rugged
rocks! bid them stoop with awful majesty to reflect their gloomy horrors
in the wave! See you not that enormous precipice whose awful summit was
ne’er profaned by human footsteps? Does not your blood freeze as it
creeps along your veins? Behold again that barren waste, the axe nor the
plough have never clothed it with a borrowed charm, or robbed it of
those nature bestowed upon it; it still boasts its independence of the
labor of man. But to leave fiction for reality, the surface of the water
is a perfect mirror. I never saw it so perfectly smooth; at this moment
there is a boat passing, rowed by two men—the reflection in the water is
so distinct, so very clear, it looks like two boats. I admire to see a
boat _rowed_; it seems to look like arms or wings, moving with graceful
majesty, while the boat cuts the liquid bosom of the water, leaving as
it recedes a widening track. There is always to me something very
charming in the rowing of a boat. There is music in the motion; and what
can be more graceful and majestic than the motion of a _ship under
sail_? Yesterday there was a _brig_ passed by here—’twas within
hearing—very near. I never was more forcibly struck than at the moment;
I longed to prostrate myself in humble admiration—as she approached with
a slow, commanding, _celestial_ air;—at the moment I am sure it gave me
a better idea of the awful grandeur of a deity than anything I had ever
seen. I saw Juno’s dignified gracefulness such as I had read of but
could not conceive.
I have often in reading been disagreeably struck by the epithets used
for the motions of the gods. Sometimes they make them _glide_ thro’ the
air, sometimes approach with a solemn _step_, and many other words I do
not recollect; nor do I at present think of any words that would answer
better—yet _to glide_ seems stealing along—to move rapidly and
imperceptibly;—a bird glides thro’ the air, yet there is nothing
celestial in the flight of a bird. It seems to me properly applied to
_fairies_; something light and airy should glide,—that a fairy should
glide along seems right,—just as I have an idea of them. And then for a
god _to step_—that seems too grovelling, too like us mortals,—yet that
in my opinion is better than the other.
The place on which this house stands seems to project in a small degree
toward the water. I believe there is not a window in the house that does
not command a view of the water. In front there is a kind of cove the
water makes in several rods; the river is broad and straight, the land
rises gradually from it a half mile;—but I think it is to be regretted
that the inhabitants have built under the _hill_, or rather that they
did not prefer climbing a little higher; however, I think it must have a
fine appearance from the water. Last year I recollect sailing along in
front of the settlement and remarked how much more compact it looked
than it really is, the houses rising one above the other in such a
manner that every one was seen distinctly. I think nothing can be more
beautiful than a town built on a sloping ground ascending from so fine a
river as this branch of the Kennebec. All the navigation belonging to
the different ports on this river above Bath, passes directly by here,
and several times I have seen 12 or 14 at a time. To one who has been
brought up amidst salt marsh and flats, this large fine river affords
much novelty and amusement, and I cannot confess but the sensations I
feel in viewing it are more pleasing than those produced by a stagnant
water in a Scarborough salt pond. I have almost filled my sheet without
saying a word of your letter, indeed I have forgotten what was in it—at
the time you gave it me I know I received it with much pleasure, as it
robbed me of some painful moments. After Horatio’s recovery I sat down
one evening to write you, but I had only written the day of the month,
when a most violent clap of thunder (the same that struck Mrs. Horper’s
house) shook the pen from my hand and my desk from my lap. I do not
imagine even by this omen that I offend the strictest laws of virtue and
propriety by continuing to write you, therefore should something equally
powerful wrest the pen from my hand, depend upon it I will seize it with
renewed vigor and dare assure you of my esteem, &c., &c.