To Mr. Moses Porter.
Portland, Jan. 24, 1802.
Now at this moment imagine your friend Eliza half-double with the cold,
two children teazing and playing round the table, sister and nurse
talking all the time, and you will then be prepared to receive a letter
abounding with sound reasoning, profound argument, elegant language, and
a profusion of sublime ideas; but do not stare if I intersperse, by way
of relieving your mind, a few little Jackey Horner stories which I am
obliged to gabble out by wholesale to stop the children’s mouths. If I
had not had a most retentive memory, I should have forgotten we were
correspondents. I can put up with such a tardy, indifferent, reluctant
correspondent when I myself set the example—but we ladies are so
accustomed to attention from gentlemen that I can hardly bring myself to
put up with your neglect. I have a thousand times determined to wait
just as long before I answer your letters as you do before mine are
noticed, and you have nothing to prevent—but, pshaw! I am only spending
time to give you something to laugh at. I must honestly acknowledge,
however, that your last letter was very _acceptable_, though I was
piqued at your neglecting me so long. I wish I felt adequate to giving
an opinion on your perfect character, but as I have told you before, I
cannot _think_ when all is noise and confusion around me. But I have
endeavored in vain to find fault with it. I am really sorry that your
sentiments so perfectly coincide with my own, for you have said all I
think on the subject and much more than I could have expressed,
therefore I am compelled to assent to all you have said. I am very glad
we do not agree on every subject, for our letters would (mine I mean) be
very unentertaining, indeed they have no merit to part with. I do not
mean to send your perfect character away without a more intimate
acquaintance. When I feel in a proper mood for it I will take it up and
examine every quality separately. I have the outlines impressed on my
mind, but I cannot refer to your letter for ’tis up in my trunk and I
feel no disposition to leave the fire; with your permission I will lay
it by till another time. In the meantime let us descend from these
important discussions to the trifling occurrences of the day. With great
satisfaction we at length behold the ground covered with snow, for we
are almost freezing here; it has been impossible almost to obtain wood
to keep us warm, and I declare I have thought a log-house and clay
chimney—The bell rings—I must stop!—
Monday, Feb. 1, 1802, Portland.
The sudden ringing of the bell last Monday stopt me in the midst of a
very homely catalogue of blessings—’tis not worth finishing, and if it
was I could not take up a broken sentence and finish it a week after it
was begun. I have in vain attempted to finish this sheet, but I find I
am entirely unfit to write. I hold my pen firm in my hand, look this
side and that side, yet still cannot think. Scarborough—desolate, dreary
Scarborough is the only place from whence I can write with ease,—nothing
present engages my attentions, and I then have leisure to turn over the
rubbish which I have collected from home—ponder on things past and
anticipate those to come: ’tis something like dreaming,—we are
insensible to everything around us,—the imagination is unchecked by the
operation of our senses, and soars beyond the boundaries of reality.
Pray read over this last half-page and see if you cannot tell how I
feel, look, and act at this moment. If your penetration does not
discover a something unlike my letters in general,—cold and studied—I
will not—I cannot write, another post must pass and no letter, yet ’tis
labor, ’tis pain to write thus.
Sunday, Feb. 8.
To see the dates of this sheet one would immediately conclude that my
ideas flowed periodically and that I had stated periods to “unpack the
heart,” but ’tis because I cannot take my pen and write at the moment I
feel an inclination,—not to defer it till a more convenient time when I
most probably should feel indifferent about it. Now I am aware what you
are about to infer from such a dull studied letter as this is,—The
“seven days twice run” has put something into your head that ought not
to be there, and you are laughing in your sleeve at the discovery. Now,
I am not after the manner of our sex going to protest it is false—that
there is no foundation for such a report, and counterfeit anger that I
don’t feel, for these things always are viewed as a modest confirmation
of the truth, and frequently are considered the greatest proof that can
be brought. It is folly to give importance to such stories by appearing
to feel interested, and the only way to destroy them is to hear and let
them pass with perfect indifference; time will certainly show what is
true and what is not, and the only method is to let them take their
course, they will sink to oblivion if not fed by our own folly. I own
’tis unpleasant to hear such things, but every girl must prepare herself
for such vexations. It has one good effect—that of making us more
circumspect in our conduct. I do not say I am not in love; if your
penetration has not discovered that I _am_, neither will what I say
convince you. How such a report came to you I do not know. I had hoped
it would wither and die in the hotbed of scandal from whence it sprang.
If you lived here you would not be surprised at any thing of the kind. I
declare to you I don’t know the girl in town of whom the same is not
said. The prevailing propensity this winter is _match-making_, and at
the assemblies there is no other conversation,—such and such a one will
make a match because they dance together,—another one is positively
engaged because she does _not_ dance with him. If a lady does not attend
the assembly constantly—’tis because her favorite swain is not a
member,—if she does—’tis to meet him there: if she is silent, she is
certainly in love; if she is gay and talks much, there must be a lover
in the way. If a gentleman looks at you at meeting you are suspected, if
he dances with you at the assembly it must be true, and if he _rides_
with you—’tis “confirmation strong as proof of holy writ.” I am vext to
have spent so much time on this subject, but I care nothing about it.
’Tis well I have found something to fill my sheet, and had it not been
for that lucky seven days twice over, I should not have finished it this
month, and finishing now has been a _week’s_ work.