"WM. PATERSON"
Another letter, dated
"Princeton, October 26th, 1772.
"Dear Burr,
"Our mutual friend, Stewart, with whom I spent part of the evening, informed me you were still in Elizabethtown. You are much fonder of that place than I am, otherwise you would hardly be prevailed upon to make so long a stay. But, perhaps, the reason that I fear it, makes you like it. There is certainly something amorous in its very air. Nor is this a case any way extraordinary or beyond belief. I have read (and it was in point, too) that a flock of birds, being on the wing, and bending their flight towards a certain town in Connecticut, dropped down dead just as they were over it. The people were at first fairly at a loss to account for this phenomenon in any natural way. However, it was at length agreed on all hands that it was owing to the noisomeness of the atmosphere, the smallpox at that time being very rife in the place. I should never have given credit to the report, had it not come from so good a quarter as that of New-England. For my part, I always drive through Elizabethtown as quickly as possible, lest the soft infection should steal upon me, or I should take it in with the very air I breathe.
"Yesterday I went to hear Mr. Halsey, and there, too, I saw his young and blooming wife. The old gentleman seems very fond of his rib, and, in good sooth, leers very wistfully at her as she trips along by his side. Some allowance, however, must be made; he is in the vale of life; love is a new thing to him, and the honey-moon is not yet over. 'They are amorous, and fond, and billing, Like Philip and Mary on a shilling.' I have promised to pay him a visit; Stewart, or some of the tutors, I believe, will accompany me, and I hope you will too.
"Since commencement I have been at a Dutch wedding, and expect to be at one or two more very shortly. There was drinking, and singing, and fiddling, and dancing. I was pleased extremely. Every one seemed to be in good-humour with himself, and this naturally led them all to be in good-humour with one another.
"When the itch of scribbling seizes me, I hardly know when to stop. The fit, indeed, seldom comes upon me; but when it does, though I sit down with a design to be short, yet my letter insensibly slides into length, and swells perhaps into an enormous size. I know not how it happens, but on such occasions I have a knack of throwing myself out on paper that I cannot readily get the better of. It is a sign, however, that I more than barely esteem the person I write to, as I have constantly experienced that my hand but illy performs its office unless my heart concurs. I confess I cannot conceive how I got into so scribbling a vein at present. It is now past eleven o'clock at night, and besides being on horse the greater part of the day, I intend to start early to-morrow for Philadelphia. There I shall see the races, and the play, and, what is of more value far than all, there, too, I shall see Miss ——-, you know who.
"The enclosed letter to Spring I commit to your care. I should have sent it before, as I wrote it immediately after you left this place, but I really thought you were in New-England long ere now. I know not his address; perhaps he is at Newport, perhaps he is not. If, on inquiry, you find that the letter is wrongly directed, pray give it an envelope, and superscribe it anew. If he is still at Newport, it would, perhaps, more readily reach him from New-York than from any part of New-England that you maybe at. I have said that if I am mistaken in directing the within letter, you should cover it and give it the proper address. Do, dear Burr, get somebody who can write at least a passable hand to back it, for you give your letters such a sharp, slender, and lady-like cast, that almost every one, on seeing them, would conclude there was a correspondence kept up between my honest friend Spring and some of the female tribe, which might, perhaps, affect him extremely in point of reputation, as many people suppose that nothing of this kind can be carried on between unmarried persons of the two sexes without being tinged with love; and the rather so, since the notion of Platonic love is, at the present day, pretty generally, and I believe justly too, exploded. Platonic love is arrant nonsense, and rarely, if ever, takes place until the parties have at least passed their grand climacteric. Besides, the New-England people, I am told, are odd, inquisitive kind of beings, and, when pricked on by foolish curiosity, may perhaps open the letter, which I do not choose should be common to every eye.
"You gave me some hopes that you would see my good friend Reeve before you returned. If you do, make him my respectful compliments, and tell him that I fully designed to write him, but that business prevented, that laziness hindered, that—in short, tell him any thing, so it does not impeach my affection, or lead him to think I have entirely forgotten him. I am,