A. BURR.
TO HIS DAUGHTER THEODOSIA.
Philadelphia, 8th January, 1794
Your two letters of Friday and Saturday came together by yesterday's mail, which did not arrive till near sunset. Your letter of Friday was not put into the postoffice until Saturday afternoon. You might have as well kept it in your own hands till Monday eleven o'clock. Since the receipt of these letters I have been three times to Doctor Rush to consult him about a drink for your mamma; but not having had the good fortune to find him, have written to him on the subject. I shall undoubtedly procure an answer in the course of this day, and will forward it by to-morrow's post.
I beg, Miss Prissy, that you will be pleased to name a single "unsuccessful effort" which you have made to please me. As to the letters and journals which you did write, surely you have reason abundant to believe that they gave me pleasure; and how the deuse I am to be pleased with those you did not write, and how an omission to write can be called an "effort," remains for your ingenuity to disclose.
You improve much in journalizing. Your last is far more sprightly than any of the preceding. Fifty-six lines sola was, I admit, an effort worthy of yourself, and which I hope will be often repeated. But pray, when you have got up to two hundred lines a lesson, why do you go back again to one hundred and twenty, and one hundred and twenty-five? You should strive never to diminish; but I suppose that vis inertiæ, which is often so troublesome to you, does some times preponderate. So it is now and then even with your
A. BURR.
Learn the difference between then and than. You will soonest perceive it by translating them into Latin.
Let me see how handsomely you can subscribe your name to your next letter, about this size,