New-York, June 28, 1802.
And do you, indeed, miss your Theo.? Do you really find happiness indissolubly blended with her presence? Ah! my husband, how much more amiable you are as the man than as the philosopher! How much better your wife can love you! The latter character produces a distance between us; it so resembles coldness, that it annihilates all that free communication of the heart, that certainty of the most perfect sympathy and concord of feeling, which affords so much real happiness. Believe me, it is a very mistaken idea, that to discover sensibility at parting with a friend increases their sorrow. No; it consoles them. That apparent indifference, instead of lessening their pain at separation, only adds to it the mortification of finding themselves alone; wounds their feelings by the idea that, where they expected the most sincere reciprocity, they meet with the most calm tranquillity; and, above all, it is apt to make them involuntarily exclaim—If I am thus regretted, how little shall I be thought of! How soon forgotten! Never, then, my beloved, attempt to play the philosopher. If you see a friend weeping, weep with them. Sympathy is the sovereign cure for all wounds of the heart.
Your letter of the 16th, which I received yesterday, delighted me the more as it was unexpected. I did not hope you would have written so soon; still less did I imagine a letter from Charleston would reach this on the eleventh day after date. How anxious I am for to-morrow. Perhaps I may hear from you again.
S. appears more pleased with New-York than any person I ever saw from South Carolina. With the beauty of the country it is impossible not to be delighted, whether that delight is confessed or not; and every woman cannot fail to prefer the style of society, whatever she may say. If she denies it, she is set down in my mind as insincere and weakly prejudiced.
Pray write your journal this summer; you have little else to do. I should be charmed to find it finished on my return. Adieu.
THEODOSIA.
TO JOSEPH ALSTON.
New-York, July 3, 1802.
Your letter of the 19th of June, covering two for Theodosia, was received this morning. She, with Lady Nisbett and your boy, sailed yesterday for Red Hook (120 miles north) on a visit to Mrs. A., who had solicited this attention in terms and under circumstances which admitted of no refusal. The boy has grown surprisingly. The mother has recovered her appetite and spirits. I shall go up to take care of them in ten or fifteen days.
I desired your father to bring or send a barrel of rough rice (rice unpounded). The young Scotchman of whom I spoke to him has already invented a machine which I think will clean ten times as much as your pounding machine with the same power; that is, ten times as fast. Send the rice that we may try.