A. BURR.
TO MRS. BURR.
Albany, 2d November, 1785.
I have lived these three days upon the letters I expected this evening, and behold the stage without a line! I have been through the rain, and dark, and mud, hunting up every passenger to catechise them for letters, and can scarce yet believe that I am so totally forgotten.
Our trial, of which I wrote you on Sunday, goes on moderately. It will certainly last till twelve o'clock on Saturday night; longer it cannot, that being the last hour of court. Of course, I leave this on Sunday; shall be detained at Westchester till about Thursday noon, and be home on Friday. This is my present prospect; a gloomy one, I confess; rendered more so by your unpardonable silence. I have a thousand questions to ask, but why ask of the dumb?
I am quite recovered. The trial in which I am engaged is a fatiguing one, and in some respects vexatious. But it puts me in better humour to reflect that you have just received my letter of Sunday, and are saying or thinking some good-natured things of me. Determining to write any thing that can amuse and interest me; every thing that can atone for the late silence, or compensate for the hard fate that divides us.
Since being here I have resolved that you in future accompany me on such excursions, and I am provoked to have yielded to your idle fears on this occasion. I have told here frequently, within a day or two, that I was never so long from home before, till, upon counting days, I find I have been frequently longer. I am so constantly anticipating the duration of this absence, that when I speak of it I realize the whole of it.
Let me find that you have done justice to yourself and me. I shall forgive none the smallest omission on this head. Do not write by the Monday stage, or rather, do not send the letter you write, as it is possible I shall leave the stage-road in my way to Bedford.
Affectionately adieu,