TO MISS THEODOSIA BURR. [2]
Philadelphia, 1st December, 1791.
Enclosed in Bartow's last letter came one which, from the handwriting, I supposed to be from that great fat fellow, Colonel Troup. Judge of my pleasure and surprise when I opened and found it was from my dear little girl. You improve much in your writing. Let your next be in small hand.
Why do you neither acknowledge nor answer my last letter? That is not kind—it is scarcely civil. I beg you will not take a fortnight to answer this, as you did the other, and did not answer it at last; for I love to hear from you, and still more to receive your letters. Read my last letter again, and answer it particularly.
Your affectionate
A. BURR.
TO MRS. BURR.
Philadelphia, 4th December, 1791.
I fear I have for the present deprived you of the pleasure of reading Gibbon. If you cannot procure the loan of a London edition, I will send you that which I have here. In truth, I bought it for you, which is almost confessing a robbery. Edward Livingston and Richard Harrison have each a good set, and either would cheerfully oblige you.
To render any reading really amusing or in any degree instructive, you should never pass a word you do not understand, or the name of a person or place of which you have not some knowledge. You will say that attention to such matters is too great an interruption. If so, do but note them down on paper, and devote an hour particularly to them when you have finished a chapter or come to a proper pause. After an experiment of this mode, you will never abandon it. Lempriere's Dictionary is that of which I spoke to you. Purchase also Macbeau's; this last is appropriated to ancient theocracy, fiction, and geography; both of them will be useful in reading Gibbon, and still more so in reading ancient authors, or of any period of ancient history.