Most affectionately yours,
A. BURR.
TO MRS. BURR.
Philadelphia, 15th February, 1793.
I received with joy and astonishment, on entering the Senate this minute, your two elegant and affectionate letters. The mail closes in a few minutes, and will scarce allow me to acknowledge your goodness. The roads and ferries have been for some days almost impassable, so that till now no post has arrived since Monday.
It was a knowledge of your mind which first inspired me with a respect for that of your sex, and with some regret, I confess, that the ideas which you have often heard me express in favour of female intellectual powers are founded on what I have imagined, more than what I have seen, except in you. I have endeavoured to trace the causes of this rare display of genius in women, and find them in the errors of education, of prejudice, and of habit. I admit that men are equally, nay more, much more to blame than women. Boys and girls are generally educated much in the same way till they are eight or nine years of age, and it is admitted that girls make at least equal progress with the boys; generally, indeed, they make better. Why, then, has it never been thought worth the attempt to discover, by fair experiment, the particular age at which the male superiority becomes so evident? But this is not in answer to your letter; neither is it possible now to answer it. Some parts of it I shall never answer. Your allusions to departed angels I think in bad taste.
I do not like Theo.'s indolence, or the apologies which are made for it. Have my directions been pursued with regard to her Latin and geography?
Your plan and embellishment of my mode of life are fanciful, are
flattering, and inviting. We will endeavour to realize some of it.
Pray continue to write, if you can do it with impunity. I bless Sir
J., who, with the assistance of Heaven, has thus far restored you.
In the course of this scrawl I have been several times called to vote, which must apologize to you for its incoherence. Adieu.