Please to make my compliments to Mrs Hunter, Miss Nancy, Andrew, and to Uncles family—I am, sir
Your most obedient
Most humble Servt:
Philip V. Fithian
Saturday 4.
The day cool & agreeable—I kept the children in til twelve tho' with great difficulty; they were for asserting their liberty. & pleaded the custom of las winter—I finished a rough incorrect plan of my English Thesis, & laid it by for future examination—
After dinner I begun the Lecture, wrote an introduction—Towards evening I took my hat & a Sermon, & retired to a Shady Green where I rambled about til dusk committing my Sermon to memory—We have omitted Supper, & in its place substituted Coffee which we commonly take about seven in the evening—Ben, this Afternoon rode to Colonel Frank Lee's. The ground is very dry; The Frost of the fourth of May has been much more severe and fatal here than in the northern colonies—The peaches here, except on Farms lying near the Potowmack are wholly destroy'd, & these were the choisest expectation of some, who think Brandy their most valuable comodity!—And I am told that in Louden, & the other upper counties, (which indeed are the best for grain) Wheat & Rie are cut off, so intirely that the owners mow it down for fodder!—And in these lower Counties in many places the Woods appear like November, & the Leaves are actually dropping!—To be sure it is unusual & melancholy!—
Sunday 5.
The weather cool & agreeable—Sermon is to Day at Ucomico, at the lower church, I choose therefore to stay in my Room—How pleasant is retirement! And how easy is it to enjoy it—This may seem strange, but it is true—I have but very few acquaintances, & they easily dispense with my Absence—I have an elegant inviting apartment for Study—I have plenty of valuable & entertaining Books—And I hav business of my own that requires my attention—At Home my Relations call me proud and morose if I do not visit them—My own private business often calls me off & unsettles my mind—There too lives the Girl who has subdued my heart!—All these put together, when they operate at once, are a strong incitement to divert me from Study. Yet I love Cohansie! And in spite of my resolution, when I am convinced that my situation is more advantageous here, yet I wish to be there—How exceedingly capricious is fancy! When I am Home I then seem willing to remove, for other places seem to be full as desirable—It is then Society which makes places seem agreeable or the Contrary—It can be nothing else—Adam when he had no troublesome painful thoughts within him; and had a flowery Paradise for his habitation & enjoyment, was not yet fully happy while he possessed it alone; much less can we his offspring, frail, & variable, enjoy much sattisfaction without intercourse with one another—I have just spoken in praise of Society & retirement; And I now observe we are of such a make that, if we be happy, these must alternately succeed each other—It is something like the opinion of Socrates concerning pleasure & pain, that if we possess the one, we may expect it will not be long before we shall meet with the other—Towards evening At Mrs Carters request I waited on Miss Priscilla, Nancy, & Fanny who rode on Horse-back for an airing—Wrote a Letter to the Revd Mr Andrew Hunter, Cohansie New Jersey—In the evening Ben returned full of news of Boston, that we must fight that the troops are arrived & impudent &c., &c.
[Letter of Philip V. Fithian to Elizabeth Beatty]