University of Virginia Library

MARGARET TO ANNA.

I must tell you of a delightful change that has come over
No. 4. You remember how the place looked the first time

you were through it. The people were notorious for their
indolence and dissipation; and their estates were mortgaged
to Mr. Smith, who held the inhabitants as fiefs, and sometimes
harassed them. Mr. Evelyn had their houses repaired
and painted, sent men to help them clear out their intervals,
planted a row of trees along the street, and had a beautiful
statue of Diligence set up at the corner. He then assumed
their debts, and said he would give them no trouble for three
years, provided they would pay the interest punctually. He
also contributed to a School-house that was erected half way
between No. 4 and Breakneck. In six months the Gubtails,
with what work they did for us and hay they brought us,
cleared themselves entirely. Mrs. Tapley and Mrs. Hatch
wove for us, and Mr. Hatch and Isaiah made our iron work.
Old Mr. Tapley, a very sot, has labored unremittingly on his
farm. When they had new door-yards, the girls began to
ornament them with flowers and shrubs. We let Dorothy
go into the woods two days for this purpose; and that
hamlet has now a truly picturesque appearance. The people,
I think, do not drink any ardent spirits. The Still, that Mr.
Smith undertook to rebuild, Mr. Evelyn purchased for a barn,
which those people found they needed. Mr. Smith himself, I
am told, has amended his habits; he has at least renovated
the exterior of his house. Avernus should rather be called
Elysium; God made it a beautiful spot, and man has restored
its fallen image. Nor is this effect confined to No. 4; it has
reached the village, and is more or less distributed into every
part of the Town. Our Bishop says Temperance is a Christian
grace, and has preached strongly against the Sin of
Intemperance. In this he is also joined by Parson Welles,
who still preaches in the Town-house. Many have abandoned
drinking, and four distilleries have stopped. Mr. Readfield,
our new merchant, keeps no ardent spirits, and Deacon Penrose
must have found his sales materially lessened. Esquires
Beach and Bowker both say their duties, as Justices of the
Peace, have greatly abated. Mr. Stillwater has converted his
new bar-room into a reading-room, and says his profits are
nearly equal to what they were before. On Sunday you will
see the No. 4's flocking down to Meeting with a constancy
only equalled by their former negligence, in which they were
quite of a sort with ourselves.

At the time they were upon rebuilding the Jail, Mr. Evelyn
proposed to the Commissioners if they would consent to an
establishment on an enlarged scale, with rooms more commodious,

windows more numerous, and better conveniences
for warmth in winter, he would bear the additional cost.
Judge Morgridge, Esq. Bowker and others, thought it would
be an excellent plan; and it was consented to. The building
stands a little back from the old site. Each room, Mr. Evelyn
furnished with a good bed, books, lights, looking-glass, washstand
and flower vase. The windows have green blinds,
which by a simple contrivance the prisoners can open and
shut at their pleasure. The horrors and discomforts of the
old Jail I have myself too sensibly realized. A new keeper
has been appointed in place of Mr. Shooks. At the last Town
Meeting the Selectmen were instructed to look after the
moral condition of the prisoners. What with the site of the
old Meeting-house smoothed and grassed, the burnt woods improved
by Mrs. Wiswall's house and grounds, a new School-house,
new Court-house, Tavern and Jail, the Green has reassumed
some of its former beauty.

Christ-Church have made choice of three Deacons, Esq.
Bowker, Joseph Whiston and Comfort Pottle. Deacon Ramsdill
was getting old, and Judge Morgridge and Esq. Beach,
who have served in that office, thought they had better choose
some young men.

You would sometimes have tempted me to live in your City.
But, dear Anna, do you not come under the jurisdiction of
Master Elliman's Puppetdom? Are you not, measurably,
simulacra hominum feminarumque? Are you foot-free, tongue-free,
soul-free? The representation of the Theatre seemed to
me to be carried through the City; all were acting not themselves,
but their parts. Perhaps I judge wrongfully. You, I
know, are natural and real. But what will you say of Mr.
Boxly, Mrs. Winchen, Miss Lees and others whom I saw at
your house? I would not do them injustice, and I know I am
incompetent to give an opinion, but how could I live among
such people! I remember once looking at the sea near the
wharves in January. The water and the cold were in deadly
combat. The waves winced, bellowed and agonized. But
the cold kept steadily at work, as a spider, and with threads
of ice, the Borean monster glued and entangled the whole surface,
and soon it all lay a sullen, ghastly, adamantine heap.
Such seemed to me to be the strife between fashion and
nature; and such, alas! it is, Mr. Evelyn says, the world over.
Give me leave to yawn when I am tired, wonder at what is
admirable, and wear a shoe that fits my foot. I fear the

Cacoethes Feminarum is a deeper disease than Obed's elder
blows will cure, and that you will have to take a good many
boxes of his nostrum before you are well quit of plague in the
vitals. “The whole world belike,” says the Father from
whom I learn all my wisdom, “should be new-moulded, and
turned inside out as we do hay-cocks, top to bottom, bottom to
top.” For the present I am contented to keep away, not from
you Anna, but from what is about you; and if you push upon
me I shall run as far as there is land-room on the Continent;
and if worse comes to worse, I shall make my expiration in the
words of one of old;
Have we not here what his Grace, the Duke of Devonshire
might envy; pleasure-grounds, rich meadows, the embellishment
of a full grown plantation, beautiful lawns, many a
paddock. We are in the midst of a royal hunting ground,
packs of hounds are in the neighborhood; we have plenty of
game, and an unlimited right of common, in which in their
season are excellent wild-turkey and grey-squirrel shooting;
admirable fox-chases; a full command of the view up and
down; a capital kitchen garden; our estate is well watered;
gravel walks intersect our grounds, and lead in all directions.
We see live Hippiades every day; we have a perpetual advowson
to the living of Mons Christi, and are subject to no ground
rent. For rustic ruins I can show you an abundance of
reverend stumps, garnished with grape-vines, and studded with
fungus. In Italy are palaces ventilated by wind-mills; we
resort to no contrivances of that sort. Guianerius, out of my
author, recommends the air to be moistened with sweet-herb
water, and the floor to be sprinkled with rose-vinegar. We
take the air as it comes, wet or dry, hot or cold, and find that
blowing across Mons Christi to be always exhilarating and
salubrious. In Summer it is charged with the freshness of the
earth, the aroma of woods, the music of birds. In Winter it
glitters with health and life.—Then we all work, not take
exercise, but work. “The Turks,” so says Democritus Junior,
“enjoin all men, of whatsoever degree, to be of some trade or
other: the Grand Seignior himself is not excused. Mahomet,
he that conquered Greece, at that very time when he heard
ambassadors of other princes, did carve spoons.” There is
some difference, peradventure, between the habits of Turks
and Christians! “Through idleness,” continues my authority,
“it is come to pass that in city and country, so many grievances
of body and mind, and this ferall disease of Melancholy so
frequently rageth, and now domineers almost all over Europe
amongst our great ones.” The ancient Germans plunged
idlers into the thickest marshes, leaving them to perish by a
death that resembled their own dispositions. Without executioners
to expedite the matter, all of that class do so perish
now-a-days, nillywilly. Friction is recommended. Think of
our farmers stimulating their skins with flesh-brushes to keep
up a circulation! Nay, verily, we must work. Fowls do not
appear ready spitted, Deacon Ramsdill says, and we must
work for them too. The Lacedemonians had such an idea of
liberty they could not reconcile it with any manual labor.
One of them, returning from Athens, said, “I come from a
City where nothing is dishonorable.” Work shall be no disgrace
at Mons Christi.

We have our sports too, hawking, fowling, fishing, riding,
berrying. “To walk amongst orchards, gardens, mounts, thickets,
lawns and such like pleasant places, like that Antiochan
Daphne, brooks, pools, ponds, betwixt wood and water, by a
fair river side, ubi variæ avium cantationes, florum colores,
pratorum frutices, to disport in some pleasant plain, run up a
steep hill sometimes, sit in a shady seat,” must needs be, as
my benevolent author observes, “a delectable recreation.”
This we enjoy. Then there are our indoor diversions, music,
dancing, chess and various games. In winter, we sleigh-ride,
coast, skate, snow-ball. No, Anna, let me stay here while I
may.