University of Virginia Library

LUCIA CULPEPER TO MARIA MEYNELL.

My dear Maria,—I could live here forever. We
have a charming suit of rooms fronting on Broadway,
that would be a perfect Paradise, were it not for the
noise which prevents one's hearing oneself speak, and
the dust which prevents one's seeing. But still it is
delightful to sit at the window with a Waverley, and see
the moving world forever passing to and fro, with unceasing
footsteps. Every body appears to be in motion,
and every thing else. The carriages rattle through the
streets; the carts dance as if they were running races

with them; the ladies trip along in all the colours of the
rainbow; and the gentlemen look as though they actually
had something to do. They all walk as if they were in
a hurry, and on my remarking this to my uncle, he replied
in his usual sarcastic manner, “Yes, they all seem
as if they were running away from an indictment.” I
did not comprehend what he meant. Every thing is so
different that it does not seem to me possible that I
should be in the same world, or that I am the same person
I was a month ago.

Sitting at my window on the high hills of Santee, I saw
nothing but the repose, the stillness, and the majesty of
nature. At a distance, and all around, the world was
nothing but a waving outline of blue mountains that
seemed almost incorporated with the skies. Nothing
moved around me but the mists of morning, rising at the
beck of the sun; the passing clouds; the waving foliage
of the trees; the little river winding through the valley;
and the sun riding athwart the heavens. The silence was
only interrupted at intervals by the voice or the whistle of
the blacks, about the house or in the fields; the lowing
of the cattle wandering in the recesses of the hills; the
echo of the hunter's gun, or the crash of the falling tree;
the soft murmurings of the river under the window; and
sometimes the roaring of the whirlwind through the
forest, or the blow of the thunder upon the distant
rocks. My uncle was master of all that could be seen
without—I mistress of all within. There all was nature—here
all is art. Every thing is made with hands,
except the living things; and of these the ladies and
gentlemen may fairly be set down as the work of the

milliners and tailors. Even the horses are sophisticated,
as my uncle will have it; and instead of long,
flowing tails and manes, amble about with ears, tail and
mane cropt, as if they had been under the hands of the
barber.

But when I look in the glass, it seems that not all the
changes of animate and inanimate nature, equal those I
exhibit in my own person. The morning after I came
here, I received a circular; dont let your eyes start out
of your head, Maria—yes, a circular; and from whom
do you think? Why, a milliner! Only think what a
person of consequence I must be all at once. It informed
me in the politest terms, that Madame —
had just received an assortment of the latest Paris
fashions, which would be opened for inspection the next
day. I was determined to have the first choice of a
hat; so I got up early and proceeded with Henney to
the milliner's rooms, which, to my great surprise, I found
full of fine ladies, who I afterwards understood had not
been up so early since the last fashionable exhibition of
Paris finery. You never saw such a crowd; such
tumbling of silks and gauzes; such perplexity of
choice; such profound doubts; such hesitating decision;
such asking of every body's opinions, and following
none; and such lingering, endless examinations.
There was one lady that tried on every hat in the place,
and went away at last in despair. I dont wonder, for it
was the choice of Hercules, not between two, but between
hundreds. For my part, I did nothing but wonder.
You never saw such curiosities as these Paris hats. It
is quite impossible to describe them; I can only give you

an idea of the size, by saying that mine, which is very
moderate, measures three feet across, and has a suit of
embellishments, bows, puffs, points, feathers, flowers,
and wheat sheaves, that make it look almost twice as
large. The rule is here, for the smallest ladies to wear
the largest hats, so that my uncle insists upon it they
look like toad stools, with a vast head and a little stem.
Mine was the cheapest thing ever offered for sale in
New York, as madame assured me; it only cost twenty-eight
dollars. It would not go into the bandbox, so
Henney paraded it in her hand. A man on horseback
met her just as she was turning a corner, and the horse
was so frightened, that he reared backwards and came
very near throwing his rider. One of our horses is
lame, and my uncle has advertised for one that can
stand the encounter of a full dressed fine lady. If he
can do that, the old gentleman says he can stand any
thing.

The next thing I did, was to bespeak a couple of
walking dresses—one of baptiste, the other of silk
plaid. They cost me only fifty-six dollars, which was
quite moderate, seeing they had, or were said to have in
the bill, ninety odd yards of one thing or another in them.
I believe I must drop my money in the street, for I am
almost ashamed to apply to my uncle so often. He
takes it all good humouredly, for he is a generous old
soul—only he has his revenge by laughing at me, and
comparing me to all sorts of queer things. I was surprised
when I first went out to see what beautiful curling
hair they all had—ladies, ladies' maids, and little
babies, all had the most charming profusion you ever

saw. This struck me very much, as you know very
few have curling hair to the south except the negroes.
And such curls, too! dear me, Maria, it would make
your hair stand on end to see them. They look more
like sausages than any thing else—and I thought to be
sure they must be starched. On expressing my admiration
to Stephen, he laughed outrageously, and assured
me most solemnly, that every one of these sausages
was purchased—not at the sausage makers, but at the
curl shops, where you could buy them either of horse
hair, mohair, or human hair, and of any size and colour
you pleased. He assured me it was impossible to live
without them five minutes in New York, and advised
me to procure a set without delay. You'd laugh to see
mine. They are as stiff as the powder and pomatum
of Doctor Brady's wig could make them: they are hollow
in the middle, which my uncle assures me is very
convenient, now that the ladies wear no pockets. One
can put a variety of small matters in them, as we did in
our muffs formerly. Do you know they bake them in
the oven to make them stiff. My uncle gives another
reason for it, which I wont tell you.

My bonnet and curls seem to have almost conquered
Stephen, who declares he has seen nothing equal to my
“costume,” as he calls it, since he left Paris. He has
actually offered to walk with me in Broadway, and did
us the honour to go with us to the theatre, one stormy
night. To be sure, Madame—danced. You never saw
such droll capers, Maria: I declare I hardly knew which
way to look. But the ladies all applauded; so I suppose
I dont know what is proper, not having seen much

of the world. Stephen was in ecstacies, and bravoed
and encored, till my uncle bade him be quiet, and not
make a jackanapes of himself. I was delighted with the
theatre; it is lighted with gas; and the play was one of the
finest shows I ever beheld;—processions—thunder and
lightning, and dancing—fighting—rich dresses—a great
deal of fiddling, and very little poetry, wit, or sense.
I was a little disappointed at this—but Stephen says,
nothing is considered so vulgar as a sensible, well written
play. Music and dancing are all in all—and as it
is much easier to cut capers, and produce sounds without
sense than with it, this is an excellent taste—for it
saves a great deal of useless labour in writing plays, as
well as acting them properly. I sometimes think Stephen's
notions are a little strange; and my heart, as
well as my understanding, revolts at some of his decisions.
But he has been abroad, and ought to know.
Sometimes I think I should like to know Graves' opinion:
but he hardly ever speaks unless spoken to; and
ever since I got such a great bonnet, and such great
curls, he scarcely seems to know me. As for my uncle,
he dont make any secret of his opinions. But then
he is out of fashion; and as I dont find any body agree
with him, I think he must be wrong.

Next week, we think of setting out for the springs.
My uncle has foresworn the steam boats, ever since our
voyage from Charleston. So we are to go by land up
the right bank of the Hudson, and return on the other
side, unless we should visit Boston, as my uncle sometimes
threatens. Good bye, my dear Maria; I long to
see you:—dont you long to see me, in my incomprehensible,

indescribable hat, and my baked curls? Not to omit
my travelling chain, which is a gold cable of awful dimensions;
without which no lady of any pretensions
can visit the springs. Alas! poor woman! born to be
the slave of a hundred task masters;—first, of the
boarding school, where she is put to the torture of the
dancing master and the school mistress; next, to fashion,
where she is obliged to appear a fool, rather than
be singular; and worst of all, to her husband, the very
Nero of tyrants. Pray sometimes stop in, and see how
my old nurse Hannah gets on. Adieu.

P. S. I wish you could only hear that good natured,
pragmatical old soul, my kind, generous uncle,
rail at almost every thing he hears and sees. He has
called himself an old fool fifty times a day, and says
that old people are like old trunks, which will do very
well while they are let alone in a corner, but never fail
to tumble to pieces if you move them. He pronounced
the steam boat a composition of horrors, such as modern
ingenuity, stimulated by paper money, stock companies,
and I know not what, could alone produce; and
congratulates himself continually upon living in a remote
part of the country, where there are neither banks
nor incorporations, and where, as he says, indulgent
nature, by means of high mountains and other benevolent
precautions, has made it actually impossible to intrude
either a canal or a rail road. Every time I come
to him for money, which indeed is pretty often, for I
have found out a hundred new wants since I came here,
he affects to scold me, and declares that unless the price
of cotton and rice rises, he shall be a pauper before the

end of our journey. But what annoys him most of all,
and indeed appears strange to me, is to see white men
performing the offices of negroes to the south—waiting
at table, cleaning boots, brushing clothes, driving carriages,
and standing up behind them. He says this is
degrading the race of white men in the scale of nature,
and has had several hot discussions with an old quaker,
with whom he some where scraped acquaintance. Our
black man Juba, or gentleman of colour as they call
them here, is grown so vain at being sometimes waited
on by white men, that he is good for nothing but to parade
up and down Broadway. Henney says he is keeping
a journal, and talks of making up to the old quaker's
daughter; I suppose on the strength of the old gentleman's
arguments about equality. In short, my good
uncle calls me a baggage and Stephen a puppy, twenty
times a day.