University of Virginia Library

LETTER CXXX.

On my arrival here, (four days ago,) I hoped to have
found a letter from you, but was disappointed; and a sore disappointment
it was. I scribbled you a few lines, the same
evening, at Mr. P—s, that I might lose no time in apprizing
you how, or where I was. Poor Mrs. C.!—another
brother has been taken from her since I left this place,
for New York. I feared as much, but did not dare to ask.
At last, yesterday, came a meagre letter from Tudor, announcing
that, in consequence of Mr. A's. death, he had
not delivered my letter to Mrs. C., on the subject of my
little name-sake. It is dated at Richmond, on the 25th of
November—the second letter, of one straggling page, that he
has written me from that place. Not a word of you, or his
brother. Although at a great sacrifice of time, health, and
what, to a man in debt, is of more consequence than either of

the former, I went on to New York to assist his mother home:
she has not deigned to drop me a line, or even to mention me
in her son's letters. Notwithstanding he staid three days in
Philadelphia, and I begged him to sit for me to Sully, she
would not permit him, under the thin pretext that the paint
would prove injurious to his lungs; although Sully would
have waited on him at his lodgings, or would have taken him
in water colours. Tudor says, "I am extremely sorry, myself,
about the picture, and thought it very practicable and
easy to have one taken."

I wrote to you a letter, on the morning of my departure
from this place for New York; I think the 18th of October.
I have written since, not less than once a week; often twice
and thrice. The first use I made of myself, after my fall at
New York, was to give you an account of my disaster. Your
last letter is of the 16th of November, acknowledging mine
from Baltimore. This is, probably, the last that I shall address
to you from this place; but, no matter, write on to Stanford's
care. By clapping a large, hot waxen seal on your
letter, he defaced entirely the impression of your seal, as your
second had done of the first.

Every body here speaks highly of you—particularly the
C—s and C—s. I met Dr. G. yesterday. He was
very cordial. Mr. C. pressed me to take a bed at his
house; so did Mr. P., who has been all kindness and attention
to me.

My knee is irreparably ruined. The patella is detached
from the joint; the muscles on each side are, in the tendinous
parts, ruptured. It is now six weeks since the accident happened;
and, without strong bandages and a stick, I could not
hobble along.

I leave you to judge how anxious I am to hear from you.
Poor St. George! he has never written to me at all—neither
did I expect or wish it.

Farewell, my dear Theodore.