University of Virginia Library

LETTER XII.

I received your letter the day before yesterday, and
am not at all surprised at its contents, although, at the same
time, not the less obliged to you for your intelligence. I
saw enough, when I was last in Richmond, to make me doubt
whether you or Tudor could reap any solid benefit at Dr.
Haller's school; and, I assure you, it has caused me many a
moment of anxious reflection since. Indeed, I had begun to
entertain fears of this sort some time before, which my examination
of you both only served to confirm. In the course
of next week, I shall send down for you both, and, even if
the school be kept up, I must be greatly at a loss how to dispose
of you, should you return. Pray inquire into the name
and character of the young Irish gentleman of whom you
speak, and inform him, from me, that, in case he answer my
expectations, I wish to employ him. My terms will be more
eligible than any which can be offered to him at a public seminary,
and I will not stand upon price. He will have less
to do, and be better accommodated in every respect, I trust.
My dear boys, my anxiety about you is extreme. Every

hour that you lose in the seed-time of learning, fills me with
uneasiness and concern; I know, so well, that years of study
hereafter cannot make up for a day misspent, at your time of
life.