University of Virginia Library

LETTER CXC.

I have been up since half past one. Yesterday I dined
by accident with Mr. K. at the Union in Georgetown, and
though I had toast and water, I missed my milk. I drank,
too, at the earnest recommendation of some of the party,
some old Port wine,[1] which has done me no good. My
dinner was the lean of a very fine haunch of venison, without
any gravy, and a little rice. Since it began to rain
(about an hour ago) I have felt as restless as a leech in a
weather glass, and so I sit down to write to you. On Saturday
I had a narrow escape from a most painful death. Wildfire
dashed off with me on the avenue, alarmed at a tattered
wagon-cover, shivering in the wind, and would have dashed
us both to pieces against an Italian poplar; but when she was
running full butt against it, and not a length off, by a violent
exertion of the left heel and right hand I bore her off. There
was not the thickness of the half quire of paper on which I

am writing between my body and the tree. Had I worn a
great-coat, or cloth boots, I must have touched—perhaps
been dragged off by them: and had I been without spurs, I
must have lost my life; for the centre of her forehead and
that of the body of the tree, nearly, or quite two feet in diameter,
were approaching to contact. You know my great
liking for this exotic, which our tasteless people have stuck
every where about them. I shall, hereafter, dislike it more
than ever. In the course of my life I have encountered
some risks, but nothing like this. My heart was in my
mouth for a moment, and I felt the strongest convictions of
my utter demerit in the sight of God, and my heart gushed
out in thankfulness for his signal and providential preservation.
What, thought I, would have been my condition had
I then died. "As the tree falls, so it must lie." And I had
been but a short time before saying to a man, who tried to
cheat me, some very hard and bitter things. It was a poor
auctioneer, who had books on private sale. He attempted to
impose upon me in respect to some classical books of which
he was entirely ignorant, and I exposed his ignorance to the
people in the shop, many of whom were members of Congress,
and no better informed than him. The danger that I
escaped was no injury to the speech which I made out of
breath, on finding, when I reached the house, that there was
a call for the previous question. So true is it, that of all
motives, religious feeling is the most powerful.

I am reading, for the second time, an admirable novel
called "Marriage." It is commended by the great unknown
in his "Legend of Montrose." I wish you would read it.
Perhaps it might serve to palliate some of your romantic
notions (for I despair of a cure) on the subject of love and
marriage. A man who marries a woman that he does not
esteem and treat kindly, is a villain: but marriage was made
for man; and if the woman be good-tempered, healthy, (a
qualification scarcely thought of now-a-days, all-important
as it is,) chaste, cleanly, economical, and not an absolute fool,
she will make him a better wife than nine out of ten deserve

to have. To be sure, if to these beauty and understanding
be added, all the better. Neither would I quarrel with a
good fortune, if it has produced no ill effect on the possessor—
a rare case.

I was in hopes you would not let G. carry off E. from
you. That you may soon possess her, or some other fair
lady, is my earnest wish. The cock crows for day, I suppose;
but it is yet dark, and I wish you good morning. "It
vanish'd at the crowing of the cock." Show this to Dr. B.