I h write under the hope that you will see me before you recieve my letter. The noblest enthusiasm has arisen upon the subject of my dear grandfather application. the question will be carried beyond all doubt by a large majority and a proposition will be made to pay his debts in lieu of a lottery...

I have, for the last week, thought of you so incessantly, my beloved mother, that scarce any other idea could find a place in my mind. I have not written to you—alas, what could I say? had I been at your side to watch over you, & to suggest thoughts of comfort...

Ellen has enclosed for you Ticknor’s kind reply to my inquiries respecting the school mentioned in yr. last: no doubt is entertained by any one here of the great superiority of this over every institution of the kind in the United States. I am myself personally acquainted with both the gentlemen,...

I think, dear sister, that I shall certainly go to Boston now; brother Jeff. proposes to set out next wednesday (this is friday) but as he is now in Bedford from whence he cannot return before sunday, and has so much business always that he can never say certainly what time he will do any...

What do I think of W. Gilmer? I only wish that I could find language strong enough to express my abhorance for his most unfeeling & ungrateful conduct, for surely nothing could be more unfeeling than his writing against the lottery, let his opinion of it be what it might, when we consider his...

I have but one moment moment My dear Joseph to acknowledge the receipt of your most welcome letter, and to thank you again and again for the considerate kindness which prompted the immediate intelligence of ...

I can scarcely believe my senses when I recollect that I am 750 miles from all that is dear to me and yet the facilities of travelling by steam are so great that one passes two three hundred miles with as much facility as we do in Virginia 50 or 60. we left N. York 3, o clock Tuesday evening &...

Cornelia and my brother are with you, ere this my dear sister and you I hope and believe, from the favourable accounts Joseph has so regularly transmitted to us, are well, and strong enough, to enjoy their society without fear of being fatigued or injured by too much excitement. how anxious, how...

Julian & Mary were christened on thursday last. Grandmother B. & I represented you & Virginia as sponsors for Mary. They are to leave home in a day or two: Mary to be placed at Mde Valframbert’s boarding school New Orleans & Julian to go to Bardstown Kentucky, where he will enter...

I am at last in the beautifull city of Philidelphia, certainly the first in the union for beauty and cleanliness & comfort. its fine broad streets, wide smooth & and nice foot ways, so clean that I felt ashamed to spit tobacco juice upon them, (always spitting in the gutter). I arrived...

this is the fifth day of Virginias confinement my dear sister, and both herself and the baby are doing well, she has rested very well for the last two nights and though ...

I this morning received the clothes you sent me, viz an uniform coat, six yards of striped cloth for pantaloons & four pair of socks—The coat is a beautiful one & fits me exactly—I thought it best not to write ’till I received the clothes—or I should have written before this—You have...