Nicholas P. Trist to Virginia J. Randolph (Trist)
| La-fourche August 11th 1822. |
I wish, my dearest Love, I had another letter from you, to answer today, for they are certainly by far my greatest source of pleasure. next comes that of writing to you, and the consciousness that I am preparing pleasure to “her whom I love best on earth”; which you see I indulge in tolerably often.—At last, the clouds have exhausted themselves, and the weather has permitted me to ride out and recruit a little strength; though I still have to regale myself, three times a day, with bark, not the decoction, that is nothing, but the powder, which it requires all my natural heroism to prepare and swallow, We have not yet experienced any intolerably warm weather during the day, and the nights are delightful, always fresh, often cool. Our mountains, in this latitude, would be still more agreeable than where they are; although even then we should not be safe from colds; for my father, without any uncommon exposure, is now laboring under the most violent one I ever knew of, to which I would certainly prefer an attack of the yellow fever, were it necessary to make a choice. The neighbourhood of the City of mexico, from all accounts, must be the Eden of the world; in climate, at least: producing spontaneously, and in the greatest perfection, [. . .] every tropical fruit, and without very little cultivation, every other that is worth attending to.—
Miss Bs match has not produced in me the same surprise it did in You. You are too little acquainted with the world to judge properly of her situation. There are many more puppies and Scoundrels in the world, than you imagine, on whom the fear of chastisement and of the indignation of all honorable men, operates much more forcibly than the virtues of your sex, which they do not respect, or rather which they do not believe in, because they have no corresponding ones in their own characters. I should never, therefore, blame any female in the unprotected condition of miss B for taking a protector, unless she thereby degraded herself, which I have no reason to believe is the case here. If they are poor, they have been in the habit of supporting themselves, and can, no doubt, pursue their respective avocations after, as before marriage. Their art, I shall certainly obey you in cultivating, and begin to grub at, so Soon as I can get a receipt which I expect, for making mouth glue; but it will be long, Ere I shall possess the magic art of creation, mr V. is endowed with.—
Did you ever see the plant called the Love-vine? I suppose you have, for Browse was astonished at my ignorance of its name, and property of proving “true-Love,” when I pointed it out to him as curious, whilst we were walking in the field about a fortnight before my fever. Be that as it may, I broke a piece y to examine, and having it still in my hand when I got home, threw it, (thinking of you, of course) on the bough of a tree, round which, in its luxuriant growth, it has so closely entwined itself that it could not be seperated without being torn to pieces.—Believe me, my beloved, the bough too would perish by the severance. Adieu; may angels guard you for your own
I wrote to our your Grandfather, and to Mother, last week: present us both to them and the rest with the same affection as ever and accept of Browse’s Brotherly embrace for yourself. how does H. like the verses? they certainly leave every thing of the kind I ever saw, far, far behind. My love to her & E.E.