[Letter from Elizabeth Upshur Teackle to her husband, Littleton D. Teackle, December 31, 1809]

P. A. 31^st Dec. 1809.

My dear husband,

Your’s enclosing the needful, and what may, perchance, prove a pactolian source of the needful, arrived last mail. My heart and duty prompted me to reply to it by the same return mail, but alas! Who can say they will act as duty directs, even when inclination goes hand in hand with her? There is yet a Power to consult. Your letter found me, if not in bed positively, yet reclining under the influence of a most supreme tooth ache. I was incapable of writing or even of thinking collectively. I had taken cold in returning home. Nevertheless your kind attentions and solicitude to fulfill my minutest wish proved a healing balm to my heart, which acting by sympathy on my poor frame, produced the first sensations of ease I had known for 48 hours. That night I slept sweetly and ever since have been free from any thing

like indisposition, save only what I fancy has been created by overeating after my long starvation, a probation I by no means found to my taste. You know you have often rallied me on my high relish for the good things of this world. But, my dear love, I think there are some good things I enjoy with a still keener gout than those which the most elaborate and refined culinary system can produce. My enjoyments are not always connected with sensation, but sometimes the result of good sense; for instance, my love for ______ but I will not. It is somewhat out-of-date for an old shackly timber’d wherry to set sail in the chase of her noble convoy, through the oily channel of flattery, for I know the appellation you will give to my complaisance.

Poor Molly! and has she been so long, long estranged from that beau monde of which her beauty was the polar star. Well! I am sorry for her and this is all I can

do. I hope Mrs. D. is still to your mind, still as engaging and urbane as when you were wont to be delighted with her. Tell her I am not absolutely jealous. I think my sensations wou’d rather authorize me to envy her those blandishments, which in her are the result of innate suavity of soul. I know she has the advantage of me in one thing, I never shall bring myself to retaliate in kind on her domestic arrangements, not that I am too good. No, no!

The articles you sent me were all of the first quality to an item, and very thankfully receiv’d. I wish only now to have you a partaker. We have nice buckwheat cakes and Poor Kendall swears he shall kill himself eating them. And now woman like, or rather world like, having receiv’d an inch, I must have an ell. Will you be so kind as to buy a bag of cotton? For our people you know will want it in the summer and ought to

be at work in preparing it. Also a few good beef tongues and a few tongues and rounds. A small quantity of this last article is best, a keg is sufficient.

Elizabeth is transported with the contemplation of her new equipage in the household line. She sends her love to her papa.

God bless you. Come home as soon as you can, for we all want you. Farewell.

E.U.T.

31 Dec. 1809

P.A. 31 Dec. 1809
M^rs. Teackle