[Letter from Elizabeth Upshur Teackle to her sister Ann Eyre, January 4, 1810]

January 4^th 1810 P. Anne

My dearest girl

At length our relation Mr. Kendall bids defiance to all my commands and threats, and is resolv’d to leave us. I have detain’d him weeks longer than he at first contemplated on one pretext or another, and now fain wou’d persuade him to keep me company ‘till my dear Mr. T returns. I find myself really attach’d to Geo. He has conducted himself toward me in a way which must ever bespeak for him my kindest good will. When I am sick, he pities me; when I am well, he frolicks with me; and, when I am low spirited, he is the most diverting creature in the world. To his peculiar vein I must refer you for a thousand little anecdotes which have serv’d all in their turn, to make us laugh, cry, or sleep in the course of our circumambulations. He can tell you much of Cambridge and the clever folks we saw there, and of the clever things we heard said and saw done, and how we saw a beautiful young Purser the very image of Mrs. Grace Eyre. I never saw a more striking likeness. He knows Mr. R. Taylor of Norfolk. He praised him, till I

thought I shou’d have bursted with - eating boil’d turkey. It was at dinner and the Purser was my left hand man. His commendations set me in such an agitation, that for every word I precipitately swallow’d two huge mouthfuls and toward the last, I literally cramm’d myself. It is a most unfortunate thing for me, that Mr. R. T. affronted me in the very beginning of our inauspicious acquaintance; for go where I will, it is my doom to be tortured with his attractions; his beauty, his grace, his eloquence, his sense, his dignity, his heroism! I wish I had never heard of him! I wish I had never seen him!

I received an invitation perfectly in form, from Mrs. Teackle to pay her a visit in Easton. I suppose, calculating from my general character, they were sure of me, as Easton hospitality and gallantry, had promis’d me every allurement of sense and soul, to entice me to her. I was to have had parties by day and night; balls al fresco, and fetes champetre. In fact, to crown all, when I arriv’d in Cambridge, I was given to understand that the very candlesticks had been arranged over the shelves and

chimney of their public assembly room for a fortnight, waiting the approach of a luminary whose resplendence wou’d dim their lustre! Alas! How vain are the calculations of human felicity! For, whilst the glorious comet was tremblingly expected with delicious terror, prepared for astonishment! Behold! The wonder of wonders, cheek by jole, with Mrs. Bayly, was taking a dish of tea en famille, in Cambridge! Now this is what I call style. It was so delightfully erratic! Quite eccentric! Comets you know are always so. I laughed heartily when told that Mr. Ker had written an invitation to his brother in law Dr. Muse, to dine with him on such a day when he expected to have Mrs. Teackle to grace the feast! It never had been my intention to go to Easton, and I had written a polite apology to my cousin. This, it seems was not received in time, and the old maxim is, “silence gives consent.” I had intended, on the other hand an expedition to Baltimore, to be attach’d and routed by Folly in her carnelian regimentals, but I was terrified and did not dare the onset. It was a plan of my good husband’s

to lead me on to glory, but I thought the conquest not worth the magazines of sound and grape.¹ I shou’d be forced to call into the field, even if won - on the other hand to be defeated! Heavens! Who cou’d been it? To return to my own home and find it converted into a Hospital for a fractured brain pan spleen sickening at another’s happiness. Envy, putrid with the warm breath of another’s fame, punishment, discontented with herself and in fact ennui in all her various symptoms of style fever. Mr. T told me if I wou’d go to Cambridge and felt any disposition for it, he’d come across the bay and take me to B-e, that being the best route. He was obliged previously, to be in that city, and to go up in the new ship, but when I came to C, I was so much indisposed and it was so unpromising in the weather that I resolv’d not to write for him, but return’d home in a few days. Poor George’s heart was torn with a violent emotion on quitting that seat of agreeables.

I had enquired of Mary Winder

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