[Letter from Elizabeth Upshur Teackle to her daughter, Elizabeth Ann Upshur Teackle, August 13, 1815]

Princess Anne August 13^th, 1815

My beloved child

Your last favour written at M^de Brugiere’s I receiv’d by the mail, and feel grateful to a kind God that you are well and happy. I rejoice to observe that the force of your reason has prevail’d over those fond regrets of your heart, elicited by a separation from your friends, and that you now remember your mother with equal affection, but with less pain than you did during the first period of absence. Go on, my dear, my lovely child, to strengthen your mind under every trial through life. These small beginnings in Philosophy will be the foundation on which, hereafter, you may raise the sublime superstructure of patience or resignation under those more serious trials which the happiest, here, are inevitably liable to. By the constant habit of overcoming vain regrets by reflection, reason, and pious resignation, we arm ourselves with a shield which will protect us from any of

those attacks of Fate to which this warring life is subject. Every little trial of the mind, if borne with mild patience, serves but to render it the more invulnerable to those acute pangs which spring from the casual calamities which we often encounter, and which are sent by an all gracious Being to fit us for another, and a brighter sphere. To this Glorious point does our benign God, who mercifully watches over the meanest of his creature’s happiness, direct every dispensation of his power. Shall we then dare to question that power which is only exercised for our own good, by weak, and vain repinings? Shall we ungratefully dare to expose our hearts to him, troubled with discontent, and lowering over the goods already in our possession, because in the vast amount of his benefits, he mercifully denies those things which wou’d hurt us? My dear child! What can his creatures do to testify their gratitude to him!

He asks nothing for all his favours but gratitude, and a firm reliance on him, which, if we feel, will surely lead us to obey his commandments in all things. I feel it my duty, my love, to encourage you in your praise worthy endeavours to bear small privations becomingly. I well know the important effect it will have on your future happiness. Even now you perhaps are undergoing a little trial in not seeing me with your Aunt Eyre, who left us on Friday for Phila: you are perhaps wondering why I did not take advantage of so good an opportunity to fulfil my promise. The truth is, my plan was to have gone with her, and it was all settled; but on reviewing my family affairs, which had been deranged, and neglected during the last month, in consequence of my indispensable attention to a large company who were inmates of ours, and have but two or three days ago left us, I thought it my duty to postpone my journey a few weeks. Indeed the