[Letter from Elizabeth Upshur Teackle to her husband, Littleton Dennis Teackle, December 14, 1814]
Mentioned in this letter
- Education, Religion, Literacy, and Culture
- Mythology
Princess Anne Dec 14, 1814
I was disappointed in not hearing from you by yesterdays mail: nor can I account for your silence. It is rather an up hill business when either conversation, or writing, is all on one side, however, as in duty bound, I shall continue to advise you of all the nothings remarkable that occur in your absence. I think this is the third or fourth letter I have written you since your departure.
I receiv’d by the present mail, a letter from Eliza, wherein she mentions having seen Mr. Jeffrey, that he enquired a great deal concerning yourself. Her opinion of him is that he is very agreeable and conversable, but that folks generally call him proud, and rude &c., although she and the family thought him affable for so great a man. I suppose he may have a little of the English hauteur to those he has nothing to say to, and a little also of the Scotch assurance. You know our excellent friend Campbell had a little of both to strangers, but instead of growing more proud and impudent, on acquaintance, he lost it all to his friends who knew him best, or rather it was lost amongst a thousand better qualities. I wish I cou’d have seen this Hercules in literature. To know and converse with a man who is really and thoroughly informed is a treat
not to be enjoyed more than once in a lifetime: and I wou’d rather submit my part to the crucible of a real chemist, for analysis, than to a half bred pretender. For in the first case, if you have any matter in your composition that is worth experiment, your true chemist will not from ignorance or envy overlook it, but will give you due credit and teach you to sift the dross from the ore, or to refine the dross and make it amalgamable with the sterling metal. Your pretender confounds these components, and unskillfully arranging the good with the bad, the good making so little show in the mass, that it entirely escapes observation. When nature dug my brain from her quarry, she presented it to me in a crude state to be refined down by the knowledge and usage of the world. Now, so poor a work woman have I been to myself that I am yet in ignorance how much value I may attach to this gift of our mother goddess, and wou’d willingly, from the candor and experience of knowing ones brain how many thanks I owe her. Therefore do I place value on the conversation of men of intelligence, and for this reason do I affect it.
I have heard nothing from Va. Wishing you success and happiness, I am
Your dutiful wife
E.U.T.
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