[Greenwich Village by Anna Alice Chapin]@TWC D-Link bookGreenwich Village CHAPTER IV 18/41
Have you ever read the letters that passed between these three, by the bye? They are so quaint, so human, so tender--I believe that you will agree with me that such reading has more of charm in it than the most dramatic modern novel.
They bemoan their aches and pains and cheer each other up as though they were all little Theo's age. "Passed a most tedious night," writes Mrs.Burr, and adds that she has bought a pound of green tea for two dollars! And--"Ten thousand loves. _Toujours la votre_ Theodosia." Burr writes that he has felt indisposed, but is better, thanks to a draught "composed of laudanum, nitre and other savoury drugs." When their letters do not arrive promptly they are in despair.
"Stage after stage without a line!" complains Theodosia the mother, in one feverishly incoherent note.
And Theodosia the daughter, even at nine years old, had her part in this correspondence. Her father writes her that from the writing on her last envelope, he thought the letter must come from some "great fat fellow"! He advises her to write a little smaller, and says he loves to hear from her. Then he whimsically reproaches her for not saying a word about his last letter to her, nor answering a single one of his questions: "That is not kind--it is scarcely civil!" When little Theodosia was eleven her mother died, and henceforward she was her father's housekeeper and dearest companion.
She is said to have been beautiful, brilliant and fascinating even from her babyhood, and certainly the way in which she took charge of Richmond Hill at the age of fourteen would have done credit to a woman with at least another decade to her credit. Burr had a beautiful city house besides the one on the Hill, but he and Theo both preferred the country place, and they entertained there as lavishly as the Adamses before them.
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