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Mar. 30. Aft.

I write in odd situations. With some always present: generally
several & these talking, to me or to each other. How sacred,
how desirable is privacy; especially on occasions like these
when the mere presence of another, inspires us with some embar
=rasment.

Love is watchful, is timorous—I might amuse you by an
account of my break=offs. A score or two take place in
the course, frequently, of one billet. Some question or topic
is started, to which my attention is demanded. Some one
enters whom civility requires me to greet & to talk to
as just now happened. I laid down my pen at the
word timorous, & talked & heard another talk, an half
hour, about sharks, whales, king=crabs & Flying fish.

How opposite to each other; how incongruous are the
tenour of these billets with that of the conversation,
which is going on at the same time. Attention will
fritter & divide itself after a strange manner. Most
whimsical are the accompanyments of my pen. At
this moment—such topics so remotely foreign from those
images which form thy train. And all are heard.

But what pesters me most is the peering, overlook=
ing eyes, which seem to ask; & sometimes actually do ask,
—What are you writing? — O! How desirable is privacy. To
write to my Love, or talk to her, seem equally to demand
Seclusion, but neither of these seems it possible to gain but
for short moments & few. I regret the want of it most, in
talking to you. Tho I write to you in company, & with all
the sounds, tools & symbols of the gain=pursuing merchant
about me, you only see what I write; but the absence of all
others seems requisite when tongues & Eyes commune.

D^r. Gregory was an egregious fool, Eliza. Never consign
thy conversation & behavious to his government. If I remem=
-ber rightly, his errors are properly exposed, in the “Rights of


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woman.” How remote, indeed, from simplicity & rectitude, are
the systems of Theorists on the laws of Sex. How far those
are practically adhered to, I am not qualified to judge. Yet
in my narrow & indirect experience, I have met with scarcely
any thing among women, but exceptions to the systems of
Punctilio.

What shall I say of my friend? Her character is new to me.
Love has not displayed itself in her deportment as I would
have painted it in an imaginary picture. She has differed
from my imaginations, but then she has surpassed them. Rea=
=son & passion reign in different spheres. My passion has often
appealed to Oracle Reason, & always recieved the testimony
of “Well done”. Indeed, Eliza, I love thee more than heartily
My reason, as well as my heart, is thy worshipper. Heaven
grant, the future may be propitious.

Do you ask of what I think most busily & constantly
Of you, of course. You enter, the moment I awake, in the morning
& I try to keep myself awake at night to think of you

The last conversation generally supplies my musings
with materials. So it was, with Saturday’s—If you knew
the effect of your tenderness on my feelings, you would burn
your “Gregory” that moment, &, so far from thwarting the kindly
impulse, you would summon fondness to your looks & words
& actions.

All your kindnesses on Saturday eve I call up inces=
santly; repeat, & revolve. How bewitching are you, my love, at
those moments, when unpunctilious. I could convince you, now
how good a memory I have, but I won’t repeat the words
that charmed me in the saying, & continue to bewitch me
in remembrance—

Pish! Here’s another interrupter, from whom I cannot
hope to ‘scape to my dear pen, this evening.~ So, Adieu,
My love. I mean to call, to night, & tomorrow night too
if your brother’s society do not keep me away, by meeting
at your house—