Transcription
CATALOG NUMBER HF 3011C
OBJECT NAME Letter
DATE January 6th 1805
AUTHOR Alice Ann Hoffman
RECIPIENT Judge Josiah Ogden Hoffman (New York)
MEDIUM Paper, ink
PEOPLE
Mary, Mrs. Meredith, Mr Blackwell, Matilda, Mrs Hays, Mr Nicholas, Col. Morris, Rahcel, Mr Dennie, Mr Abercrombie, Mrs Cohen, Mrs Etting, Mrs Wignell, Captain Decator (?), General Moreau, Madam Moreau, General Eaton, Miss Morris, Miss Keen, Miss Swifts, Miss Potts, Walter, Mr Watts, Mr Woodham, Mrs. [Roiguell]
PLACES Theater, Church
KEYWORDS The Theatrical Person (Magazine), The wife of two husbands
(Play Title), Theatre, Play, Church, Clergy, Pulpit, Actor, Play
House,
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Philadelphia Jany 6th 1805
My dear father,/
I have not replied to your affectionate letters/ before because I wished (as I promised) to give you an account/ of the past week- you may now be quite easy with/ regard to my health, I am as well as ever, & no doubt/ I shall continue continue so - I wrote to Mary last week, & / I am quite impatient for an answer to my letter - / I was at church last Sunday, the weather was not very / good & Mrs. Meredith did not accompany us - We had / a sermon from Mr. Blackwell, who is not a very / good preacher - I hate to see such a jolly fat looking / clergy man in the pulpit - It takes from the solemnity / of the thing very much in my opinion - He looks / as if he thought of his dinner more than [inserted: his] prayers - / I never see him but I think of Falstaff’s personating / the king of England - He did not however fatigue / us much by a long sermon, Matilda & I went to / see Mrs. Hays after church, [she] [staid] to dinner/
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& I returned home/ Mr. Nicholas paid us a morning visit / in the evening we went to see Mrs. Meredith, there we / found Col. Morris & his daughter from S. Carolina[crossed out] / is a very pretty interesting girl, Mrs. Meredith joked / a great deal about Rachel & my finding fault with / her frock - (By the bye) My dear Papa, I never have / yet told you what I think of [crossed out] [inserted: Mrs Meredith], indeed I have have had very / little time to judge; [smudged: she] is a very sensible fine wo- / -man with an unusual store of wit, her conversa- / is often very agreeable, but I think she is too rough in / her manners & is very apt to hurt your feelings by / her remarks, she is perfectly independent as to the / opinion of the word, says whatever she thinks, her / temper, or rather spirit is very high, scorns to / bow to the rich, because of their riches, but is very / choice of her company, she care for very few here / but those few like her very much & as her dis- / -position is domestic she lives very happily - / Mr. Dennie is there constantly, & Mr. Abercrombie / visits there very often, she has all the learned/
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about her - We left her about 9 o’clock & then went / to see Mrs. Cohen & Mrs. Etting, & then Matilda & myself / returned to school, we went through our usual occupa- / -tions Vous m’auch demande si Je pourrai apprendre / la langue française cet hiver Loyer au mon / cher père eau Je ne quitterai pas cet école sans / la savior parfaitement bien - Nous sommes à / apprendre me petite comédie françoise pour jouer / J’ai la role d’une vielle coquette - On Tuesday / evening (the following day being New Years) we left school / there was nobody at our house in the evening, there / was a large dinner party given to General Eaton / on that, [inserted: day] we Philadelphians are quite honored at / present, we have us, General [Moreau] [crossed out] / Madame Moreau, General Eaton, Capt [Decatur] / &- Madame Moreau is admired excessively here - / On New Years in the morning I went to see Miss / Morris, there we met the elegant Miss Keen & the / likewise elegant Mrs Leuose - We went to see the / Miss Swifts & Miss Potts - I met walter /
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Patterson in the street, & altho’ I am a Philadelphian / I was delighted to see a New Yorker - He told me that / you were all well - In the evening we went to / the Theatre - I was quite frightened, we had to squeeze / through a crowd for a half an hour there is / but one door which you can enter which ren- / ders it very unpleasant - The play was “The wife of two husbands [crossed out] from the french play of “ La femme de deux Maris-” Mrs. [Roiguell] performed / I was much pleased her, altho’ the play was / not a good one - I saw Wood & liked him very / much - There is a Mr. Watts an Englishman / here who writes a kind of magazine entitled / the Theatrical Person which is very amusing - / we [inserted: have] a Mr. & Mrs. Woodham here, I saw her / but not to much advantage, she is very hand- / -some, & is generally admired- I was quite / delighted with his singing, he does [inserted: not] play well / but sings sweetly, very much like Moore - /
[END OF LETTER]Transcriber
Kathryn AlexanderLanguage
English
