Transcription
CATALOG NUMBER HF 3022 A
OBJECT NAME Letter
DATE June 13, 1800
AUTHOR Judge Josiah Ogden Hoffman (in Albany)
RECIPIENT Alice Ann Hoffman (Mrs. Anne H Nicholas) at New Brunswick
MEDIUM Paper, ink
DESCRIPTION Education, Miss Hay, New Brunswick, Caty, Mammy
PEOPLE Miss Hay, Caty, Mammy
PLACES New Brunswick
EVENTS
KEY WORDS Education
Albany June 13, 1800/
My dear Child -/
I wrote you a long letter a few days since / which I hope you have received, and that it may afford you some pleasure as I expect to leave home tomorrow for some time / and thereby prevented from again writing for a week or two. / I thus hasten to address you - I am very sure, if you read my /letters, with half the pleasure it gives me to write them that / you will feel much obliged by this kind of my paternal / remembrance. Perhaps, my dear child, there is no prospect / of my future life more interesting to me than your welfare, / and in this, I write the fondest expectations of giving you no [ill?] in those attainments which shall attract the {?Est??] / and gain the love of all your friends - While you endea-/vor to improve and cultivate your mind, forget not the / graces of your person. They are essential to the excellence of / a female character, and the finest understanding looks / half its value unless thus embellished _ “Avoid bad habits / in [unrecovered]” you have often written, and it cannot be too / [greatly?/equitably?] repeated - you know to what I allude and [page torn] / -int to the wise is sufficient. [Show?Strive]? to correct [page torn] / of your person, which are more or less n [page torn]
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strict attention, aided by unceasing performance will soon / overcome. I particularly allude to your manner of walk / ing. It must be corrected and I hope your dancing mas / ter considers it, part of his task to instruct you therein / [above?] all let me remind you, and I cannot say it / too often, that your [Improvement/] must chiefly depend / on yourself _ Miss Hay may in vain direct you to new / means of rendering yourself, what I so ardently wish you / unless her instructions and advice are [f –ounded?] by your / own efforts _ not merely while you are under the im - / mediate eye of herself and those she may select to as- / sit her, but at all times [c–re?] in your hours of play and / [A—[unrecovered] -ent?] _ at your age, the person is to be formed / and its defects lessened if not perfectly cured, every year / you now advance in life, you will find the task / more and more difficult _ Improve therefore the [?per - /fect?] moment and what at first will feel awkward / and troublesome to you by habit will soon become / natural and perfectly easy _ [how?] women walk will / [page torn]
I hope you will hereafter be [ed? - unrecovered] among the [page torn]
-an accomplishment extremely ornamental / [page torn]
-a Lady, and I hope I shall find[?] enough /
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to call forth your endeavors, to correct your present slovenly / mode of moving your feet _ at the same time recollect that the carriage of your shoulders is essential to give to / walking its true Grace.
I am very anxious to hear from you / and to know how you are pleased with your new / situation. If there is any thing omitted of the articles / furnished by your Mammy, which you think will / add to your comfort or pleasure mention it; for it is / my wish to gratify you in every reasonable indulgence / I shall be in New York about the middle of next / mon [th? - page torn] and before my return will certainly visit / for my desire to embrace you increases every day. / and often, very often, you are the subject of my conversation / with your brothers and sisters. They all abound in af- / fection towards you and have several times requested / when I write, not to forget their Love; and so also says your Mammy + Caty _ with respectful compliments / Miss Hay, believe my dear child, that in me, you’ll [page torn] find a most indulgent and affectionate parent
Jos. Ogden Hof [fman - page torn]
Miss Hoffman
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Envelope
Addressed to Alice Ann Hoffman/
New Brunswick
[END OF LETTER]
