Transcription
Madrid June 13 1844
My dear Charlie,
I have just received your letter of April 24 & 28. / It has been rather long on the way yet it gives me the /earliest particulars about your cousin Julias (sic) ball, / about which I had been dying to have intelligence / heaven and earth Charlie! What an effect you and Julia / and many such have produced with your new dresses! I / have been trying, with might and main, to decipher the / name of the white dress which you wore, and which / your friend Helen Jones sent your from Paris. At length I / made it out to be a white tarlatan, which sounds / like something quite out of the common run, something / I suppose of the {illegible word} order – and then the small / blue dots on it! Oh Charlie! You must have “looked / sweet.” As to my dear Julia, with her white dress / trimmed with white ribbon, and with white flowers in / her hair she must have been a perfect “lilly (sic) of the valley;” / which Mary beside her, with pink flowers of the / front of her dress, and pink flowers in her hair, was / the “Rose of Sharon” outright. You may well /
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wish I had been there – Jupiter! how (sic) I should have / strutted into the ball room, with my three nieces hanging / on my arm, blooming from the bowers of Sunnyside! / Give my love to my dear Julie and Mary and tell / them I thank them a thousand times for representing / little Sunnyside so well on this momentous occasion - / but don’t tell them, what I mean for your private ear / that however fine they may have appeared, I rather think the / tarlatan must have carried the day. /
What a gay summer you will have at the cottage / with the Grinnells on one side and the Mintern family / on the other. And then the return of my young friend / Alexander Hamilton will enliven his household and add / to the gaiety of the neighborhood. What picnics you will / have! I feel quite homesick with thoughts of it. /
I am quite indignant at what you tell me of / {illegible word}, the laird of Tompkins villa shutting / up his garden and his daughters with a high braid / fence. I hope there will be found poachers sufficiently /
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adventurous to scale the fence and carry off both / denizens and damsels. /
I have nothing new to tell you about Madrid; / the Queen and the Queens (sic) mother and the Queens (sic) sister and / have gone to Barcelona, the Palace is deserted and / almost all the diplomatic corps have followed the court. / I shall set off in a few days, for the same place, in / company with Mr. Albuquerque the Brazilian minister / Mr D’Albarco, the Danish charge d’affairs. Two other gentle- / men of the diplomatic corps will precede us about three or / four days, and will endeavor to preserve a haven in which / we can all be accommodated and keep bachelor hall / during the time we may have to remain there. When / arrived then I may be able to furnish some forgotten / diplomatic intelligence for the cottage; especially / the movements of the Turkish ambassador, who has recently / arrived there, and who is the wonder and talk of all / the fashionable and {illegible word} of the ladies. I have / no great opinion of him, however, as I understand he wears / no turban, but dresses in the European style, talks French / and looks like any other diplomatic gentleman. A / Turk without his robes is like a turkey without his feathers / with the disadvantage of not being worth roasting. /
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Farewell my dear Charlie – let me hear about all your / summer gaieties; whether you have any pic – nics as of old, / any musical parties – any dances to the piano– may you / have merry times and frequent occasion to figure in the / tarlatan. /
Your affectionate uncle /
Washington Irving”
Address on verso:
“Miss Charlotte Irving / Sunnyside Cottage / (n) near Tarrytown / Westchester County / N York”
Also “P’sailing Packet / to N York;” circular postmark “New-York / Aug / 12
