In this family Colonel Burr became
intimate in 1777, and in 1782 married the widow Prevost.
JAMES MONROE TO MRS. PREVOST. [1]
Philadelphia, November 8th, 1778.
A young lady who either is, or pretends to be, in love, is, you know,
my dear Mrs. Prevost, the most unreasonable creature in existence. If
she looks a smile or a frown, which does not immediately give or
deprive you of happiness (at least to appearance), your company soon
becomes very insipid. Each feature has its beauty, and each attitude
the graces, or you have no judgment. But if you are so stupidly
insensible of her charms as to deprive your tongue and eyes of every
expression of admiration, and not only to be silent respecting her,
but devote them to an absent object, she cannot receive a higher
insult; nor would she, if not restrained by politeness, refrain from
open resentment.
Upon this principle I think I stand excused for not writing from B.
Ridge. I proposed it, however; and, after meeting with opposition in
-----, to obtain her point, she promised to visit the little
"Hermitage," [2] and make my excuse herself. I took occasion to turn
the conversation to a different object, and plead for permission to go
to France. I gave up in one instance, and she certainly ought in the
other. But writing a letter and going to France are very different,
you will perhaps say. She objected to it, and all the arguments which
a fond, delicate, unmarried lady could use, she did not fail to
produce against it.
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