Your letter of the 22d of November greeted me on my arrival here. The
exchange has employed my thoughts ever since. Richmond Hill will, for
a few years to come, be more valuable than Morris's; and to you, who
are so fond of town, a place so far from it would be useless. So much
for my reasoning on one side; now for the other. Richmond Hill has
lost many of its beauties, and is daily losing more. If you mean it
for a residence, what avail its intrinsic value? If you sell part, you
deprive it of every beauty save the mere view. Morris's is the most
commanding view on the island. It is reputed to be indescribably
beautiful. The grounds are pretty. How many delightful walks can be
made on one hundred and thirty acres! How much of your taste
displayed! In ten or twenty years hence, one hundred and thirty acres
on New-York island will be a principality; and there is to me
something stylish, elegant, respectable, and suitable to you in having
a handsome country-seat. So that, upon the whole, I vote for Morris's.
You, perhaps, have not yet heard of the death of J. M'Pherson. He
expired on the road from town to his brother's. Poor Sally was with
him, and John here. He has gone for her, and thus Hagley will be
deserted for a long time.
Men are indubitably born monkeys. _Gampy_ imitates me in every thing I
do, and to-day I had a lesson not to be forgotten.
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