does not require
considerable repairs. In a word, I am already surrounded by joiners,
masons, and painters; and such is my anxiety to get out of their
hands, that I have scarcely a room to put a friend into or to sit
in myself without the music of hammers or the odoriferous scent of
paint." He easily dropped back into the round of country duties and
pleasures, and the care of farms and plantations, which had always
had for him so much attraction. "To make and sell a little flour
annually," he wrote to Wolcott, "to repair houses going fast to ruin,
to build one for the security of my papers of a public nature, will
constitute employment for the few years I have to remain on this
terrestrial globe." Again he said to McHenry: "You are at the source
of information, and can find many things to relate, while I have
nothing to say that would either inform or amuse a secretary of war at
Philadelphia. I might tell him that I begin my diurnal course with the
sun; that if my hirelings are not in their places by that time I send
them messages of sorrow for their indisposition; that having put these
wheels in motion I examine the state of things further; that the more
they are probed the deeper I find the wounds which my buildings have
sustained by an absence and neglect of eight years; that by the time
I have accomplished these matters breakfast (a little after seven
o'clock, about the time I presume that you are taking leave of Mrs.
McHenry) is ready; that this being over I mount my horse and ride
round my farms, which employs me until it is time to dress for dinner,
at which I rarely miss seeing strange faces, come, as they say, out of
respect for me. Pray, would not the word curiosity answer as well?
And how different this from having a few social friends at a cheerful
board. The usual time of sitting at table, a walk, and tea bring me
within the dawn of candle-light; previous to which, if not prevented
by company, I resolve that as soon as the glimmering taper supplies
the place of the great luminary I will retire to my writing-table and
acknowledge the letters I have received; that when the lights
are brought I feel tired and disinclined to engage in this work,
conceiving that the next night will do as well. The next night comes
and with it the same causes for postponement, and so on. Having given
you the history of a day, it will serve for a year, and I am persuaded
you will not require a second edition of it. But it may strik