Burgwyn, Henry King, Jr.
I received your very pleasant & agreeable letter & was very
glad to hear that you were so well satisfied with
Schocco. I also with the
single exception of my sleeping apparatus & am probably as well fixed as
any other person. I have great good luck in being with such clever & steady
young men as
Walker
Anderson
&
George Johnston. They are
both extremely kind & attentive to me.
George Bryan also is very
kind but with all that I don't like the place half so much as
West
Point but I don't mean to say that I am dissatisfied with it on the
contrary I like it much better than I thought I would. I room about half a mile
from
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the college & do not hear much of the
noise which a person rooming there has to put up with. I think that this place
is fast improving & in point of dissipation the faculty are trying to put
it down as much as possible & I hear that they caught twenty students last
night either drunk or with liquor in their possesion. I should think that, if
the
trustees would make it incumbent on the
faculty to expel every student who was caught in that state & have it
carried out, they would soon have this college equal if not superior to the
university of Virginia which stands second only to
West
Point. Two or three days ago we had a heavy storm & ever since the
weather has been cool & delightful so cool indeed that it reminds of
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the near approach of autumn & of the consequent
near approach of myself to
Thornbury. I study
mathematics in the Soph & senior class in order to get along faster. I also
study french in two class for the same purpose the two classes aforesaid being
soph. & Junior. C'est a dire the two classes that I study french in those
with my latin & chemistry occupy almost my entire time. What little there
is left & there is none but on Saturday & Sunday I employ either in
reading or writing. When you write tell me all about your intentions &
prospects. I suppose that you will not remain at
Schocco more than a week longer that will bring you to
the 1
st of September & I have
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no doubt but that you will be very desirous of retiring to
the plantation by that period. I suppose that I can leave here by the 25
th of November a little over three months from now. You must
tell me whether
Wilkins Brucewas as devoted to
Maria at
Schoccoas at
Weldon. He
has a bro. in the soph. class & in my section but [unrecovered]
the latter is as fat as the goddess of mischief was before the fall of man when
she had nothing to do but sit down & mope. Tell
Maria she must write me soon. Give my love to all. Write
me also s'il vous plait about plantation news & so forth.