The weather cool & agreeable--Sermon is to Day at Ucomico, at the lower church, I choose therefore to stay in my Room--How pleasant is retirement! And how easy is it to enjoy it--This may seem strange, but it is true--I have but very few acquaintances, & they easily dispense with my Absence--I have an elegant inviting apartment for Study--I have plenty of valuable & entertaining Books--And I hav business of my own that requires my attention--At Home my Relations call me proud and morose if I do not visit them--My own private business often calls me off & unsettles my mind--There too lives the Girl who has subdued my heart!--All these put together, when they operate at once, are a strong incitement to divert me from Study. Yet I love Cohansie! And in spite of my resolution, when I am convinced that my situation is more advantageous here, yet I wish to be there--How exceedingly capricious is fancy! When I am Home I then seem willing to remove, for other places seem to be full as desirable--It is then Society which makes places seem agreeable or the Contrary--It can be nothing else--Adam when he had no troublesome painful thoughts within him; and had a flowery Paradise for his habitation & enjoyment, was not yet fully happy while he possessed it alone; much less can we his offspring, frail, & variable, enjoy much sattisfaction without intercourse with one another--I have just spoken in praise of Society & retirement; And I now observe we are of such a make that, if we be happy, these must alternately succeed each other--It is something like the opinion of _Socrates_ concerning pleasure & pain, that if we possess the one, we may expect it will not be long before we shall meet with the other--Towards evening At Mrs Carters request I waited on Miss _Priscilla_, _Nancy_, & _Fanny_ who rode on Horse-back for an airing--Wrote a Letter to the Revd Mr Andrew Hunter, Cohansie New Jersey--In the evening Ben returned full of news of _Boston_, that we must fight that the troops are arrived & impudent &c, &c. [LETTER OF PHILIP V. FITHIAN TO ELIZABETH BEATTY] Nominy-Hall Virginia June 5: 1774. TO LAURA. I have the Pleasure, since you allow me the Honour of corresponding with you, to acquaint you that I had a speedy & delightsome Passage from Home to this Place: It was you know, in the best Time of the lovliest of Months. The Delaware, the broad Chesapeak, & the beautiful Potowmack were mild & lovely as a handsome, Woman's Presence when her Mind is at Rest--But are fine Women, Laura, as easily thrown into Confusion & Tumult as they--? I expect these, if you receive them at all, will find you at N--n. If they should, please to make my kind Respects to your Brother--& compliment him on his new Alliance.