Just ok
Tag: history
“[John Paul Jones] is a most uncommon Character. I dare Say you would be as much dissapointed in him as I was. … I expected to have seen a Rough Stout warlike Roman. Instead of that, I should sooner think of wraping him up in cotton wool and putting him into my pocket, than sending him to contend with Cannon Ball. He is small of stature, well proportioned, soft in his Speach easy in his address polite in his manners, vastly civil, understands all the Etiquette of a Ladys Toilite as perfectly as he does the Masts Sails and rigging of a Ship. Under all this appearence of softness he is Bold enterprizing ambitious and active. … He knows how often the Ladies use the Baths, what coulour best suits a Ladys complextion, what Cosmecticks are most favourable to the skin. We do not often See the Warriour and the Abigail [a lady’s maid] thus united.”
—
Abigail Adams to Elizabeth Cranch on December 3, 1784
I can’t believe that people have been saying for centuries that they want to wrap precious smol people in blankets and place them into their pockets to protect them.
“Those who encountered Washington most often described him as reserved, formal, and aloof, a man of “mild gravity” and “stately bearing” who was habitually wary of strangers. Visitors never portrayed him as curt or inhospitable, but none ever said that they felt completely at ease with Washington or claimed to have grown close to him. However, there were two groups with which Washington developed close relationships. He grew near to several of his aides and the Marquis de Lafayette. All were young enough to be his sons and all venerated him. These young men posed no threat to Washington. Blindly loyal, they were acquaintances with whom he could relax and speak with candor.
Washington was also quite comfortable in the company of women. Perhaps because they too posed no threat to his public position, he permitted women to see a side of him that few men ever witnessed. Several women described Washington’s manner in ways that no man ever suggested. Some commented on his sense of humor, others said he listened to them more attentively than most men, and some portrayed him as cheerful, even playful.”
Setting the World Ablaze by John Ferling
“On the first days of your Arrival at Albany I dare say you had Nothing to do with Any Body’s letters. But I will now Become the Bolder in interrupting your Amorous Occupations as exclusive of other Motives the importance of the Matters I have to Mention may Countenance your indulging your dear self with some Minutes Respite.”
—
Marquis de Lafayette to Alexander Hamilton, 9 December 1780
Hamilton was in Albany for his wedding.
“I went out with General Hamilton on Saturday the 21st, and stayed till Sunday evening. There was a furious and dreadful storm on Saturday night. It blew almost a hurricane. His house stands high and was very much exposed, and I am certain that in the second story, where I slept, it rocked like a cradle. He never appeared before so friendly and amiable. I was alone, and he treated me with a minute attention that I did not suppose he knew how to bestow. His manners were also very delicate and chaste. His daughter, who is nineteen years old, has a very uncommon simplicity and modesty of deportment, and he appeared in his domestic state the plain, modest, and affectionate father and husband.”
— Judge William Kent to his Wife- April 26, 1804 (via Memoirs and Letters of James Kent, pg 143)
“[For Hamilton] to call Burr ‘Catiline’ or ‘Savius’ was more than name-calling; these were unabashed verbal ‘cuts’ at his character. The two Roman generals were depraved men, their careers stained by unspeakable acts of treason, murder, incest, and sodomy…Savius, Catiline, and Burr all shared the same personal and sexual vices, according to Hamilton. In one of his harshest rebukes, Hamilton wrote in a letter to John Rutledge, Jr., in 1801, calling Burr a ‘dangerous man’, ‘profligate,’ ‘with the cunning of Catiline,’ who was devoid of integrity and motivated by inordinate ambition. Like his Roman predecessor, Burr was ‘the haughtiest of men,’ aiming at nothing less than to establish ‘Supreme power in his own person.’ One of the most devastating insults contained in this letter was Hamilton’s accusation that Burr’s Catalinian cunning, like that of Savius, was based on his sexual power in ‘courting the young.’ This reference to Burr’s power over young men would prove to be a recurring refrain. More importantly, labeling Burr a bisexual seducer made his hypermasculinity dangerous in a distinctive sense: he had the power not only to captivate women, but he could entice (secure the personal devotion of) young, impressionable, vulnerable men.”
—
Nancy Isenburg, The ‘Little Emperor’: Aaron Burr, Dandyism, and the Sexual Politics of Treason
they were a hot sweaty mess and i live for it
“[The maid] came in just before my dining, and was astonished to find how uncomfortable I was, and repeated it over and over. There is no truth in it; I am more than comfortable. To be sure, of the nine chairs in my room, eight were lumbered with clothes, &c. The two tables, the chest of drawers and the mantlepiece the like; besides about fifty articles on the floor…As to the arrangement, it is my taste; it is order; everything is found without opening trunks or drawers, and I never suffer my room to be swept. These English maids, if they once get into your room, hide everything; and this they call neatness and order. After such a misfortune, which, through inadvertence, now and then happens, it is the work of some days to find the things most usually wanted.”
—
Aaron Burr justifies being a complete slob
❤
(via reneexmaria)
…Seems Burr and I have something in common. XD
Let’s just all take a minute to appreciate how truly incredible and hilarious this story really is.
“Do remind me to give you a dissertation on locking doors. Every person of every sex and grade comes in without knocking; plump into your bedroom! They do not seem at all embarrassed, nor think of apologizing at finding you in bed or dressing or doing—no matter what—but go right on and tell their story as if it were alright. If the door be locked and the key (they use altogether spring locks here), no matter, they unlock the door and in they come. It is vain to desire them to knock; they do not comprehend you and if they do, pay no manner of attention to it.
It took me six weeks to teach my old Anna (maid) not to come in without knocking and leave and finally it was only by apprehending to get into a most violent passion and threatening to blow out her brains, which she had not the least doubt I would do without ceremony.
I engage she is the only servant in all Sweden who ever knocks.
Notwithstanding all my caution I have been almost every day disturbed in this way, and once last week was surprised in the most awkward situation imaginable.”
—Aaron Burr, explaining why you should lock your fucking doors.
Oh God poor Burr. XD
“Kit took occasion to tell me that [Alexander] Hamilton (who cast some liquorish looks at his cara sposa, the day we were at Breck’s) appears to him very trifling in his conversation with ladies and that his wife said she did not like him at all. He was evidently satisfied, with this intimation.”
—
Harrison Gray Otis
(liquorish=lustful; cara sposa=beloved wife)
I love Otis’s obvious amusement with the fact that Kent is pleased his wife didn’t like Hamilton. XD A little insecure, eh Kent?
Also, Hamilton staring lustfully at other men’s wives.
Daintyfire 