Sam[ue]l L. Mitchill ALS to [Catharine Mitchill], December 23, 1806

No 12

Washington, Decr. 23. 1806. (Tuesday)

I have received your note of the 18th, my darling,
and am well pleased with your obliging determina-
-tion to write to me frequently. That employment, of
which you have complained so much grows easier by
practice. The mind finds ideas and clothes them
in words, with additional facility, and the hand
expresses them in characters and commits them to
Paper with proportional readiness, as the respective
organs are called into use. Therefore, as every Letter
you write will render each succeeding one, a perfor-
-mance of less difficulty, you may by further continui-
-ance arrive at such promptness in the execution
that the performance instead of being irksome, will
give you positive delight. And for your encourage-
-ment I state to you my own Case; which is such
as to afford me much actual pleasure in penning
Epistles to the partner of my Bosom.