Here is your letter, my dear papa, with the corrections you asked for; I cannot keep from laughing when I see a great man submit humbly to the ignorance of a woman in order to learn a language that she knows only imperfectly. My zeal will sustain me; what would I not sacrifice to the desire of being useful to you? I will make as many corrections as you like, and I will never grow any more arrogant about it than I am now. If I ever did have a movement of that feeling, which I despise, your friendship for me would be the only thing that could provoke it.

I am thinking about our affairs in paradise; perhaps you might be permitted a little more liberty with respect to me, if by good fortune the angels have not corrupted themselves by taking up with the virgins, which I strongly fear they have done, as morals everywhere are so bad. Do you know, my good papa, that people have criticized the sweet habit I have taken of sitting on your lap, and your habit of soliciting from me what I always refuse? People see evil everywhere in this miserable country, and as I have the easy-going nature of the Americans, that irks me; but the wise must tolerate the mad, the wicked and the foolish. Let us deprive them of ways to talk and do harm; let us love each other always, and delight in the happiness of being better than they are.