I am become a mongrel

[This is an excerpt from a letter to my old friend John Page on August 20, 1785:]

I have been much pleased to hear you had it in contemplation, to endeavor to establish Rittenhouse in our College. This would be an immense acquisition, and would draw youth to it from every part of the continent. You will do much more honor to our society, on reviving it, by placing him at its head, than so useless a member as I should be. I have been so long diverted from this my favorite line, and that, too, without acquiring an attachment to my adopted one, that I am become a mongrel, of no decided order, unowned by any, and incapable of serving any.