CHAPTER XX.

To Mrs. Trist.

Monticello, Dec. 26th, 1814.My good Friend—The mail between us passes very slowly. Your letter of November 17 reached this place on the 14th inst. only. I think while you were writing it the candle must have burnt blue, and that a priest or some other conjurer should have been called in to exorcise your room. To be serious, however, your view of things is more gloomy than necessary. True, we are at war—that that war was unsuccessful by land the first year, but honorable the same year by sea, and equally by sea and land ever since. Our resources, both of men and money, are abundant, if wisely called forth and administered. I acknowledge that experience does not as yet seem to have led our Legislatures into the best course of either....I think, however, there will be peace. The negotiators at Ghent are agreed in every thing except as to a rag of Maine, which we can not yield nor they seriously care about, but it serves them to hold by until they can hear what the Convention of Hartford will do. When they shall see, as theywill see, that nothing is done there, they will let go their hold, and we shall have peace on thestatus ante bellum. You have seen that Vermont and New Hampshire refuse to join the mutineers, and Connecticut does it with a "saving of her duty to the Federal Constitution." Do you believe that Massachusetts, on the good faith and aid of little Rhode Island, will undertake a war against the rest of the Union and the half of herself? Certainly never—so much for politics.We are all well, little and big, young and old. Mr. and Mrs. Divers enjoy very so-so health, but keep about. Mr. Randolph had the command of a select corps during summer; but that has been discharged some time. We are feeding our horses with our wheat, and looking at the taxes coming on us as an approaching wave in a storm; still I think we shall live as long, eat as much, and drink as much, as if the wave had already glided under our ship. Somehow or other these things find their way out as they come in, and so I suppose they will now. God bless you, and give you health, happiness, and hope, the real comforters of this nether world.TH. JEFFERSON.

Monticello, Dec. 26th, 1814.

My good Friend—The mail between us passes very slowly. Your letter of November 17 reached this place on the 14th inst. only. I think while you were writing it the candle must have burnt blue, and that a priest or some other conjurer should have been called in to exorcise your room. To be serious, however, your view of things is more gloomy than necessary. True, we are at war—that that war was unsuccessful by land the first year, but honorable the same year by sea, and equally by sea and land ever since. Our resources, both of men and money, are abundant, if wisely called forth and administered. I acknowledge that experience does not as yet seem to have led our Legislatures into the best course of either....

I think, however, there will be peace. The negotiators at Ghent are agreed in every thing except as to a rag of Maine, which we can not yield nor they seriously care about, but it serves them to hold by until they can hear what the Convention of Hartford will do. When they shall see, as theywill see, that nothing is done there, they will let go their hold, and we shall have peace on thestatus ante bellum. You have seen that Vermont and New Hampshire refuse to join the mutineers, and Connecticut does it with a "saving of her duty to the Federal Constitution." Do you believe that Massachusetts, on the good faith and aid of little Rhode Island, will undertake a war against the rest of the Union and the half of herself? Certainly never—so much for politics.

We are all well, little and big, young and old. Mr. and Mrs. Divers enjoy very so-so health, but keep about. Mr. Randolph had the command of a select corps during summer; but that has been discharged some time. We are feeding our horses with our wheat, and looking at the taxes coming on us as an approaching wave in a storm; still I think we shall live as long, eat as much, and drink as much, as if the wave had already glided under our ship. Somehow or other these things find their way out as they come in, and so I suppose they will now. God bless you, and give you health, happiness, and hope, the real comforters of this nether world.

TH. JEFFERSON.

In a letter to Cæsar A. Rodney, inviting a visit from him, and written on March 16th, 1815, he says: "You will find me in habitual good health, great contentedness, enfeebled in body, impaired in memory, but without decay in my friendships."

In a letter written to Jean Baptiste Say a few days earlier than the one just quoted, he speaks thus of the society of the country around him: "The society is much better than is common in country situations; perhaps there is not a bettercountrysociety in the United States. But do not imagine this a Parisian or an academical society. It consists of plain, honest, and rational neighbors, some of them well-informed, and men of reading, all superintending their farms, hospitable and friendly, and speaking nothing but English. The manners of every nation are the standard of orthodoxy within itself. But these standards being arbitrary, reasonable people in all allow free toleration for the manners, as for the religion, of others."

We get a glimpse of the state of his health and his daily habits in a letter written to a friend in the spring of 1816. He writes:

I retain good health, and am rather feeble to walk much, but ride with ease, passing two or three hours a day on horseback,[59]and every three or four months taking, in a carriage, a journey of ninety miles to a distant possession, where I pass a good deal of my time. My eyes need the aid of glasses by night, and, with small print, in the day also. My hearing is not quite so sensible as it used to be; no tooth shaking yet, but shivering and shrinking in body from the cold are now experienced, my thermometer having been as low as 12° this morning.My greatest oppression is a correspondence afflictingly laborious, the extent of which I have long been endeavoring to curtail. This keeps me at the drudgery of the writing-table all the prime hours of the day, leaving for the gratification of my appetite for reading only what I can steal from the hours of sleep. Could I reduce this epistolary corvée within the limits of my friends and affairs, and give the time redeemed from it to reading and reflection, to history, ethics, mathematics, my life would be as happy as the infirmities of age would admit, and I should look on its consummation with the composure of one "qui summum nec metuit diem nec optat."

My greatest oppression is a correspondence afflictingly laborious, the extent of which I have long been endeavoring to curtail. This keeps me at the drudgery of the writing-table all the prime hours of the day, leaving for the gratification of my appetite for reading only what I can steal from the hours of sleep. Could I reduce this epistolary corvée within the limits of my friends and affairs, and give the time redeemed from it to reading and reflection, to history, ethics, mathematics, my life would be as happy as the infirmities of age would admit, and I should look on its consummation with the composure of one "qui summum nec metuit diem nec optat."

The cheerfulness of his bright and happy temper gleams out in the following extract from a letter written a few months later to John Adams:

To John Adams.

You ask if I would agree to live my seventy, or, rather, seventy-three, years over again? To which I say, yea. I think, with you, that it is a good world, on the whole; that it has been framed on a principle of benevolence, and more pleasure than pain dealt out to us. There are, indeed (who might say nay), gloomy and hypochondriac minds, inhabitants of diseased bodies, disgusted with the present and despairing of the future; always counting that the worst willhappen, because it may happen. To these I say, how much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened! My temperament is sanguine. I steer my bark with Hope in the head, leaving Fear astern. My hopes, indeed, sometimes fail; but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy. There are, I acknowledge, even in the happiest life, some terrible convulsions, heavy set-offs against the opposite page of the account....Did I know Baron Grimm while at Paris? Yes, most intimately. He was the pleasantest and most conversable member of the diplomatic corps while I was there; a man of good fancy, acuteness, irony, cunning, and egoism. No heart, not much of any science, yet enough of every one to speak its language; his forte was belles-lettres, painting, and sculpture. In these he was the oracle of the society, and, as such, was the Empress Catherine's private correspondent and factor in all things not diplomatic. It was through him I got her permission for poor Ledyard to go to Kamtschatka, and cross over thence to the western coast of America, in order to penetrate across our continent in the opposite direction to that afterwards adopted for Lewis and Clarke; which permission she withdrew after he had got within two hundred miles of Kamtschatka, had him seized, brought back, and set down in Poland.

Did I know Baron Grimm while at Paris? Yes, most intimately. He was the pleasantest and most conversable member of the diplomatic corps while I was there; a man of good fancy, acuteness, irony, cunning, and egoism. No heart, not much of any science, yet enough of every one to speak its language; his forte was belles-lettres, painting, and sculpture. In these he was the oracle of the society, and, as such, was the Empress Catherine's private correspondent and factor in all things not diplomatic. It was through him I got her permission for poor Ledyard to go to Kamtschatka, and cross over thence to the western coast of America, in order to penetrate across our continent in the opposite direction to that afterwards adopted for Lewis and Clarke; which permission she withdrew after he had got within two hundred miles of Kamtschatka, had him seized, brought back, and set down in Poland.

To Mrs. Trist.

Poplar Forest, April 28th, 1816.I am here, my dear Madam, alive and well, and, notwithstanding the murderous histories of the winter, I have not had an hour's sickness for a twelvemonth past. I feel myself indebted to the fable, however, for the friendly concern expressed in your letter, which I received in good health, by my fireside at Monticello. These stories will come true one of these days, and poor printer Davies need only reserve awhile the chapter of commiserations he had the labor to compose, and the mortification to recall, after striking off some sheets announcing tohisreaders the happy riddance. But, all joking apart, I am well, and left all well a fortnight ago at Monticello, to which I shall return in two or three days....Jefferson is gone to Richmond to bring home my newgreat-grand-daughter. Your friends, Mr. and Mrs. Divers, are habitually in poor health; well enough only to receive visits, but not to return them; and this, I think, is all our small news which can interest you.On the general scale of nations, the greatest wonder is Napoleon at St. Helena; and yet it is where it would have been well for the lives and happiness of millions and millions, had he been deposited there twenty years ago. France would now have had a free Government, unstained by the enormities she has enabled him to commit on the rest of the world, and unprostrated by the vindictive hand, human or divine, now so heavily bearing upon her. She deserves much punishment, and her successes and reverses will be a wholesome lesson to the world hereafter; but she has now had enough, and we may lawfully pray for her resurrection, and I am confident the day is not distant. No one who knows that people, and the elasticity of their character, can believe they will long remain crouched on the earth as at present. They will rise by acclamation, and woe to their riders. What havoc are we not yet to see! But these sufferings of all Europe will not be lost. A sense of the rights of man is gone forth, and all Europe will ere long have representative governments, more or less free....We are better employed in establishing universities, colleges, canals, roads, maps, etc. What do you say to all this? Who could have believed the Old Dominion would have roused from her supineness, and taken such a scope at her first flight? My only fear is that an hour of repentance may come, and nip in the bud the execution of conceptions so magnanimous. With my friendly respects to Mr. and Mrs. Gilmer, accept the assurance of my constant attachment and respect.TH. JEFFERSON.

Poplar Forest, April 28th, 1816.

I am here, my dear Madam, alive and well, and, notwithstanding the murderous histories of the winter, I have not had an hour's sickness for a twelvemonth past. I feel myself indebted to the fable, however, for the friendly concern expressed in your letter, which I received in good health, by my fireside at Monticello. These stories will come true one of these days, and poor printer Davies need only reserve awhile the chapter of commiserations he had the labor to compose, and the mortification to recall, after striking off some sheets announcing tohisreaders the happy riddance. But, all joking apart, I am well, and left all well a fortnight ago at Monticello, to which I shall return in two or three days....

Jefferson is gone to Richmond to bring home my newgreat-grand-daughter. Your friends, Mr. and Mrs. Divers, are habitually in poor health; well enough only to receive visits, but not to return them; and this, I think, is all our small news which can interest you.

On the general scale of nations, the greatest wonder is Napoleon at St. Helena; and yet it is where it would have been well for the lives and happiness of millions and millions, had he been deposited there twenty years ago. France would now have had a free Government, unstained by the enormities she has enabled him to commit on the rest of the world, and unprostrated by the vindictive hand, human or divine, now so heavily bearing upon her. She deserves much punishment, and her successes and reverses will be a wholesome lesson to the world hereafter; but she has now had enough, and we may lawfully pray for her resurrection, and I am confident the day is not distant. No one who knows that people, and the elasticity of their character, can believe they will long remain crouched on the earth as at present. They will rise by acclamation, and woe to their riders. What havoc are we not yet to see! But these sufferings of all Europe will not be lost. A sense of the rights of man is gone forth, and all Europe will ere long have representative governments, more or less free....

We are better employed in establishing universities, colleges, canals, roads, maps, etc. What do you say to all this? Who could have believed the Old Dominion would have roused from her supineness, and taken such a scope at her first flight? My only fear is that an hour of repentance may come, and nip in the bud the execution of conceptions so magnanimous. With my friendly respects to Mr. and Mrs. Gilmer, accept the assurance of my constant attachment and respect.

TH. JEFFERSON.

In a letter to John Adams, written at the beginning of the next year (1817), he complains bitterly of the burden of his extensive correspondence.

To John Adams.

Monticello, Jan. 11th, 1817.Dear Sir—Forty-three volumes read in one year, and twelve of them quarto! Dear Sir, how I envy you! Halfa dozen octavos in that space of time are as much as I am allowed. I can read by candle-light only, and stealing long hours from my rest; nor would that time be indulged to me, could I by that light see to write. From sunrise to one or two o'clock, and often from dinner to dark, I am drudging at the writing-table. All this to answer letters into which neither interest nor inclination on my part enters; and often from persons whose names I have never before heard. Yet, writing civilly, it is hard to refuse them civil answers. This is the burthen of my life, a very grievous one indeed, and one which I must get rid of.Delaplaine lately requested me to give him a line on the subject of his book; meaning, as I well knew, to publish it. This I constantly refuse; but in this instance yielded, that in saying a word for him I might say two for myself. I expressed in it freely my sufferings from this source; hoping it would have the effect of an indirect appeal to the discretion of those, strangers and others, who, in the most friendly dispositions, oppress me with their concerns, their pursuits, their projects, inventions, and speculations, political, moral, religious, mechanical, mathematical, historical, etc., etc., etc. I hope the appeal will bring me relief, and that I shall be left to exercise and enjoy correspondence with the friends I love, and on subjects which they, or my own inclinations, present. In that case your letters shall not be so long on my files unanswered, as sometimes they have been to my great mortification.

Monticello, Jan. 11th, 1817.

Dear Sir—Forty-three volumes read in one year, and twelve of them quarto! Dear Sir, how I envy you! Halfa dozen octavos in that space of time are as much as I am allowed. I can read by candle-light only, and stealing long hours from my rest; nor would that time be indulged to me, could I by that light see to write. From sunrise to one or two o'clock, and often from dinner to dark, I am drudging at the writing-table. All this to answer letters into which neither interest nor inclination on my part enters; and often from persons whose names I have never before heard. Yet, writing civilly, it is hard to refuse them civil answers. This is the burthen of my life, a very grievous one indeed, and one which I must get rid of.

Delaplaine lately requested me to give him a line on the subject of his book; meaning, as I well knew, to publish it. This I constantly refuse; but in this instance yielded, that in saying a word for him I might say two for myself. I expressed in it freely my sufferings from this source; hoping it would have the effect of an indirect appeal to the discretion of those, strangers and others, who, in the most friendly dispositions, oppress me with their concerns, their pursuits, their projects, inventions, and speculations, political, moral, religious, mechanical, mathematical, historical, etc., etc., etc. I hope the appeal will bring me relief, and that I shall be left to exercise and enjoy correspondence with the friends I love, and on subjects which they, or my own inclinations, present. In that case your letters shall not be so long on my files unanswered, as sometimes they have been to my great mortification.

From a letter to his son-in-law, Mr. Eppes, written the previous year, I take the following extract:

To John W. Eppes.

I am indeed an unskillful manager of my farms, and sensible of this from its effects, I have now committed them to better hands, of whose care and skill I have satisfactory knowledge, and to whom I have ceded the entire direction.[60]This is all that is necessary to make them adequate to all my wants, and to place me at entire ease. And for whomshould I spare in preference to Francis, on sentiments either of duty or affection? I consider all my grandchildren as if they were my children, and want nothing but for them. It is impossible that I could reconcile it to my feelings, that he alone of them should be a stranger to my cares and contributions.

From this extract we learn that Mr. Jefferson had found the cares of his large estates too great a burden for him to carry in his advancing years, and gladly handed them over into the hands of the young grandson, in whose skill and energy he expresses such perfect confidence. From this time until the day of Jefferson's death, we shall find this grandson interposing himself, as far as possible, between his grandfather and his financial troubles, and trying to shield him, at least during his life, from the financial ruin which the circumstances of his situation made unavoidable. With his usual sanguine temper, Jefferson did not appreciate the extent to which his property was involved.

In a letter to his young grandson, Francis Eppes, after alluding to his studies, he says:

To Francis Eppes.

But while you endeavor, by a good store of learning, to prepare yourself to become a useful and distinguished member of your country, you must remember that this never can be without uniting merit with your learning. Honesty, disinterestedness, and good-nature are indispensable to procure the esteem and confidence of those with whom we live, and on whose esteem our happiness depends. Never suffer a thought to be harbored in your mind which you would not avow openly. When tempted to do any thing in secret, ask yourself if you would do it in public; if you would not, be sure it is wrong. In little disputes with your companions, give way rather than insist on trifles, for their love and the approbation of others will be worth more to you than the trifle in dispute. Above all things and at all times, practise yourself in good humor; this, of all human qualities, is the most amiable and endearing to society. Whenever you feel a warmth of temper rising, check it at once, and suppress it,recollecting it would make you unhappy within yourself and disliked by others. Nothing gives one person so great an advantage over another under all circumstances. Think of these things, practise them, and you will be rewarded by the love and confidence of the world.

I have given, in the earlier pages of this work, the charming sketches of Monticello and its owner from the pens of two distinguished Frenchmen,[61]and, fortunately, the Travels of Lieutenant Hall, a British officer, enable me to give a similar sketch from the pen of an Englishman. Their national prejudices and enthusiasm might be thought to have made the French noblemen color their pictures too highly when describing Jefferson; but certainly, if ever he had a critical visitor, a British officer might be considered to have been one, and in this view the following pleasantly-written account of Mr. Hall's visit to Monticello in 1816 will be found particularly interesting:

Lieut. Hall's Visit to Jefferson.[62]

Having an introduction to Mr. Jefferson (Mr. Hall writes), I ascended his little mountain on a fine morning, which gave the situation its due effect. The whole of the sides and base are covered with forest, through which roads have been cut circularly, so that the winding may be shortened at pleasure; the summit is an open lawn, near to the south side of which the house is built, with its garden just descending the brow; the saloon, or central hall, is ornamented with several pieces of antique sculpture, Indian arms, mammoth bones, and other curiosities collected from various parts of the Union. I found Mr. Jefferson tall in person, but stooping and lean with old age, thus exhibiting the fortunate mode of bodily decay which strips the frame of its most cumbersome parts, leaving it still strength of muscle and activity of limb. His deportment was exactly such as the Marquis de Chastellux describes it above thirty years ago. "At first serious, nay even cold," but in a very short time relaxinginto a most agreeable amenity, with an unabated flow of conversation on the most interesting topics discussed in the most gentlemanly and philosophical manner.I walked with him round his grounds, to visit his pet trees and improvements of various kinds. During the walk he pointed out to my observation a conical mountain, rising singly at the edge of the southern horizon of the landscape; its distance, he said, was forty miles, and its dimensions those of the greater Egyptian pyramid; so that it actually represents the appearance of the pyramid at the same distance. There is a small cleft visible on the summit, through which the true meridian of Monticello exactly passes; its most singular property, however, is, that on different occasions it looms, or alters its appearance, becoming sometimes cylindrical, sometimes square, and sometimes assuming the form of an inverted cone. Mr. Jefferson had not been able to connect this phenomenon with any particular season or state of the atmosphere, except that it most commonly occurred in the forenoon. He observed that it was not only wholly unaccounted for by the laws of vision, but that it had not as yet engaged the attention of philosophers so far as to acquire a name; that of "looming" being, in fact, a term applied by sailors to appearances of a similar kind at sea. The Blue Mountains are also observed to loom, though not in so remarkable a degree....I slept a night at Monticello, and left it in the morning, with such a feeling as the traveller quits the mouldering remains of a Grecian temple, or the pilgrim a fountain in the desert. It would, indeed, argue a great torpor, both of understanding and heart, to have looked without veneration or interest on the man who drew up the Declaration of American Independence, who shared in the councils by which her freedom was established; whom the unbought voice of his fellow-citizens called to the exercise of a dignity from which his own moderation impelled him, when such an example was most salutary, to withdraw; and who, while he dedicates the evening of his glorious days to the pursuits of science and literature, shuns none of the humbler duties of private life; but, having filled a seat higher than that of kings, succeeds with graceful dignity to that of the good neighbor, and becomes the friendly adviser, lawyer, physician, and evengardener of his vicinity. This is the still small voice of philosophy, deeper and holier than the lightnings and earthquakes which have preceded it. What monarch would venture thus to exhibit himself in the nakedness of his humanity? On what royal brow would the laurel replace the diadem? But they who are born and educated to be kings are not expected to be philosophers. This is a just answer, though no great compliment, either to the governors or the governed.

I walked with him round his grounds, to visit his pet trees and improvements of various kinds. During the walk he pointed out to my observation a conical mountain, rising singly at the edge of the southern horizon of the landscape; its distance, he said, was forty miles, and its dimensions those of the greater Egyptian pyramid; so that it actually represents the appearance of the pyramid at the same distance. There is a small cleft visible on the summit, through which the true meridian of Monticello exactly passes; its most singular property, however, is, that on different occasions it looms, or alters its appearance, becoming sometimes cylindrical, sometimes square, and sometimes assuming the form of an inverted cone. Mr. Jefferson had not been able to connect this phenomenon with any particular season or state of the atmosphere, except that it most commonly occurred in the forenoon. He observed that it was not only wholly unaccounted for by the laws of vision, but that it had not as yet engaged the attention of philosophers so far as to acquire a name; that of "looming" being, in fact, a term applied by sailors to appearances of a similar kind at sea. The Blue Mountains are also observed to loom, though not in so remarkable a degree....

I slept a night at Monticello, and left it in the morning, with such a feeling as the traveller quits the mouldering remains of a Grecian temple, or the pilgrim a fountain in the desert. It would, indeed, argue a great torpor, both of understanding and heart, to have looked without veneration or interest on the man who drew up the Declaration of American Independence, who shared in the councils by which her freedom was established; whom the unbought voice of his fellow-citizens called to the exercise of a dignity from which his own moderation impelled him, when such an example was most salutary, to withdraw; and who, while he dedicates the evening of his glorious days to the pursuits of science and literature, shuns none of the humbler duties of private life; but, having filled a seat higher than that of kings, succeeds with graceful dignity to that of the good neighbor, and becomes the friendly adviser, lawyer, physician, and evengardener of his vicinity. This is the still small voice of philosophy, deeper and holier than the lightnings and earthquakes which have preceded it. What monarch would venture thus to exhibit himself in the nakedness of his humanity? On what royal brow would the laurel replace the diadem? But they who are born and educated to be kings are not expected to be philosophers. This is a just answer, though no great compliment, either to the governors or the governed.

Early in 1817 Jefferson wrote the following delightful letter to Mrs. Adams—the last, I believe, that he ever addressed to her:

To Mrs. Adams.

Monticello, Jan. 11th, 1817.I owe you, dear Madam, a thousand thanks for the letters communicated in your favor of December 15th, and now returned. They give me more information than I possessed before of the family of Mr. Tracy.[63]But what is infinitely interesting, is the scene of the exchange of Louis XVIII. for Bonaparte. What lessons of wisdom Mr. Adams must have read in that short space of time! More than fall to the lot of others in the course of a long life. Man, and the man of Paris, under those circumstances, must have been a subject of profound speculation! It would be a singular addition to that spectacle to see the same beast in the cage of St. Helena, like a lion in the tower. That is probably the closing verse of the chapter of his crimes. But not so with Louis. He has other vicissitudes to go through.I communicated the letters, according to your permission, to my grand-daughter, Ellen Randolph, who read them with pleasure and edification. She is justly sensible of, and flattered by, your kind notice of her; and additionally so by the favorable recollections of our Northern visiting friends. If Monticello has any thing which has merited their remembrance, it gives it a value the more in our estimation; and could I, in the spirit of your wish, count backward a score of years, it would not be long before Ellen and myself would pay our homage personally to Quincy. But those twentyyears! Alas! where are they? With those beyond the flood. Our next meeting must then be in the country to which they have flown—a country for us not now very distant. For this journey we shall need neither gold nor silver in our purse, nor scrip, nor coats, nor staves. Nor is the provision for it more easy than the preparation has been kind. Nothing proves more than this, that the Being who presides over the world is essentially benevolent—stealing from us, one by one, the faculties of enjoyment, searing our sensibilities, leading us, like the horse in his mill, round and round the same beaten circle—To see what we have seen,To taste the tasted, and at each returnLess tasteful; o'er our palates to decantAnother vintage—until, satiated and fatigued with this leaden iteration, we ask our owncongé.I heard once a very old friend, who had troubled himself with neither poets nor philosophers, say the same thing in plain prose, that he was tired of pulling off his shoes and stockings at night, and putting them on again in the morning. The wish to stay here is thus gradually extinguished; but not so easily that of returning once in a while to see how things have gone on. Perhaps, however, one of the elements of future felicity is to be a constant and unimpassioned view of what is passing here. If so, this may well supply the wish of occasional visits. Mercier has given us a vision of the year 2440; but prophecy is one thing, and history another. On the whole, however, perhaps it is wise and well to be contented with the good things which the Master of the feast places before us, and to be thankful for what we have, rather than thoughtful about what we have not.You and I, dear Madam, have already had more than an ordinary portion of life, and more, too, of health than the general measure. On this score I owe boundless thankfulness. Your health was some time ago not so good as it has been, and I perceive in the letters communicated some complaints still. I hope it is restored; and that life and health may be continued to you as many years as yourself shall wish, is the sincere prayer of your affectionate and respectful friend.

Monticello, Jan. 11th, 1817.

I owe you, dear Madam, a thousand thanks for the letters communicated in your favor of December 15th, and now returned. They give me more information than I possessed before of the family of Mr. Tracy.[63]But what is infinitely interesting, is the scene of the exchange of Louis XVIII. for Bonaparte. What lessons of wisdom Mr. Adams must have read in that short space of time! More than fall to the lot of others in the course of a long life. Man, and the man of Paris, under those circumstances, must have been a subject of profound speculation! It would be a singular addition to that spectacle to see the same beast in the cage of St. Helena, like a lion in the tower. That is probably the closing verse of the chapter of his crimes. But not so with Louis. He has other vicissitudes to go through.

I communicated the letters, according to your permission, to my grand-daughter, Ellen Randolph, who read them with pleasure and edification. She is justly sensible of, and flattered by, your kind notice of her; and additionally so by the favorable recollections of our Northern visiting friends. If Monticello has any thing which has merited their remembrance, it gives it a value the more in our estimation; and could I, in the spirit of your wish, count backward a score of years, it would not be long before Ellen and myself would pay our homage personally to Quincy. But those twentyyears! Alas! where are they? With those beyond the flood. Our next meeting must then be in the country to which they have flown—a country for us not now very distant. For this journey we shall need neither gold nor silver in our purse, nor scrip, nor coats, nor staves. Nor is the provision for it more easy than the preparation has been kind. Nothing proves more than this, that the Being who presides over the world is essentially benevolent—stealing from us, one by one, the faculties of enjoyment, searing our sensibilities, leading us, like the horse in his mill, round and round the same beaten circle—

To see what we have seen,To taste the tasted, and at each returnLess tasteful; o'er our palates to decantAnother vintage—

To see what we have seen,

To taste the tasted, and at each return

Less tasteful; o'er our palates to decant

Another vintage—

until, satiated and fatigued with this leaden iteration, we ask our owncongé.

I heard once a very old friend, who had troubled himself with neither poets nor philosophers, say the same thing in plain prose, that he was tired of pulling off his shoes and stockings at night, and putting them on again in the morning. The wish to stay here is thus gradually extinguished; but not so easily that of returning once in a while to see how things have gone on. Perhaps, however, one of the elements of future felicity is to be a constant and unimpassioned view of what is passing here. If so, this may well supply the wish of occasional visits. Mercier has given us a vision of the year 2440; but prophecy is one thing, and history another. On the whole, however, perhaps it is wise and well to be contented with the good things which the Master of the feast places before us, and to be thankful for what we have, rather than thoughtful about what we have not.

You and I, dear Madam, have already had more than an ordinary portion of life, and more, too, of health than the general measure. On this score I owe boundless thankfulness. Your health was some time ago not so good as it has been, and I perceive in the letters communicated some complaints still. I hope it is restored; and that life and health may be continued to you as many years as yourself shall wish, is the sincere prayer of your affectionate and respectful friend.

The pleasant intercourse between Mr. Jefferson and Mrs. Adams terminated only with the death of the latter, which took place in the fall of the year 1818, and drew from Jefferson the following beautiful and touching letter to his ancient friend and colleague:

To John Adams.

Monticello, November 13th, 1818.The public papers, my dear friend, announce the fatal event of which your letter of October the 20th had given me ominous foreboding. Tried myself in the school of affliction, by the loss of every form of connection which can rive the human heart, I know well, and feel what you have lost, what you have suffered, are suffering, and have yet to endure. The same trials have taught me that for ills so immeasurable time and silence are the only medicine. I will not, therefore, by useless condolences, open afresh the sluices of your grief, nor, although mingling sincerely my tears with yours, will I say a word more where words are vain, but that it is of some comfort to us both that the term is not very distant at which we are to deposit in the same cerement our sorrows and suffering bodies, and to ascend in essence to an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved and lost, and whom we shall still love and never lose again. God bless you and support you under your heavy affliction.TH. JEFFERSON.

Monticello, November 13th, 1818.

The public papers, my dear friend, announce the fatal event of which your letter of October the 20th had given me ominous foreboding. Tried myself in the school of affliction, by the loss of every form of connection which can rive the human heart, I know well, and feel what you have lost, what you have suffered, are suffering, and have yet to endure. The same trials have taught me that for ills so immeasurable time and silence are the only medicine. I will not, therefore, by useless condolences, open afresh the sluices of your grief, nor, although mingling sincerely my tears with yours, will I say a word more where words are vain, but that it is of some comfort to us both that the term is not very distant at which we are to deposit in the same cerement our sorrows and suffering bodies, and to ascend in essence to an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved and lost, and whom we shall still love and never lose again. God bless you and support you under your heavy affliction.

TH. JEFFERSON.

In the following letter we have a most interesting and minute account of Mr. Jefferson's habits and mode of life:

To Doctor Vine Utley.

Monticello, March 21st, 1819.Sir—Your letter of February the 18th came to hand on the 1st instant; and the request of the history of my physical habits would have puzzled me not a little, had it not been for the model with which you accompanied it of Doctor Rush's answer to a similar inquiry. I live so much like other people, that I might refer to ordinary life as the history of my own. Like my friend the Doctor, I have lived temperately, eating little animal food, and that not as an alimentso much as a condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principal diet. I double, however, the Doctor's glass-and-a-half of wine, and even treble it with a friend; but halve its effect by drinking the weak wines only. The ardent wines I can not drink, nor do I use ardent spirits in any form. Malt liquors and cider are my table drinks, and my breakfast, like that also of my friend, is of tea and coffee. I have been blest with organs of digestion which accept and concoct without ever murmuring whatever the palate chooses to consign to them, and I have not yet lost a tooth by age.I was a hard student until I entered on the business of life, the duties of which leave no idle time to those disposed to fulfill them; and now, retired, at the age of seventy-six, I am again a hard student. Indeed, my fondness for reading and study revolts me from the drudgery of letter-writing; and a stiff wrist, the consequence of an early dislocation, makes writing both slow and painful. I am not so regular in my sleep as the Doctor says he was, devoting to it from five to eight hours, according as my company or the book I am reading interests me; and I never go to bed without an hour, or half-hour's reading of something moral whereon to ruminate in the intervals of sleep. But whether I retire to bed early or late, I rise with the sun. I use spectacles at night, but not necessarily in the day, unless in reading small print. My hearing is distinct in particular conversation, but confused when several voices cross each other, which unfits me for the society of the table.I have been more fortunate than my friend in the article of health. So free from catarrhs, that I have not had one (in the breast, I mean) on an average of eight or ten years through life. I ascribe this exemption partly to the habit of bathing my feet in cold water every morning for sixty years past. A fever of more than twenty-four hours I have not had above two or three times in my life. A periodical headache has afflicted me occasionally, once, perhaps, in six or eight years, for two or three weeks at a time, which seems now to have left me; and, except on a late occasion of indisposition, I enjoy good health; too feeble, indeed, to walk much, but riding without fatigue six or eight miles a day, and sometimes thirty or forty.I may end these egotisms, therefore, as I began, by saying that my life has been so much like that of other people, that I might say with Horace, to every one, "Nomine mutato, narratur fabula de te." I must not end, however, without due thanks for the kind sentiments of regard you are so good as to express towards myself; and with my acknowledgments for these, be pleased to accept the assurances of my respect and esteem.TH. JEFFERSON.

Monticello, March 21st, 1819.

Sir—Your letter of February the 18th came to hand on the 1st instant; and the request of the history of my physical habits would have puzzled me not a little, had it not been for the model with which you accompanied it of Doctor Rush's answer to a similar inquiry. I live so much like other people, that I might refer to ordinary life as the history of my own. Like my friend the Doctor, I have lived temperately, eating little animal food, and that not as an alimentso much as a condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principal diet. I double, however, the Doctor's glass-and-a-half of wine, and even treble it with a friend; but halve its effect by drinking the weak wines only. The ardent wines I can not drink, nor do I use ardent spirits in any form. Malt liquors and cider are my table drinks, and my breakfast, like that also of my friend, is of tea and coffee. I have been blest with organs of digestion which accept and concoct without ever murmuring whatever the palate chooses to consign to them, and I have not yet lost a tooth by age.

I was a hard student until I entered on the business of life, the duties of which leave no idle time to those disposed to fulfill them; and now, retired, at the age of seventy-six, I am again a hard student. Indeed, my fondness for reading and study revolts me from the drudgery of letter-writing; and a stiff wrist, the consequence of an early dislocation, makes writing both slow and painful. I am not so regular in my sleep as the Doctor says he was, devoting to it from five to eight hours, according as my company or the book I am reading interests me; and I never go to bed without an hour, or half-hour's reading of something moral whereon to ruminate in the intervals of sleep. But whether I retire to bed early or late, I rise with the sun. I use spectacles at night, but not necessarily in the day, unless in reading small print. My hearing is distinct in particular conversation, but confused when several voices cross each other, which unfits me for the society of the table.

I have been more fortunate than my friend in the article of health. So free from catarrhs, that I have not had one (in the breast, I mean) on an average of eight or ten years through life. I ascribe this exemption partly to the habit of bathing my feet in cold water every morning for sixty years past. A fever of more than twenty-four hours I have not had above two or three times in my life. A periodical headache has afflicted me occasionally, once, perhaps, in six or eight years, for two or three weeks at a time, which seems now to have left me; and, except on a late occasion of indisposition, I enjoy good health; too feeble, indeed, to walk much, but riding without fatigue six or eight miles a day, and sometimes thirty or forty.

I may end these egotisms, therefore, as I began, by saying that my life has been so much like that of other people, that I might say with Horace, to every one, "Nomine mutato, narratur fabula de te." I must not end, however, without due thanks for the kind sentiments of regard you are so good as to express towards myself; and with my acknowledgments for these, be pleased to accept the assurances of my respect and esteem.

TH. JEFFERSON.

In the following month of the same year we find him receiving a letter from Mrs. Cosway, who had long been silent. I give the following quotation from this letter, Jefferson's reply, and other letters from her, which close their pleasant correspondence.

From Mrs. Cosway.—[Extract.]

London, April 7th, 1819.My different journeys to the Continent were either caused by bad health or other particular private melancholy motives; but on any sudden information of Mr. C.'s bad health, I hastened home to see him. In my stay on the Continent, I was called to form establishments of education: one at Lyons, which met with the most flattering success; and lastly, one in Italy, equally answering every hoped-for consolation. Oh! how often have I thought of America, and wished to have exerted myself there! Who would ever have imagined that I should have taken up this line! It has afforded me satisfactions unfelt before, after having been deprived of my own child. What comfortable feelings in seeing children grow up accomplished, modest, and virtuous women! They are hardly gone home from the establishment at fifteen, but are married and become patterns to their sex.But am I not breaking the rules of modesty myself, and boasting too much? In what better manner can I relate this? However, though seemingly settled at Lodi, I was ever ready to return home when called. At last, at the first opening of communication on the cessation of the cruel hostilities which kept us all asunder, alarmed at the indifferent accounts of Mr. C.'s health, I hastened home. He is much broken, and has had two paralytic strokes, the last of whichhas deprived him of the use of his right hand and arm. Forgotten by the arts, suspended from the direction of education (though it is going on vastly well in my absence), I am now discharging the occupations of a nurse, happy in the self-gratification of doing my duty with no other consolation. In your "Dialogue," your Head would tell me, "That is enough;" your Heart, perhaps, will understand I might wish for more. God's will be done!What a loss to me not having the loved Mrs. Church! and how grieved I was when told she was no more among the living! I used to see Madame de Corny in Paris. She still lives, but in bad health. She is the only one left of the common friends we knew. Strange changes, over and over again, all over Europe—you only are proceeding on well.Now, my dear Sir, forgive this long letter. May I flatter myself to hear from you? Give me some accounts of yourself as you used to do; instead of Challion and Paris, talk to me of Monticello.

London, April 7th, 1819.

My different journeys to the Continent were either caused by bad health or other particular private melancholy motives; but on any sudden information of Mr. C.'s bad health, I hastened home to see him. In my stay on the Continent, I was called to form establishments of education: one at Lyons, which met with the most flattering success; and lastly, one in Italy, equally answering every hoped-for consolation. Oh! how often have I thought of America, and wished to have exerted myself there! Who would ever have imagined that I should have taken up this line! It has afforded me satisfactions unfelt before, after having been deprived of my own child. What comfortable feelings in seeing children grow up accomplished, modest, and virtuous women! They are hardly gone home from the establishment at fifteen, but are married and become patterns to their sex.

But am I not breaking the rules of modesty myself, and boasting too much? In what better manner can I relate this? However, though seemingly settled at Lodi, I was ever ready to return home when called. At last, at the first opening of communication on the cessation of the cruel hostilities which kept us all asunder, alarmed at the indifferent accounts of Mr. C.'s health, I hastened home. He is much broken, and has had two paralytic strokes, the last of whichhas deprived him of the use of his right hand and arm. Forgotten by the arts, suspended from the direction of education (though it is going on vastly well in my absence), I am now discharging the occupations of a nurse, happy in the self-gratification of doing my duty with no other consolation. In your "Dialogue," your Head would tell me, "That is enough;" your Heart, perhaps, will understand I might wish for more. God's will be done!

What a loss to me not having the loved Mrs. Church! and how grieved I was when told she was no more among the living! I used to see Madame de Corny in Paris. She still lives, but in bad health. She is the only one left of the common friends we knew. Strange changes, over and over again, all over Europe—you only are proceeding on well.

Now, my dear Sir, forgive this long letter. May I flatter myself to hear from you? Give me some accounts of yourself as you used to do; instead of Challion and Paris, talk to me of Monticello.

To Mrs. Cosway.

Monticello, Dec. 27th, 1820."Over the length of silence I draw a curtain," is an expression, my dear friend, of your cherished letter of April 7, 1819, of which, it might seem, I have need to avail myself; but not so really. To seventy-seven heavy years add two of prostrate health, during which all correspondence has been suspended of necessity, and you have the true cause of not having heard from me. My wrist, too, dislocated in Paris while I had the pleasure of being there with you, is, by the effect of years, now so stiffened that writing is become a slow and painful operation, and scarcely ever undertaken but under the goad of imperious business. But I have never lost sight of your letter, and give it now the first place among those of my trans-Atlantic friends which have been lying unacknowledged during the same period of ill health.I rejoice, in the first place, that you are well; for your silence on that subject encourages me to presume it. And next, that you have been so usefully and pleasingly occupied in preparing the minds of others to enjoy the blessings you yourself have derived from the same source—a cultivated mind. Of Mr. Cosway I fear to say any thing, such is thedisheartening account of the state of his health given in your letter; but here or wherever, I am sure he has all the happiness which an honest life assures. Nor will I say any thing of the troubles of those among whom you live. I see they are great, and wish them happily out of them, and especially that you may be safe and happy, whatever be their issue.I will talk about Monticello, then, and my own country, as is the wish expressed in your letter. My daughter Randolph, whom you knew in Paris a young girl, is now the mother of eleven living children, the grandmother of about half a dozen others, enjoys health and good spirits, and sees the worth of her husband attested by his being at present Governor of the State in which we live. Among these I live like a patriarch of old. Our friend Trumbull is well, and is profitably and honorably employed by his country in commemorating with his pencil some of its Revolutionary honors. Of Mrs. Conger I hear nothing, nor, for a long time, of Madame de Corny. Such is the present state of our former coterie—dead, diseased, and dispersed. But "tout ce qui est differé n'est pas perdu," says the French proverb, and the religion you so sincerely profess tells us we shall meet again....Mine is the next turn, and I shall meet it with good-will; for after one's friends are all gone before them, and our faculties leaving us, too, one by one, why wish to linger in mere vegetation, as a solitary trunk in a desolate field, from which all its former companions have disappeared. You have many good years remaining yet to be happy yourself and to make those around you happy. May these, my dear friend, be as many as yourself may wish, and all of them filled with health and happiness, will be among the last and warmest wishes of an unchangeable friend.TH. JEFFERSON.

Monticello, Dec. 27th, 1820.

"Over the length of silence I draw a curtain," is an expression, my dear friend, of your cherished letter of April 7, 1819, of which, it might seem, I have need to avail myself; but not so really. To seventy-seven heavy years add two of prostrate health, during which all correspondence has been suspended of necessity, and you have the true cause of not having heard from me. My wrist, too, dislocated in Paris while I had the pleasure of being there with you, is, by the effect of years, now so stiffened that writing is become a slow and painful operation, and scarcely ever undertaken but under the goad of imperious business. But I have never lost sight of your letter, and give it now the first place among those of my trans-Atlantic friends which have been lying unacknowledged during the same period of ill health.

I rejoice, in the first place, that you are well; for your silence on that subject encourages me to presume it. And next, that you have been so usefully and pleasingly occupied in preparing the minds of others to enjoy the blessings you yourself have derived from the same source—a cultivated mind. Of Mr. Cosway I fear to say any thing, such is thedisheartening account of the state of his health given in your letter; but here or wherever, I am sure he has all the happiness which an honest life assures. Nor will I say any thing of the troubles of those among whom you live. I see they are great, and wish them happily out of them, and especially that you may be safe and happy, whatever be their issue.

I will talk about Monticello, then, and my own country, as is the wish expressed in your letter. My daughter Randolph, whom you knew in Paris a young girl, is now the mother of eleven living children, the grandmother of about half a dozen others, enjoys health and good spirits, and sees the worth of her husband attested by his being at present Governor of the State in which we live. Among these I live like a patriarch of old. Our friend Trumbull is well, and is profitably and honorably employed by his country in commemorating with his pencil some of its Revolutionary honors. Of Mrs. Conger I hear nothing, nor, for a long time, of Madame de Corny. Such is the present state of our former coterie—dead, diseased, and dispersed. But "tout ce qui est differé n'est pas perdu," says the French proverb, and the religion you so sincerely profess tells us we shall meet again....

Mine is the next turn, and I shall meet it with good-will; for after one's friends are all gone before them, and our faculties leaving us, too, one by one, why wish to linger in mere vegetation, as a solitary trunk in a desolate field, from which all its former companions have disappeared. You have many good years remaining yet to be happy yourself and to make those around you happy. May these, my dear friend, be as many as yourself may wish, and all of them filled with health and happiness, will be among the last and warmest wishes of an unchangeable friend.

TH. JEFFERSON.

The original of the following letter, now lying before me, is edged with black:

From Mrs. Cosway.

London, July 15th, 1821.My dear and most esteemed Friend—The appearance of this letter will inform you I have been left awidow. Poor Mr. Cosway was suddenly taken by an apoplectic fit, and, beingthe third, proved his last. At the time we had hopes he would enjoy a few years, for he had never been so well and so happy. Change of air was rendered necessary for his health. I took a very charming house, and fitted it up handsomely and comfortably with those pictures and things which he liked most.All my thoughts and actions were for him. He had neglected his affairs very much, and when I was obliged to take them into my hands I was astonished. I took every means of ameliorating them, and had succeeded, at least for his comfort, and my consolation was his constantly repeating how well and how happy he was. We had an auction of all his effects, and his house in Stratford Place, which lasted two months. My fatigue was excessive. The sale did not produce as much as we expected, but enough to make him comfortable, and prevent his being embarrassed, as he might have been had I not lived accordingly. Every body thought he was very rich, and I was astonished when put into the real knowledge of his situation. He made his will two years ago, and left me sole executrix and mistress of every thing.After having settled every thing here, and provided for three cousins of Mr. C.'s, I shall retire from this bustling and insignificant world to my favorite college at Lodi, as I always intended, where I can employ myself so happily in doing good.I wish Monticello was not so far—I would pay you a visit, were it ever so much out of my way; but it is impossible. I long to hear from you. The remembrance of a person I so highly esteem and venerate affords me the happiest consolations, and your patriarchal situation delights me—such as I expected from you. Notwithstanding your indifference for a world of which you make one of the most distinguished ornaments and members, I wish you may still enjoy many years, and feel the happiness of a nation which produces such characters.I will write again before I leave this country (at this moment in so boisterous an occupation, as you must be informed of), and I will send you my direction. I shall go through Paris and talk of you with Madame de Corny. Believe me ever your most affectionate and obligedMARIA COSWAY.

London, July 15th, 1821.

My dear and most esteemed Friend—The appearance of this letter will inform you I have been left awidow. Poor Mr. Cosway was suddenly taken by an apoplectic fit, and, beingthe third, proved his last. At the time we had hopes he would enjoy a few years, for he had never been so well and so happy. Change of air was rendered necessary for his health. I took a very charming house, and fitted it up handsomely and comfortably with those pictures and things which he liked most.

All my thoughts and actions were for him. He had neglected his affairs very much, and when I was obliged to take them into my hands I was astonished. I took every means of ameliorating them, and had succeeded, at least for his comfort, and my consolation was his constantly repeating how well and how happy he was. We had an auction of all his effects, and his house in Stratford Place, which lasted two months. My fatigue was excessive. The sale did not produce as much as we expected, but enough to make him comfortable, and prevent his being embarrassed, as he might have been had I not lived accordingly. Every body thought he was very rich, and I was astonished when put into the real knowledge of his situation. He made his will two years ago, and left me sole executrix and mistress of every thing.

After having settled every thing here, and provided for three cousins of Mr. C.'s, I shall retire from this bustling and insignificant world to my favorite college at Lodi, as I always intended, where I can employ myself so happily in doing good.

I wish Monticello was not so far—I would pay you a visit, were it ever so much out of my way; but it is impossible. I long to hear from you. The remembrance of a person I so highly esteem and venerate affords me the happiest consolations, and your patriarchal situation delights me—such as I expected from you. Notwithstanding your indifference for a world of which you make one of the most distinguished ornaments and members, I wish you may still enjoy many years, and feel the happiness of a nation which produces such characters.

I will write again before I leave this country (at this moment in so boisterous an occupation, as you must be informed of), and I will send you my direction. I shall go through Paris and talk of you with Madame de Corny. Believe me ever your most affectionate and obliged

MARIA COSWAY.

From Mrs. Cosway.—[Extract.]

Milan, June 18th, 1823.I congratulate you on the undertaking you announce me of the fine building[64]which occupies your taste and knowledge, and gratifies your heart. The work is worthy of you—you are worthy of such enjoyment. Nothing, I think, is more useful to mankind than a good education. I may say I have been very fortunate to give a spring to it in this country, and see those children I have had the care of turn out good wives, excellent mothers,et bonnes femmes de ménage, which was not understood in these countries, and which is the principal object of society, and the only useful one.I wish I could come and learn from you; were it the farthest part of Europe nothing would prevent me, but that immense sea makes a great distance. I hope, however, to hear from you as often as you can favor me. I am glad you approve my choice of Lodi. It is a pretty place, and free from the bustle of the world, which is become troublesome. What a change since you were here! I saw Madame de Corny when at Paris: she is the same, only a little older.

Milan, June 18th, 1823.

I congratulate you on the undertaking you announce me of the fine building[64]which occupies your taste and knowledge, and gratifies your heart. The work is worthy of you—you are worthy of such enjoyment. Nothing, I think, is more useful to mankind than a good education. I may say I have been very fortunate to give a spring to it in this country, and see those children I have had the care of turn out good wives, excellent mothers,et bonnes femmes de ménage, which was not understood in these countries, and which is the principal object of society, and the only useful one.

I wish I could come and learn from you; were it the farthest part of Europe nothing would prevent me, but that immense sea makes a great distance. I hope, however, to hear from you as often as you can favor me. I am glad you approve my choice of Lodi. It is a pretty place, and free from the bustle of the world, which is become troublesome. What a change since you were here! I saw Madame de Corny when at Paris: she is the same, only a little older.

From Mrs. Cosway.

Florence, Sept. 24th, 1824.My dear Sir, and good Friend—I am come to visit my native country, and am much delighted with every thing round it. The arts have made great progress, and Mr. Cosway's drawings have been very much admired, which induced me to place in the gallery a very fine portrait of his. I have found here an opportunity of sending this letter by Leghorn, which I had not at Milan.I wish much to hear from you, and how you go on with your fine Seminary. I have had my grand saloon painted with the representation of the four parts of the world, and the most distinguished objects of them. I am at loss for America, as I found very few small prints—however, Washington town is marked, and I have left a hill bare where I would place Monticello and the Seminary: if you favorme with some description, that I might have them introduced, you would oblige me much. I am just setting out for my home. Pray write to me at Lodi, and, if this reaches you safely, I will write longer by the same way. Believe me ever, your most obliged and affectionate friend,MARIA COSWAY.

Florence, Sept. 24th, 1824.

My dear Sir, and good Friend—I am come to visit my native country, and am much delighted with every thing round it. The arts have made great progress, and Mr. Cosway's drawings have been very much admired, which induced me to place in the gallery a very fine portrait of his. I have found here an opportunity of sending this letter by Leghorn, which I had not at Milan.

I wish much to hear from you, and how you go on with your fine Seminary. I have had my grand saloon painted with the representation of the four parts of the world, and the most distinguished objects of them. I am at loss for America, as I found very few small prints—however, Washington town is marked, and I have left a hill bare where I would place Monticello and the Seminary: if you favorme with some description, that I might have them introduced, you would oblige me much. I am just setting out for my home. Pray write to me at Lodi, and, if this reaches you safely, I will write longer by the same way. Believe me ever, your most obliged and affectionate friend,

MARIA COSWAY.

Letters to John Adams.—Number of Letters written and received.—To John Adams.—Breaks his Arm.—Letter to Judge Johnson.—To Lafayette.—The University of Virginia.—Anxiety to have Southern Young Men educated at the South.—Letters on the Subject.—Lafayette's Visit to America.—His Meeting with Jefferson.—Daniel Webster's Visit to Monticello, and Description of Mr. Jefferson.

In the following letter to Mr. Adams we find Mr. Jefferson not complaining of, but fully appreciating the rapidity with which old age and its debilities were advancing on him:

To John Adams.

Monticello, June 1st, 1822.It is very long, my dear Sir, since I have written to you. My dislocated wrist is now become so stiff that I write slowly and with pain, and therefore write as little as I can. Yet it is due to mutual friendship to ask once in a while how we do. The papers tell us that General Stark is off at the age of 93. Charles Thompson still lives at about the same age—cheerful, slender as a grasshopper, and so much without memory that he scarcely recognizes the members of his household. An intimate friend of his called on him not long since; it was difficult to make him recollect who he was, and, sitting one hour, he told him the same story four times over. Is this life—"With lab'ring stepTo tread our former footsteps?—pace the roundEternal?—to beat and beatThe beaten track?—to see what we have seen,To taste the tasted?—o'er our palates to decantAnother vintage?"It is at most but the life of a cabbage; surely not worth a wish. When all our faculties have left, or are leaving us, one by one—sight, hearing, memory—every avenue of pleasing sensation is closed, and athumy, debility, and malaise leftin their places—when friends of our youth are all gone, and a generation is risen around us whom we know not, is death an evil?"When one by one our ties are torn,And friend from friend is snatched forlorn,When man is left alone to mourn,Oh! then how sweet it is to die!When trembling limbs refuse their weight,And films slow gathering dim the sight,When clouds obscure the mental light,'Tis nature's kindest boon to die!"I really think so. I have ever dreaded a doting old age; and my health has been generally so good, and is now so good, that I dread it still. The rapid decline of my strength during the last winter has made me hope sometimes that I see land. During summer I enjoy its temperature; but I shudder at the approach of winter, and wish I could sleep through it with the dormouse, and only wake with him in spring, if ever. They say that Stark could walk about his room. I am told you walk well and firmly. I can only reach my garden, and that with sensible fatigue. I ride, however, daily. But reading is my delight. I should wish never to put pen to paper; and the more because of the treacherous practice some people have of publishing one's letters without leave. Lord Mansfield declared it a breach of trust, and punishable at law. I think it should be a penitentiary felony; yet you will have seen that they have drawn me out into the arena of the newspapers.[65]Although I know it is too late for me to buckle on the armor of youth, yet my indignation would not permit me passively to receive the kick of an ass.To turn to the news of the day, it seems that the cannibals of Europe are going to eating one another again. A war between Russia and Turkey is like the battle of the kite and snake. Whichever destroys the other leaves a destroyer the less for the world. This pugnacious humor of mankind seems to be the law of his nature, one of the obstacles to too great multiplication provided in the mechanism of the universe. The cocks of the hen-yard kill one another. Bears, bulls, rams, do the same. And the horse, in his wild state,kills all the young males, until, worn down with age and war, some vigorous youth kills him, and takes to himself the harem of females. I hope we shall prove how much happier for man the Quaker policy is, and that the life of the feeder is better than that of the fighter; and it is some consolation that the desolation by these maniacs of one part of the earth is the means of improving it in other parts. Let the latter be our office, and let us milk the cow, while the Russian holds her by the horns, and the Turk by the tail. God bless you, and give you health, strength, and good spirits, and as much of life as you think worth having.

Monticello, June 1st, 1822.

It is very long, my dear Sir, since I have written to you. My dislocated wrist is now become so stiff that I write slowly and with pain, and therefore write as little as I can. Yet it is due to mutual friendship to ask once in a while how we do. The papers tell us that General Stark is off at the age of 93. Charles Thompson still lives at about the same age—cheerful, slender as a grasshopper, and so much without memory that he scarcely recognizes the members of his household. An intimate friend of his called on him not long since; it was difficult to make him recollect who he was, and, sitting one hour, he told him the same story four times over. Is this life—

"With lab'ring stepTo tread our former footsteps?—pace the roundEternal?—to beat and beatThe beaten track?—to see what we have seen,To taste the tasted?—o'er our palates to decantAnother vintage?"

"With lab'ring step

To tread our former footsteps?—pace the round

Eternal?—to beat and beat

The beaten track?—to see what we have seen,

To taste the tasted?—o'er our palates to decant

Another vintage?"

It is at most but the life of a cabbage; surely not worth a wish. When all our faculties have left, or are leaving us, one by one—sight, hearing, memory—every avenue of pleasing sensation is closed, and athumy, debility, and malaise leftin their places—when friends of our youth are all gone, and a generation is risen around us whom we know not, is death an evil?

"When one by one our ties are torn,And friend from friend is snatched forlorn,When man is left alone to mourn,Oh! then how sweet it is to die!When trembling limbs refuse their weight,And films slow gathering dim the sight,When clouds obscure the mental light,'Tis nature's kindest boon to die!"

"When one by one our ties are torn,

And friend from friend is snatched forlorn,

When man is left alone to mourn,

Oh! then how sweet it is to die!

When trembling limbs refuse their weight,

And films slow gathering dim the sight,

When clouds obscure the mental light,

'Tis nature's kindest boon to die!"

I really think so. I have ever dreaded a doting old age; and my health has been generally so good, and is now so good, that I dread it still. The rapid decline of my strength during the last winter has made me hope sometimes that I see land. During summer I enjoy its temperature; but I shudder at the approach of winter, and wish I could sleep through it with the dormouse, and only wake with him in spring, if ever. They say that Stark could walk about his room. I am told you walk well and firmly. I can only reach my garden, and that with sensible fatigue. I ride, however, daily. But reading is my delight. I should wish never to put pen to paper; and the more because of the treacherous practice some people have of publishing one's letters without leave. Lord Mansfield declared it a breach of trust, and punishable at law. I think it should be a penitentiary felony; yet you will have seen that they have drawn me out into the arena of the newspapers.[65]Although I know it is too late for me to buckle on the armor of youth, yet my indignation would not permit me passively to receive the kick of an ass.

To turn to the news of the day, it seems that the cannibals of Europe are going to eating one another again. A war between Russia and Turkey is like the battle of the kite and snake. Whichever destroys the other leaves a destroyer the less for the world. This pugnacious humor of mankind seems to be the law of his nature, one of the obstacles to too great multiplication provided in the mechanism of the universe. The cocks of the hen-yard kill one another. Bears, bulls, rams, do the same. And the horse, in his wild state,kills all the young males, until, worn down with age and war, some vigorous youth kills him, and takes to himself the harem of females. I hope we shall prove how much happier for man the Quaker policy is, and that the life of the feeder is better than that of the fighter; and it is some consolation that the desolation by these maniacs of one part of the earth is the means of improving it in other parts. Let the latter be our office, and let us milk the cow, while the Russian holds her by the horns, and the Turk by the tail. God bless you, and give you health, strength, and good spirits, and as much of life as you think worth having.

In another letter to Mr. Adams he gives really a pitiable account of the tax on his strength which letter-writing had become. Mr. Adams had suggested that he should publish the letter just quoted, by way of letting the public know how much he suffered from the number of letters he had to answer. Jefferson, in reply, says:

To John Adams.

I do not know how far you may suffer, as I do, under the persecution of letters, of which every mail brings a fresh load. They are letters of inquiry, for the most part, always of good-will, sometimes from friends whom I esteem, but much oftener from persons whose names are unknown to me, but written kindly and civilly, and to which, therefore, civility requires answers. Perhaps the better-known failure of your hand in its function of writing may shield you in greater degree from this distress, and so far qualify the misfortune of its disability. I happened to turn to my letter-list some time ago, and a curiosity was excited to count those received in a single year. It was the year before the last. I found the number to be one thousand two hundred and sixty-seven, many of them requiring answers of elaborate research, and all to be answered with due attention and consideration. Take an average of this number for a week or a day, and I will repeat the question suggested by other considerations in mine of the 1st. Is this life? At best it is but the life of a mill-horse, who sees no end to his circle but in death. To such a life that of a cabbage is paradise.It occurs, then, that my condition of existence, truly stated in that letter, if better known, might check the kind indiscretions which are so heavily depressing the departing hours of life. Such a relief would, to me, be an ineffable blessing.

The reader can form some idea of the extent of this correspondence, which, in his old age, became such a grievous burden to the veteran statesman, from the fact that the letters received by him that were preserved amounted to twenty-six thousand at the time of his death; while the copies left by him, of those which he himself had written, numbered sixteen thousand. These were but a small portion of what he wrote, as he wrote numbers of which he retained no copies.

Mr. Jefferson's estimate of Napoleon's character is found in the following interesting extract from a letter written to Mr. Adams, February 24, 1823:

To John Adams.—Character of Napoleon.

I have just finished reading O'Meara's Bonaparte. It places him in a higher scale of understanding than I had allotted him. I had thought him the greatest of all military captains, but an indifferent statesman, and misled by unworthy passions. The flashes, however, which escaped from him in these conversations with O'Meara prove a mind of great expansion, although not of distinct development and reasoning. He seizes results with rapidity and penetration, but never explains logically the process of reasoning by which he arrives at them.This book, too, makes us forget his atrocities for a moment, in commiseration of his sufferings. I will not say that the authorities of the world, charged with the care of their country and people, had not a right to confine him for life, as a lion or tiger, on the principle of self-preservation. There was no safety to nations while he was permitted to roam at large. But the putting him to death in cold blood, by lingering tortures of mind, by vexations, insults, and deprivations, was a degree of inhumanity to which the poisonings and assassinations of the school of Borgia and den of Marat never attained. The book proves, also, that nature had denied him the moral sense, the first excellence of well-organizedman. If he could seriously and repeatedly affirm that he had raised himself to power without ever having committed a crime, it proved that he wanted totally the sense of right and wrong. If he could consider the millions of human lives which he had destroyed, or caused to be destroyed, the desolations of countries by plunderings, burnings, and famine, the destitutions of lawful rulers of the world without the consent of their constituents, to place his brothers and sisters on their thrones, the cutting up of established societies of men and jumbling them discordantly together again at his caprice, the demolition of the fairest hopes of mankind for the recovery of their rights and amelioration of their condition, and all the numberless train of his other enormities—the man, I say, who could consider all these as no crimes, must have been a moral monster, against whom every hand should have been lifted to slay him.You are so kind as to inquire after my health. The bone of my arm is well knitted, but my hand and fingers are in a discouraging condition, kept entirely useless by an œdematous swelling of slow amendment. God bless you, and continue your good health of body and mind.

This book, too, makes us forget his atrocities for a moment, in commiseration of his sufferings. I will not say that the authorities of the world, charged with the care of their country and people, had not a right to confine him for life, as a lion or tiger, on the principle of self-preservation. There was no safety to nations while he was permitted to roam at large. But the putting him to death in cold blood, by lingering tortures of mind, by vexations, insults, and deprivations, was a degree of inhumanity to which the poisonings and assassinations of the school of Borgia and den of Marat never attained. The book proves, also, that nature had denied him the moral sense, the first excellence of well-organizedman. If he could seriously and repeatedly affirm that he had raised himself to power without ever having committed a crime, it proved that he wanted totally the sense of right and wrong. If he could consider the millions of human lives which he had destroyed, or caused to be destroyed, the desolations of countries by plunderings, burnings, and famine, the destitutions of lawful rulers of the world without the consent of their constituents, to place his brothers and sisters on their thrones, the cutting up of established societies of men and jumbling them discordantly together again at his caprice, the demolition of the fairest hopes of mankind for the recovery of their rights and amelioration of their condition, and all the numberless train of his other enormities—the man, I say, who could consider all these as no crimes, must have been a moral monster, against whom every hand should have been lifted to slay him.

You are so kind as to inquire after my health. The bone of my arm is well knitted, but my hand and fingers are in a discouraging condition, kept entirely useless by an œdematous swelling of slow amendment. God bless you, and continue your good health of body and mind.

The broken arm alluded to at the close of this letter was caused by an accident which Mr. Jefferson met with towards the close of the year 1822. While descending a flight of steps leading from one of the terraces at Monticello, a decayed plank gave way and threw him forward at full length on the ground. To a man in his eightieth year such a fall might have been fatal, and Jefferson was fortunate in escaping with a broken arm, though it gave him much pain at the time, and was a serious inconvenience to him during the few remaining years of his life. Though debarred from his usual daily exercise on horseback for a short time after the accident occurred, he resumed his rides while his arm was yet in a sling. His favorite riding-horse, Eagle, was brought up to the terrace, whence he mounted while in this disabled state. Eagle, though a spirited Virginia full-blood, seemed instinctively to know that his venerable master was an invalid; for, usually restless and spirited, he on these occasionsstood as quietly as a lamb, and, leaning up towards the terrace, seemed to wish to aid the crippled octogenarian as he mounted into the saddle.

I make the following extracts from a letter full of interest, written to Judge Johnson, of South Carolina, early in the summer of 1823. He writes:

To Judge Johnson.

What a treasure will be found in General Washington's cabinet, when it shall pass into the hands of as candid a friend to truth as he was himself!...With respect to his [Washington's] Farewell Address, to the authorship of which, it seems, there are conflicting claims, I can state to you some facts. He had determined to decline a re-election at the end of his first term, and so far determined, that he had requested Mr. Madison to prepare for him something valedictory, to be addressed to his constituents on his retirement. This was done: but he was finally persuaded to acquiesce in a second election, to which no one more strenuously pressed him than myself, from a conviction of the importance of strengthening, by longer habit, the respect necessary for that office, which the weight of his character only could effect. When, at the end of this second term, his Valedictory came out, Mr. Madison recognized in it several passages of his draught; several others, we were both satisfied, were from the pen of Hamilton; and others from that of the President himself. These he probably put into the hands of Hamilton to form into a whole, and hence it may all appear in Hamilton's handwriting, as if it were all of his composition....The close of my second sheet warns me that it is time now to relieve you from this letter of unmerciful length. Indeed, I wonder how I have accomplished it, with two crippled wrists, the one scarcely able to move my pen, the other to hold my paper. But I am hurried sometimes beyond the sense of pain, when unbosoming myself to friends who harmonize with me in principle. You and I may differ occasionally in details of minor consequence, as no two minds, more than two faces, are the same in every feature. But our general objects are the same—to preserve the republicanforms and principles of our Constitution, and cleave to the salutary distribution of powers which that has established. These are the two sheet-anchors of our Union. If driven from either, we shall be in danger of foundering. To my prayers for its safety and perpetuity, I add those for the continuation of your health, happiness, and usefulness to your country.

What a treasure will be found in General Washington's cabinet, when it shall pass into the hands of as candid a friend to truth as he was himself!...

With respect to his [Washington's] Farewell Address, to the authorship of which, it seems, there are conflicting claims, I can state to you some facts. He had determined to decline a re-election at the end of his first term, and so far determined, that he had requested Mr. Madison to prepare for him something valedictory, to be addressed to his constituents on his retirement. This was done: but he was finally persuaded to acquiesce in a second election, to which no one more strenuously pressed him than myself, from a conviction of the importance of strengthening, by longer habit, the respect necessary for that office, which the weight of his character only could effect. When, at the end of this second term, his Valedictory came out, Mr. Madison recognized in it several passages of his draught; several others, we were both satisfied, were from the pen of Hamilton; and others from that of the President himself. These he probably put into the hands of Hamilton to form into a whole, and hence it may all appear in Hamilton's handwriting, as if it were all of his composition....

The close of my second sheet warns me that it is time now to relieve you from this letter of unmerciful length. Indeed, I wonder how I have accomplished it, with two crippled wrists, the one scarcely able to move my pen, the other to hold my paper. But I am hurried sometimes beyond the sense of pain, when unbosoming myself to friends who harmonize with me in principle. You and I may differ occasionally in details of minor consequence, as no two minds, more than two faces, are the same in every feature. But our general objects are the same—to preserve the republicanforms and principles of our Constitution, and cleave to the salutary distribution of powers which that has established. These are the two sheet-anchors of our Union. If driven from either, we shall be in danger of foundering. To my prayers for its safety and perpetuity, I add those for the continuation of your health, happiness, and usefulness to your country.

Towards the close of the year 1823 he wrote a long letter to Lafayette, the following extracts from which show how well he felt the infirmities of old age advancing upon him:

To the Marquis de Lafayette.—[Extracts.]

Monticello, November 4th, 1823.My dear Friend—Two dislocated wrists and crippled fingers have rendered writing so slow and laborious, as to oblige me to withdraw from nearly all correspondence—not however, from yours, while I can make a stroke with a pen. We have gone through too many trying scenes together to forget the sympathies and affections they nourished....After much sickness, and the accident of a broken and disabled arm, I am again in tolerable health, but extremely debilitated, so as to be scarcely able to walk into my garden. The hebetude of age, too, and extinguishment of interest in the things around me, are weaning me from them, and dispose me with cheerfulness to resign them to the existing generation, satisfied that the daily advance of science will enable them to administer the commonwealth with increased wisdom. You have still many valuable years to give to your country, and with my prayers that they may be years of health and happiness, and especially that they may see the establishment of the principles of government which you have cherished through life, accept the assurance of my constant friendship and respect.

Monticello, November 4th, 1823.

My dear Friend—Two dislocated wrists and crippled fingers have rendered writing so slow and laborious, as to oblige me to withdraw from nearly all correspondence—not however, from yours, while I can make a stroke with a pen. We have gone through too many trying scenes together to forget the sympathies and affections they nourished....

After much sickness, and the accident of a broken and disabled arm, I am again in tolerable health, but extremely debilitated, so as to be scarcely able to walk into my garden. The hebetude of age, too, and extinguishment of interest in the things around me, are weaning me from them, and dispose me with cheerfulness to resign them to the existing generation, satisfied that the daily advance of science will enable them to administer the commonwealth with increased wisdom. You have still many valuable years to give to your country, and with my prayers that they may be years of health and happiness, and especially that they may see the establishment of the principles of government which you have cherished through life, accept the assurance of my constant friendship and respect.

Early in the following year, in a reply to a request of Isaac Engelbrecht that he would send him something from his own hand, he writes: "Knowing nothing more moral, more sublime, more worthy of your preservation than David's description of the good man, in his 15th Psalm, I willhere transcribe it from Brady and Tate's version:" he then gives the Psalm in full.

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