I have omited to write to you for some time, because indeed I am so much of a recluse here as rarely to see the least thing that could afford you any entertainment. This is not the case with you at West Point, there, not a day passes but something transpires which would afford ample matter to...

I replied to your favor of the 1st ult. on the day I received it, the 5th but my answer having by accident remained on my table untill another day I destroyed it, from the great value I allways set upon your opinion, as I had indulged too much in invective against particular persons, by whom I...

I have made up my mind to write to Father by the next mail, for 450 $ the sum which I will require to settle my affairs here and take me to Philadelphia. Although my debts at present amount to but a trifle, by the time that I will be ready to set off, which will be in the course of 3 or 4 months...

One of the propositions in your letter of the 8th inst. is so exactly suited to my situation and feelings on the subject of the negroes for Francis, that I cannot hesitate a moment to accede to it. it is that which proposes to loan me the stock you mean to lay out in this way, to be paid for two...

I am in a greater dilemma than ever, & the difficulty of choice has increased instead of having diminished. Mr Stack wrote to Mr Patterson one of the professors at in the University of Pensylvania, requesting to know whether I could enter the Junior class (the second) at the same time giving...

I ventured to postpone sending your Books to you while Correa de Serra who arrived 48 hours after me, this visit, should remain with Mr Jefferson. The imperfect copy of Wildenow++It ends with Monaecia; to which it is entire. which you lent to Girardin, and afterward to me, is to him, while among...

I will not despair then of the avail of your services in an establishment which I contemplate as the future bulwark of the human mind in this hemisphere.

But one of the greatest curiosities I met with was Thomas Jefferson. Whether you will call this a natural or an artificial curiosity, I am puzzled to know. At all events, I went to see him at the exhibition-house at Monticello, up a long hill, which is almost daily trod by many a weary pilgrim’s...

We have reached our journey’s end my dear Mother, in safety, not without some disagreable adventures, such as being confined one whole day by the rain—at Flood’s tavern we left Uncle Eppes’s before sun-rise monday—the morning was lowering, and it was dropping rain before we set out, but you know...

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society, but the people themselves: and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their controul with a wholsome discretion, the remedy is, not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. this is the true...

I should have writen you my dear Sister immediately on my arrival here, but realy disliked burthening your minde with more than it now has to bear, to add my misseries to yours was not my wish—every member of the family myself excepted have been sick with the ague & fever—we came down two...