I was not aware, my dear Nicholas, when I wrote last that the blues were so strong upon me, or I should have prevented them from tinging my letter with their sombre colours. this is in every body's power, if they must feel uncomfortable themselves, they can at least avoid making others so, and in...

I recieved your letter about a week ago, and feel both sorrow and shame for the length of time which has passed since I wrote to you; I have however many excuses. My little delicate daughter and my sick husband necessarily engross so much of my time, that I have but little left for the other...

Having written to Ellen not longer back than the 26th, I should have deferred writing to you a few days longer, if business did not call me this afternoon down the bayou; from whence I do not expect to return until saturday.—The papers by yesterday’s mail arrived in such a soaked and mutilated...

I know, my dear Virginia, that you will feel angry with me for not writing sooner, when I tell you that the mail by which your last letter came, also brought one which gives me the dawn of hope, of being able to keep my appointment with You for the 2d of June.—Yes, my beloved friend! I shall...

I can give you no better proof of the confidence I have in you, dearest Virginia, than this letter, which is the third since the receipt of your last, now almost two months old—a letterone from Francis to Browse, received about ten days ago, has prevented me from feeling that intensity of...

do not think a biography should be written, or at least not published, during the life of the person the subject of it. it is impossible that the writer’s delicacy should permit him to speak as freely of the faults or errors of a living, as of a dead character. there is still however a better...

Expecting to have the pleasure of seeing you here to day I neglected writing in reply to your letter informing me you could let me have a brick maker and boys—expecting to get your hands I have made no other engagements—you will therefore please send up your Moulder and six boys as soon as...

I wrote you pr Mr Cabell requesting you would send up your moulder & six boys as soon as possible, as I have not heared any thing of them and beleiving it possible for that letter to Misscarry, I again write to request you will send them without delay. Mr Chamberlain the bearer of this is on...

While we were at the Point it rained much of the time ... Two or three of the intelligent men that I found here spoke so confidently of the merits of a picture that they had, of Jefferson, by Sully, that I thought I would relieve both M[athews] and myself by a visit to the library. You know my...

My conscience begins to reproach me, my ever dear Nicholas with having neglected to reply to your last letter, which was the best you have ever written me, in as much as it was the longest. I have been reading it over again, and am at a loss whether to enter into a grave argument with you upon...

We have all had a dreadful shock at an accident which was near proving fatal to my dear Grand-Father the other day in the river, and are more miserable than ever at his persisting in the practice of riding without a servant to attend him, while his arm is still in a sling and quite helpless. his...

I have never told you of the nice little cuddy that has become my haunt, and from which I am now writing. do you recollect the place over the parlour Portico into which the dome room opened? since the columns to the portico have been completed, Grand Papa has had the great work bench removed from...