You mention in your letter that you are proceeding with your family to Fort Massac. this informs me that you have a family, & I sincerely congratulate you on it. while some may think it will render you less active in the service of the world, those who take a sincere interest in your personal...
I am become sensible of a great advantage your profession has over most others, that, to the close of your life, you can be always doing good to mankind: whereas a retired politician is like a broken down courser, unfit for the turf, and good for little else. I am endeavoring to recover the...
I find I am losing sight of the progress of the world of letters. here we talk but of rains & droughts, of blights & frosts, of our ploughs & cattle; & if the topic changes to politics I meddle little with them. in truth I never had a cordial relish for them, & abhor the...
I thank you for the kindness towards myself which breathes through your letter. the first of all our consolations is that of having faithfully fulfilled our duties: the next, the approbation & good will of those who have witnessed it
I think that the work when finished will be a durable and honorable monument of our infant republic, and will bear favorable comparison with the remains of the same kind of the antient republics of Greece & Rome.
my essay in Architecture has been so much subordinated to the law of convenience, & affected also by the circumstance of change in the original design, that it is liable to some unfavorable & just criticisms.
I have recieved safely the extraordinary rattle of the rattle snake, as also the leav foliage of the Alleghaney Martagon. a plant of so much beauty & fragrance will be a valuable addition to our flower gardens.
I have wished to know what you have entered on, what progress you have made, and how your hours are distributed. for it is only by a methodical distribution of our hours, & a rigorous, inflexible observance of it that any steady progress can be made ... I would advise you to make the...
in a government like ours it is the duty of the Chief-magistrate, in order to enable himself to do all the good which his station requires, to endeavor, by all honorable means, to unite in himself the confidence of the whole people. this alone, in any case where the energy of the nation is...
We are out of sallad-oil, and you know it is a necessary of life here. can any be had in Richmond? I must get you to enquire, and to be particular as to it’s quality. if fine I would be glad to have half a dozen quarts. if midling 2. or 3. bottles will do. if absolutely not good get a single...
I would advise you, as an exercise, to write a letter to somebody every morning, the first thing after you get up. as most of the business of life, & all our friendly communications are by way of letter, nothing is more important than to acquire a facility of developing our ideas on paper;...
no one more sincerely wishes the spread of information among mankind than I do, and none has greater confidence in it’s effect towards supporting free & good government.
Our laws, language, religion, politics, & manners are so deeply laid in English foundations, that we shall never cease to consider their history as a part of ours, and to study ours in that as it’s origin.
The question you propose, Whether circumstances do not sometimes occur which make it a duty in officers of high trust to assume authorities beyond the law, is easy of solution in principle, but sometimes embarrasing in practice. a strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high...
botany here is but an object of amusement, a great one indeed and in which all our family mingles more or less. mr Randolph is our leader, and a good one. my mind has been so long ingrossed by other objects, that those I loved most have escaped from it, and none more than botany, whose lodgement...
my object too at present is peace and tranquility, neither doing nor saying any thing to be quoted, or to make me the subject of newspaper disquisitions.