I have lately removed to the mountain ... I have here but one room, which, like the cobler’s, serves me for parlour for kitchen and hall. I may add, for bed chamber and study too.
Let the exit of the spiral ... look on a small and distant part of the blue mountains. In the middle of the temple an altar, the sides of turf, the top a plain stone.
for we may safely aver, that Mr. Jefferson is the first American who has consulted the fine arts to know how he should shelter himself from the weather.
I am savage enough to prefer the woods, the wilds, & the independance of Monticello, to all the brilliant pleasures of this gay capital. ... for tho’ there is less wealth there, there is more freedom, more ease & less misery.
and our own dear Monticello, where has Nature spread so rich a mantle under the eye? mountains, forests, rocks, rivers. with what majesty do we there ride above the storms! how sublime to look down into the workhouse of nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow, rain, thunder, all fabricated at our...
the art of life is the art of avoiding pain: & he is the best pilot who steers clearest of the rocks & shoals with which it is beset. pleasure is always before us; but misfortune is at our side: while running after that, this arrests us. the most effectual means of being secure against...
I am as happy no where else & in no other society, & all my wishes end, where I hope my days will end, at Monticello. too many scenes of happiness mingle themselves with all the recollections of my native woods & feilds, to suffer them to be supplanted in my affection by any other.
I have often seen a leg of the bow below my level. my situation at Monticello admitted this, because there is a mountain there in the opposite direction of the afternoon’s sun, the valley between which & Monticello is 500 feet deep. I have seen a leg of a rainbow plunge down on the river...
The skill & activity of Clarkson are sufficiently manifested allready to make us hope that your affairs in Albemarle will be better conducted than they have ever been. I know it will give you real pleasure to hear that he has a valuable art of governing the slaves which sets aside the...
your account of Clarkson’s conduct gives me great pleasure. my first wish is that the labourers may be well treated, the second that they may enable me to have that treatment continued by making as much as will admit it. the man who can effect both objects is rarely to be found. I wish you would...
I never before knew the full value of trees. my house is entirely embosomed in high plane trees, with good grass below, & under them I breakfast, dine, write, read & receive my company. what would I not give that the trees planted nearest round the house at Monticello were full grown.
I, like other people, am so much the dupe of the fondness for the natale solum as to believe seriously there is no quarter of the globe so desireable as America, no state in america so desireable as Virginia, no county in Virginia equal to Albemarle & no spot in Albemarle to compare to...
besides the attention to my farms I am uncovering & repairing my house, which during my absence had gone much to decay. I make some alterations in it with a greater eye to convenience than I had when younger.
I examined with great satisfaction your barometrical estimate of the heights of our mountains, and with the more as they corroborated conjectures on this subject which I had made before. my estimates had made them a little higher than yours (I speak of the blue ridge.) measuring with a very nice...
I have been in the enjoiment of our delicious spring. the soft genial temperature of the season, just above the want of fire, enlivened by the reanimation of birds, flowers, the fields, forests & gardens, has been truly delightful & continues to be so ... indeed my experience of the...
the grounds which I destine to improve in the style of the English gardens…compose the Northern quadrant of a mountain for about 2/3 of it’s height, & then spread for the upper third over it’s whole crown. they contain about 300. acres, washed at the foot, for about a mile, by a river of the...
The house is an irregular octagon, with porticoes on the east and west sides, and piazzas on the north and south ends. Its extent, including the porticoes and piazzas, is about one hundred and ten by ninety feet; the external is finished in the Doric order complete, with a ballustrade on the top...
“Here,” said he, casting his eyes on the level plain before us, “Here you can form no adequate idea of the beauty or sublimity of a winter’s storm; but standing, as I have often stood at Monticello, to watch its progress—rising over the distant Alleghany, come sweeping and roaring on, mountain...