knowlege indeed is a desireable, a lovely possession, but I do not scruple to say that health is more so. it is of little consequence to store the mind with science if the body be permitted to become debilitated. if the body be feeble, the mind will not be strong. the sovereign invigorator of the...

in the science of government Montesquieu’s spirit of laws is generally recommended. it contains indeed a great number of political truths; but also an equal number of heresies: so that the reader must be constantly on his guard.

I am sorry La Motte has put me to the expence of 140lt for a French translation of an English poem, as I make it a rule never to read translations where I can read the original.

to all this I add that it is deemed to read the Latin & Greek authors in their original is a sublime luxury; and I deem luxury in science to be at least as justifiable as in architecture, painting, gardening or the other arts.

I send for Cornelia a little poem, the grasshopper’s ball, to begin her collection.

3. ... Mr Jefferson said that the Epicurean philosophy came nearest to the truth, in his opinion, of any antient system of philosophy—But that it had been misunderstood and misrepresented—He wished the work of Gassendi concerning it had been translated—It was the only accurate account of it...

I subscribe with pleasure to the publication of your volumes of poems. I anticipate the same pleasure from them which the perusal of those heretofore published has given me ... under the shade of a tree one of your volumes will be a pleasant pocket companion.

altho’ much of a sceptic in the practice of medecine, I read with pleasure it’s ingenious theories.

I brought the inclosed book to this place, the last fall, intending to forward it to you; but having a neighbor here who loves to laugh, I lent it to him to read; he lent it to another, and so it went the rounds of the neighborhood and is returned to me at my Spring visit to this place. I now...

he hopes & doubts not mr Ingersoll will recieve the highest of all rewards to an honest and patriotic mind, the love and gratitude of his fellow citizens.

I find more amusement in studies to which I was always more attached, and from which I was dragged by the events of the times in which I have happened to live.

I trouble you now with a piece of business. on the destruction of the library of Congress, I thought it a duty to offer them mine. I had been 50. years collecting it, with good opportunities, and it’s selection, more than it’s number of volumes had peculiarly adapted it to their uses. I must now...