Martha Jefferson Randolph to Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge
| Monticello. July 21. 1828. |
Every unkind feeling has been buried in the grave of the sufferer; no longer an object of terror or apprehension, he became one of deep sympathy, or rather commiseration and kind feeling; and affection it self could not have watched with more attentive and patient kindness over every motion or word; but the habits of intercourse with his family were so completely broken, the bonds of affection so much weakend by the events of the last years of his life, that after the first burst of grief was over, tranquility was soon restored: nor was the void occasioned by his loss long perceptible, he had not been an inmate for years, no chair at table, recalled him at meals, no part of the house was associated with his idea, and we could not but acknowledge that all was for the best; for I think with you, that returning health would have brought with it the same passions and jealousies, and that confidence so completely destroyed could never have revived.
