Jefferson Quotes & Family Letters

Dear Sir,

Monticello March 30. 1818.

I learn from Mr Jefferson that Walsh has informed him very lately of a striking change in the countenance and appearance of Mr Correa, accompanied by a manifest sinking of his spirits. I am greatly distressed at the intelligence; for it can only proceed from a serious decline in his health. There can be no depression of mind from any other cause with him. I have understood from 1813, when I first saw him, that his income, allthough moderate, was quite sufficient for all his wants; which he took care to keep within a circle narrow enough to secure himself against any inconvenience from an irregular transmission of it from Europe. Now I suppose he enjoys affluence from his place. But the return to his former simple mode of life would be no sacrifice to him, if he should find himself becoming tired of eternally repeated ceremonies, and frivolous chat, for daily amusement, and captious, wiredrawn, insincere discussion for business;+

+proceeding from the incompetence or apathy of subalterns, not, since Mr A. at least, as I firmly believe, from the character of any one of the Chiefs.

never to end in any measure. How different from his life during Winter in Philadelphia. A small circle of men of science, his friends, who not only felt his moral and intellectual [. . .] worth but set their true value, allmost incalculable, upon his acquirements. Who possessed in his mind, as open as Heaven itself to the righteous, an inexhaustible magazine of usefull knowledge, an enchanting Panorama of Nature, a mine, as rich as the bosom of the Andes is with precious ores, in the elementary matter of Political and Eh Ethical ideas and reasonings. To whom he was, of course, as dear as the strongest social, and the only noble selfish affections could make him. I fear the contrast of Washington is too great for him to support with his customary gaiety of heart. The literary acquirements and colloquial powers of Walsh, great as they are, may not afford that variety of imagery which a student of nature requires. Mrs Walsh I am told is a “jolie femme” but has she what some french Writer expressively calls the “varnage” of fine women? That lively, variable, melodious chat, which seems to the ear, (as liable to be enraptured as the eye), to be the music, along with the plumage, of the finest-singing birds. Her excellence I understand is more purely Cytherean; and she would be more likely to cut short the life of some Albert, than to lengthen that of an old Philosopher. I have no hezitation to believe that they are both sincerely devoted to an inmate, whom I could follow for life, with scrip and staff if I were single and without children; but I fear that there is something without doors; the smooth trottoir of Philadelphia,b

b what solace can he find elsewhere during the tedious season when vegetable nature takes repose; when the fields no longer invite him for their interesting and harmless inhabitants are gone.

wanting for that kind of exercise which seems absolutely necessary to his health. Upon it he could ramble to the Musaeum, to the different repositories of the fine city to the Hospital which did not interest him least, to the various laboratories of the chemical manufactures to the innumerable shops of the City. Not like our gaudy stores filled with British goods, made (for us, as they used to be for the Indians,) to suit a taste presupposed to be childish; with stuffs the true emblems of the religion and politics of those who made them, all gloss and tinsel like the one, and as flimsy and moth eaten in their complicated inner folds as the other; but warm and neat and convenient working rooms, for ingenious and industrious and independent mechanics. Men worthy to answer what questions Correa migt might ask about their art [. . .] profits, their amusements, and their political feel[ing] [. . .] minds it delighted him to find free from anxious thoughts, and ready to admit improvement in leisure hours allthough subsisting by daily labour themselves, and rearing families, to magnify the American Republic, and glorify Democratic principles of government, at some future day. Ah! the poor speculators of our towns, and slave holders of our country, how different their condition. Wallowing in luxury the former, stalking in authority the latter; the one has no cessation from business without the torments of anxiety, the other no repose from wearying cares without the consciousness of injustice; without the fear that something human is suffering, to be the cause of future regret, something brute is neglected, the source of future privations.

I conclude; beging some information about Correa the first leisure moment you may have; apologising for having begun to write on a half sheet, and assuring you that the interest I feel at all times in your wellfare, your happiness, and in the fame due to you, comes from my heart, and has long had place there.