Jefferson Quotes & Family Letters

dear friend.

Richmond 25. March 1821

You did well to write to me before you commence the campaign of courts. our Lord Thurlow has broke up, & cleared out, much to the satisfaction of the whole bar. Tho’ I should not say it. To me he has ever been very civil & friendly: But had I known he intended to stick my name in the news papers, I had seen him d—d, before I would have signed his recommendation of the moot court.

Then comes George Hay, begging all the judges, Legislators, lawyers &c to give him epistles commendatory to his Father in law, with whom he is of course, presumed to be unacquainted. In short sir, there is little virtue, and no dignity extant. The crest of Virginia has fallen—her honor is gone and with it, all that we had to be proud of. Monroe is a shallow impostor—he now puts out in speeches, that it is impossible for him to appoint his son in law; and it is perfectly well known here, that the recommendations were obtained at his special solicitation—he will appoint him, be assured, if he dare.

You act the part of a genuine friend as you are, in advising me to be married—I have long felt the necessity of it, on the score of virtue, happiness, dignity, & comfort—“But what to do,” as Mr Corrêa used to say. The young ladies of the present age, are for the most part, of very indifferent pretensions pretentions—They have neither person, face, carriage, manners, mind, body, nor estate—all of which are things “considerable” as Lord Coke says, in a wife—

I sympathise with you in on the unpromising auguries of the fair ones of M—o. They appear to me, irrevocably predestined to solitude, neglect, and misery. The fate of the elder was sad enough, to make them ponder on changing their condition. The second is wholly unfit for this “workaday world,” and would make no great figure in Fairy-land. All her romantics, are of the wrong kind—She is “cold as a cucumber, hard as a stone, an[d] dry as a stick;” and has no idea, that people are made for any other purpose, than to be her vassals; & to content themselves, with admiring her at an awful distance—She holds her head, if you remark, as if she never looked lower than the milky way. I once thought she would rival her mother—but she has more of the qualities of the Tuckahoe race, and worse there could not be. I hear, Nicholas Trist is to marry Virginia—who is of least promise in appearance. If so, god send them a safe deliverance—for I can never cease to wish well to the household: Tho’ I regret very much I ever had any concern with them—Had I to go over my life again, I would observe Horaces advice, “To shun the thresholds of the Great.” my acquaintance with them, has only done me mischief. They feed us youth, with vain compliments—which turn the heads of fools, and are thrown away on men of sense.

You and Mrs C. are good to invite me to your mansion, where I have spent so many happy hours. I can now foresee nothing to prevent my visiting you.

The attorney general, has lately had an alarming attack of Vertigo—which the Doctors think [. . .] appoplectic. I believe they are mistaken—I know his constitution & temperament thoroughly, and wish they may not misconceive his case—for they, like every body else in these times, are shallow pretenders.

John Randolph has been here for some days he has now gone. his mind is right, but his spirits are for ever broken, and gone—the world is joyless to him—his life is weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable. His uniform kindness to me, his rare endowments, and above all, his fall from glory, render him an object of interest to me, in every condition.

Your seal I admired, and understood ab initio—I have sent mine to London, to have a very simple device of my own, engraved on it—You will find no difficulty in interpreting the allegory, which unfortunately for me, is too true—You shall see it when it is returned—

Cherish me—as I prize & value you