Jefferson Quotes & Family Letters

[ca. 6 Oct. 1821]

As Lilburne sets out tomorrow, I have laid aside Caleb Williams which I count among the most interesting novels I ever read, to write to you, to tell you we have arriv’d safe & sound & in health, without any accident on the road or any great fatigue from the journey, which is almost every thing I have to communicate, for, wonderful to say, we heard of no murder in Buckingham; and the thing that has interested us most since we left home was the watching the breaking of two young steers one day for half an hour; the firmness of one of which them was worthy of a better cause than the resisting th what he was in the end oblig’d to yield to, for he was not permitted even to break his neck which he seam’d bent upon doing, since his heart was too stubborn to break. I never saw such determin’d obstinacy in man or brute before, & sister Ellen & my self walk’d a hundred yards through bushes briars & seed ticks to watch this personification of stubborness. I hope you will write to us by the first post since you know how anxious we always are to hear from home when we are here, and we are not the less so this time because our stay is comparatively short, not quite three weeks, we are to be at home on the 27 if nothing turns out to prevent it.

tell sister Jane when you see her, that she must not expect her cap untill she is ready for it for I must work little Southall’s first since he has already made his appearance, & I do not intend to give up much of my precious time to needlework while I am here. Adieu my dearest Virginia give my love to all & tell Martha to write to me.

Tell mama I have found my pocket handkerchiefs they had been put up without my knowledge in a trunk that came up with the cart, my bonnet got much mash’d but not “altogather ruined” by jolting in the cart. your affectionate sister