Jefferson Quotes & Family Letters

La-fourche September 30th 1822.

Though I am labouring under a tolerably bad head ache, the effect of having got so much interested [. . .] last night, in Stewart’s Philosophy of the human Mind, which I have bega begun to study, as to sit up two or three hours after my usual bed time (11 o’clock); I will not let a mail pass without answering the letter from you which the Servant brought me this morning.—I am glad that you are convinced of the necessity of that course of conduct to which you have given me your promise to observe; you have, no doubt, been long aware of it; and my observations on the Subject were only to impress it still more strongly on your mind. Leave, my dearest Love, to madame de Genlis and her tribe, the idea that you must not show your husband the whole extent of your affection; and all the other rules of the “art” of preserving his Love. mMake him the repository of all that passes in your “heart and mind”; and leave it to your unsophisticated nature, which and to those virtues which you sucked with your mother’s milk, and have since been strengthened in, by her precept and example; to preserve that heart which is now so entirely yours.

With that candor and freedom which ought to exist between us; tell me what reasons you have for refusing to [. . .] sanction my return? you know I must obey, at any rate; but to obey without a murmur, after being so very reasonable, I ought to be convinced. Persuaded that this would be an undertaking of some difficulty, I will not impose it upon you; provided that you yield to reason, and fix my birthday, (the 2d June, it will be the first time I ever celebrate it, though not the last) for the commencement of my era of happiness; you may annex one condition: that my affairs are to be previously in such a state as to justify our union.—Come—be indulgent for once at least.—Two or three days ago, a letter from my Grandmother arrived, acquainting me with the sudden resolution she had embraced of revisiting albemarle this fall; in my answer, I encourage the idea, because she is evidently very discontented where in her present situation, especially since she has been urged by Mrs Divers and Mrs Minor to come and spend her time with them; and it is uncertain when I should be able to be her escort.—The only excuse you have with me, for neglecting your harpsichord, is the persuasion that it was unavoidable; and this you know cannot be applicable to your voice, though it may, to your instrument. My health being quite good, once more, my pencil is, according to your orders, in my hands for a short time, every day almost.—You never gave any further account of the illustrious “duo”; in short you do not[. . .] are as sparing of your talk now as you used to be of your company; let me cry “enough” for myself. what “influx of fashionables” did you find at the “wanstead house” of Carter’s mountain, to compensate for the disappointment in seeing “the two midshipmen”? J.N. certainly was when I saw him, the handsomest and finest looking fellow, I had then either in my eye, or recollection: and he had that something in the countenance which, since my taste has had any pretensions to being formed, has been much more attractive to me than what the world calls beauty. In J.C. I found all the stamina to be looked for in a true blooded Tuckahoe, which would more than make amends for with your Sex, for its usually attendant roughness, if you did but know, how despicably deficient in it, the greater portion of polished cits are in it I hope miss B.C. is well married; she is the only one of the Sanctified crew, whom I care one single fig about; for she is the only one who ever showed in my presence, any of the true spirit, I will not say of the religion they profess; that’s too refined for any of their comprehensions; but of amiability and the Simplest ingredients that enter into its composition.—but I must bid you good night. The geranium leaf has, of course (beware of sending any other) felt the beat heave of that heart which beats so true for its own