Jefferson Quotes & Family Letters

You will have known what to attribute my delay to, in answering your last letter. I have put off doing so, from mail to mail, in hopes that by the next I should have it in my power to inform you of the happy realisation of my expectations.—If, as they say, bad news always travels fast, I may begin to look upon myself as safe; for no letter with the Natchez post mark has as yet made its appearance—I dont know how it will be with me when one does, for the very sight of a bundle of letters which the servant brought from the office yesterday, made my heart rise so high as almost to suffocate me. Although there were among them one from my Grandmother and another from Ellen, still, I could not but feel considerably disappointed. She will not be offended at my saying so however, for she knows that our disappointment is always proportionate to the importance of the question we expected to hear decided; and that even the receipt of a letter could not be full compensation for not learning, as I hoped I should, that [. . .] before long, the language of which God gave us would be sufficient for our conversation.—My Grandmother was pretty well recovered from her indisposition; and seems restored to life again by the prospect of once more seeing you. The usual dulness of their village is broken, it appears, at this time, by the tide of emigration that is pouring through Liberty, to theWest.—How true is her conjecture “that they will go further to fare worse.” Setting aside the attractions of our native spot, and all the delightful associations connected with it; to overcome which is always so great a source of pain, even to savages; these emigrants abandon comforts which are not the work of a few years, or even of a generation, to live in a log house the rest of their days; and cultivate amidst steepness and logs, the same productions which their well improved paternal estates yielded, for a market where they do not get above half the price that they have been accustomed to.—Their children being debarred from the advantages of education, make a retrograde from even the small degree of civilisation themselves had attained. This is what the moving-mania brings those to, who change their already improved farms for tracts of forest in the new-states.—It is different with respect to this and the adjoining State: they have¹ reached a certain degree of polish; and a man arriving in either of them, with forty or fifty slaves, is certain with industry and economy, of securing in a few years such an independence as will make him comfortable the rest of his life.—Are you not content with being loved for my sake? You are certainly very hard to please! but you must make up your mind before hand, to owe a great portion of the consideration you may chance to enjoy through life, to reflection. What satellite ever thought of shining with its own light—it is an idea altogether novel and preposterous.—The news respecting your ear, is so much the more painful to me, my dearest Love, as [. . .] my mind had been set perfectly at rest on that score, by one of your letters from Richmond, last winter. You do not, I fear take sufficient care of irritating it; trifles of this kind often from negligence entail pain which might have been easily avoided; perhaps it would be best to let the hole close up entirely—of what earthly importance is it whether you [. . .] wear ear-rings or not.—Do you make it a rule never to lie on that side?—My finger has been as freakish this winter, as ever was the most fantastical of your sex. Sometimes the coldest water has no effect upon it; at others, it turns white without any evident cause: it [. . .] can no longer therefore, be termed “thermometrical,” but is no doubt a very good index of the state of my blood—I entertain no fears [. . .] however, of its serving you with² an excuse.—Two months of this the new year are almost out, and it has not yet been christened by mother. I believe I have shewn too lenient and easy a disposition; and must therefore draw myself up, and assume a bolder tone.—Though punctuality was not one of the articles of our compact, still it is not in the spirit of it that I should be thus neglected; and I wont suffer it!—My Grandmother had lately received a letter from Cornelia, but does not mention any thing new to me, though she gives me a good deal of news.—Give [. . .] my Love to her and the rest, and except that of our brother; and never again put an “if” before the words “you love me,” when addressed to your own