I now employ a dozen little boys from 10. to 16. years of age, overlooking all the details of their business myself and drawing from it a profit on which I can get along till I can put my farms into a course of yeilding profit. my new trade of nail-making is to me in this country what an...

I have always believed it better to be settled on a small farm, just sufficient to furnish the table, and to leave one’s principal plantations free to pursue the single object of cropping without interruption.

[England’s] sun-less climate has permitted them to adopt what is certainly a beauty of the very first order in landscape. their canvas is of open ground, variegated with tufts clumps of trees tastily distributed with taste. they need no more of wood than will serve to embrace a lawn or a glade....

The question you propose, Whether circumstances do not sometimes occur which make it a duty in officers of high trust to assume authorities beyond the law, is easy of solution in principle, but sometimes embarrasing in practice. a strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high...

This is to acquaint you of...

in stating prudential rules for our government in society I must not omit the important one of never entering into dispute or argument with another. I never yet saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many of their getting warm, becoming rude, &...

I write from a place which I visit occasionally, near the New London of this state, 90. miles from Monticello, and where I have not the means of examining whether I have let pass the annual period pass over of saying ‘all’s well’ and ‘how d’ye do’?

in no case perhaps does habit attach our choice or judgment more than in climate. the Canadian glows with delight in his sleigh & snow, the very idea of which gives me the shivers. the comparison of climate between Europe & N. America, taking together it’s corresponding parts, hangs...

You must not grumble at my not answering your last letter sooner. I might as...

I am much indebted to you for your attention to my commission about the books, and am well pleased that those which went above the prices I noted, were not purchased. sensible that I labour grievously under the malady of Bibliomanie, I submit to the rule of buying only at reasonable prices, as to...