I hope I shall see you in Georgetown, and certainly shall if the movements of the stage will permit it: for I prefer that conveyance to travelling with my own horses, because it gives me, what I have long been without, an opportunity of plunging into the mixed characters of my country, the most...

could the dead feel any interest in Monuments or other remembrances of them ... The following would be to my Manes the most gratifying. On the grave a plain die or cube of 3.f without any mouldings, surmounted by an Obelisk of 6.f. height, each of a single stone: on the faces of the Obelisk the...

but the general fact is I have observed, that at whatever age, or in whatever form, we have known a person of old so we believe them him to continue for ever after indefinitely, unchanged by time or waste decay.

but our machines have now been running for 70. or 80. years, and we must expect that, worn as they are, here a pivot, there a wheel, now a pinion, next a spring, will be giving way: and however we may tinker them up for awhile, all will at length surcease motion.

Your age of 84. and mine of 81. years ensure us a speedy meeting. we may then commune at leisure, and more fully, on the good and evil which, in the course of our long lives, we have both witnessed

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past. so good night! I will dream on, always fancying that mrs Adams and yourself are by my side marking the progress and the obliquities of ages and countries.

there is a ripeness of time for death, regarding others as well as ourselves, when it is reasonable we should drop off, and make room for another growth. when we have lived our generation out, we should not wish to encroach on another. I enjoy good health; I am happy in what is around me. yet I...

one of the misfortunes of living too long is the loss of all one’s early friends and affections. when I review the ground over which I have passed since my youth, I see it strewed like a field of battle with the bodies of deceased friends. I stand like a solitary tree in a field, it’s trunk...

I left all well at Monticello, except Benjamin whose health is very precarious. Lewis is become the favorite of all. his vivacity, his intelligence, & his beauty (for the mark in his forehead is disappearing) make him a perfect pet. you will perceive from these senile...

mine is the next turn, and I shall meet it with good will. for after one’s friends are all gone before them, and our faculties leaving us too, one by one, why wish to linger in mere vegetation? as a solitary trunk in a desolate field, from which all it’s former companions have disappeared?