I recieved your letter dear Sister just as I was preparing to leave Boston to spend a week or 10 days with My Cambridge friends, thinking that I should not return to Washington till the last of May or the first of June but to my great surprise and disappointment the day after My return My escort...

I am afraid dear Nancy from the account you give of your self that you are wearing your self out by attempting more than you have strength to accomplish, and sacrifising the most important object in life your...

I passed through New York in the month of July when it was full of cholera, and I was in great haste to reach Boston before Mr Coolidge sailed for Canton in China. My poor Ellen had just lost her second daughter a lovely creature of five years old, and her husband was on the wing for a long...

It is a very long time dear Sister since I have written any thing that deserved the name of a letter to you, more than a twelve month I beleive, for the last scrawl written upon a torn-sheet really did not deserve that name. I am sorry that you should have been distressed by any thing that...

I am very much disturbed dear Nancy at not being able to lay my hand upon Professor Leslie’s letter; I received it in the hurry of packing up, and always thought I had brought it with me, but I can find it no where here. I trust I shall find it when I return to Washington. Dear little Jeff. was...

I have so long ceased to be surprised at anything William does, or rather at any want of judgement in him, that even his singular letter to you excited no feeling of that sort. he does what logicians call “begging the question” that is he takes that for granted, which remains to be proved. it is...

I had no idea dear Nancy that the 21 ...

If I were a Muhometan I should say “it is written” that I am to be allways wanting in punctuality, and should not appologise ...

It appears doomed that I am always to begin every letter to you dear Nancy with an apology. I should have written to you as soon as I heard through Mr Wadsworth of Gouverneur’s illness, but I was my self confined to my bed at the time. My health although greatly improved is still delicate, and I...

I was extremely Mortified dear Sister at having past through New York without seeing you as I had intended. but we were detained so long in Baltimore by a violent cold and sore throat that I had, that we were obliged to come on as rapidly as possible that Jefferson might return immediately. as it...