I will attend with patience to your admonitions.
1786] THOMAS JEFFERSON. 313
Head. On the contrary I never found that the moment of
triumph with you was the moment of attention to my admoni-
tions. While suffering under your follies, you may perhaps be
made sensible of them, but, the paroxysm over, you fancy it can
never return. Harsh therefore as the medicine may be, it is my
office to administer it. You will be pleased to remember that
when our friend Trumbull used to be telling us of the merits &
talents of these good people, I never ceased whispering to you
that we had no occasion for new acquaintance ; that the greater
their merits & talents, the more dangerous their friendship to our
tranquillity, because the regret at parting would be greater.
Heart. Accordingly, Sir, this acquaintance was not the con-
sequence of my doings. It was one of your projects which threw
us in the way of it. It was you, remember, & not I, who desired
the meeting at Legrand & Molinos. I never trouble myself with
domes nor arches. The Halle aux bleds might have rotted down
before I should have gone to see it. But you, forsooth, who are
eternally getting us to sleep with your diagrams & crotchets, must
go & examine this wonderful piece of architecture. And when
you had seen it, oh ! it was the most superb thing on earth ! What
you had seen there was worth all you had yet seen in Paris ! I
thought so too. But I meant it of the lady & gentleman to whom
we had been presented ; & not of a parcel of sticks & chips put
together in pens. You then, Sir, & not I, have been the cause of
the present distress.
Head. It would have been happy for you if my diagrams &
crotchets had gotten you to sleep on that day, as you are pleased
to say they eternally do. My visit to Legrand & Molinos had
public utility for it's object. A market is to be built in Richmond.
What a commodious plan is that of Legrand & Molinos ; especial-
ly if we put on it the noble dome of the Halle aux bleds. If such
a bridge as they shewed us can be thrown across the Schuylkill
at Philadelphia, the floating bridges taken up the navigation of
that river opened, what a copious resource will be added, of wood
& provisions, to warm & feed the poor of that city ? While I was
occupied with these objects, you were dilating with your new ac-
quaintances, & contriving how to prevent a separation from them.
Every soul of you had an engagement for the day. Yet all these
314 THE WRITINGS OF [1786
were to be sacrificed, that you might dine together. Lying mes-
sengers were to be despatched into every quarter of the city, with
apologies for your breach of engagement. You particularly had
the effrontery to send word to the Dutchess Danville that, on the
moment we were setting out to dine with her, despatches came to
hand which required immediate attention. You wanted me to in-
vent a more ingenious excuse ; but I knew you were getting into
a scrape, & I would have nothing to do with it. Well, after din-
ner to St. Cloud, from St. Cloud to Ruggieri's, from Ruggieri to
Krumfoltz, & if the day had been as long as a Lapland summer
day, you would still have contrived means among you to have
rilled it.
Heart. Oh ! my dear friend, how you have revived me by re-
calling to my mind the transactions of that day ! How well I
remember them all, & that when I came home at night & looked
back to the morning, it seemed to have been a month agone. Go
on then, like a kind comforter & paint to me the day we went to
St. Germains. How beautiful was every object ! the Port de
Reuilly, the hills along the Seine, the rainbows of the machine of
Marly, the terrace of St. Germains, the chateaux, the gardens, the
statues of Marly, the pavilion of Lucienne. Recollect too Madrid,
Bagatelle, the King's garden, the Dessert. How grand the idea
excited by the remains of such a column ! The spiral staircase
too was beautiful. Every moment was filled with something agree-
able. The wheels of time moved on with a rapidity of which
those of our carriage gave but a faint idea. And yet in the
evening when one took a retrospect of the day, what a mass of
happiness had we travelled over ! Retrace all those scenes to me,
my good companion, & I will forgive the unkindness with which
you were chiding me. The day we went to St. Germains was a
little too warm, I think ; was it not ?
Head. Thou art the most incorrigible of all the beings that
ever sinned ! I reminded you of the follies of the first day, in-
tending to deduce from thence some useful lessons for you, but
instead of listening to these, you kindle at the recollection, you
retrace the whole series with a fondness which shews you want
nothing but the opportunity to act it over again. I often told you
during its course that you were imprudently engaging your affec-
1786] THOMAS JEFFERSON. 315
tions under circumstances that must have cost you a great deal of
pain : that the persons indeed were of the greatest merit, possess-
ing good sense, good humour, honest hearts, honest manners, &
eminence in a lovely art ; that the lady had moreover qualities &
accomplishments, belonging to her sex, which might form a chap-
ter apart for her : such as music, modesty, beauty, & that softness
of disposition which is the ornament of her sex & charm of ours,
but tnat all these considerations would increase the pang of sepa-
ration : that their stay here was to be short : that you rack our
whole system when you are parted from those you love, complain-
ing that such a separation is worse than death, inasmuch as this
ends our sufferings, whereas that only begins them : & that the
separation would in this instance be the more severe as you would
probably never see them again.
Heart. But they told me they would come back again the
next year.
Head. But in the meantime see what you suffer : & their re-
turn too depends on so many circumstances that if you had a
grain of prudence you would not count upon it. Upon the whole
it is improbable & therefore you should abandon the idea of ever
seeing them again.
Heart. May heaven abandon me if I do !
Head. Very well. Suppose then they come back. They
are to stay two months, & when these are expired, what is to
follow ? Perhaps you flatter yourself they may come to America ?
Heart. God only knows what is to happen. I see nothing
impossible in that supposition. And I see things wonderfully
contrived sometimes to make us happy. Where could they find
such objects as in America for the exercise of their enchanting
art ? especially the lady, who paints landscapes so inimitably. She
wants only subjects worthy of immortality to render her pencil
immortal. The Falling Spring, the Cascade of Niagara, the Pas-
sage of the Potowmac through the Blue Mountains, the Natural
bridge. It is worth a voyage across the Atlantic to see these ob-
jects ; much more to paint, and make them, & thereby ourselves,
known to all ages. And our own dear Monticello, where has
nature spread so rich a mantle under the eye ? mountains, forests,
rocks, rivers. With what majesty do we there ride above the
3i6 THE WRITINGS OF [1786
storms ! How sublime to look down into the workhouse of
nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow, rain, thunder, all fabricated
at our feet ! and the glorious sun when rising as if out of a distant
water, just gilding the tops of the mountains, & giving life to all
nature ! I hope in God no circumstance may ever make either
seek an asylum from grief ! With what sincere sympathy I would
open every cell of my composition to receive the effusion of their
woes ! I would pour my tears into their wounds : & if a drop of
balm could be found on the top of the Cordilleras, or at the re-
motest sources of the Missouri, I would go thither myself to seek
& to bring it. Deeply practised in the school of affliction, the
human heart knows no joy which I have not lost, no sorrow of
which I have not drunk ! Fortune can present no grief of un-
known form to me ! Who then can so softly bind up the wound
of another as he who has felt the same wound himself ? But
Heaven forbid they should ever know a sorrow ! Let us turn
over another leaf, for this has distracted me.
Head. Well. Let us put this possibility to trial then on
another point. When you consider the character which is given
of our country by the lying newspapers of London, & their credu-
lous copyers in other countries ; when you reflect that all Europe
is made to believe we are a lawless banditti, in a state of absolute
anarchy, cutting one another's throats, & plundering without dis-
tinction, how can you expect that any reasonable creature would
venture among us ?
Heart. But you & I know that all this is false : that there is
not a country on earth where there is greater tranquillity, where
the laws are milder, or better obeyed : where every one is more
attentive to his own business, or meddles less with that of others :
where strangers are better received, more hospitably treated, &
with a more sacred respect.
Head. True, you & I know this, but your friends do not
know it.
Heart. But they are sensible people who think for themselves.
They will ask of impartial foreigners who have been among us,
whether they saw or heard on the spot any instances of anarchy.
They will judge too that a people occupied as we are in opening
rivers, digging navigable canals, making roads, building public
1786] THOMAS JEFFERSON. 317
schools, establishing academies, erecting busts & statues to our
great men, protecting religious freedom, abolishing sanguinary
punishments, reforming & improving our laws in general, they will
judge I say for themselves whether these are not the occupations
of a people at their ease, whether this is not better evidence of
our true state than a London newspaper, hired to lie, & from
which no truth can ever be extracted but by reversing everything
it says.
Head. I did not begin this lecture my friend with a view to
learn from you what America is doing. Let us return then to our
point. I wished to make you sensible how imprudent it is to
place your affections, without reserve, on objects you must so
soon lose, & whose loss when it comes must cost you such severe
pangs. Remember the last night. You knew your friends were
to leave Paris to-day. This was enough to throw you into agonies.
All night you tossed us from one side of the bed to the other. No
sleep, no rest. The poor crippled wrist too, never left one mo-
ment in the same position, now up, now down, now here, now
there ; was it to be wondered at if it's pains returned ? The Sur-
geon then was to be called, & to be rated as an ignoramus because
he could not divine the cause of this extraordinary change. In
fine, my friend, you must mend your manners. This is not a
world to live at random in as you do. To avoid those eternal
distresses, to which you are forever exposing us, you must learn
to look forward before you take a step which may interest our
peace. Everything in this world is a matter of calculation. Ad-
vance then with caution, the balance in your hand. Put into one
scale the pleasures which any object may offer ; but put fairly into
the other the pains which are to follow, & see which preponderates.
The making an acquaintance is not a matter of indifference. When
a new one is proposed to you, view it all round. Consider what
advantages it presents, & to what inconveniences it may expose
you. Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no
hook beneath it. The art of life is the art of avoiding pain : & he
is the best pilot who steers clearest of the rocks & shoals with
which he is beset. Pleasure is always before us ; but misfortune
is at our side : while running after that, this arrests us. The
most effectual means of being secure against pain is to retire with-
318 THE WRITINGS OF [1786
in ourselves, & to suffice for our own happiness. Those, which
depend on ourselves, are the only pleasures a wise man will count
on : for nothing is ours which another may deprive us of. Hence
the inestimable value of intellectual pleasures. Even in our power,
always leading us to something new, never cloying, we ride serene
& sublime above the concerns of this mortal world, contemplating
truth & nature, matter & motion, the laws which bind up their
existence, & that eternal being who made & bound them up by
those laws. Let this be our employ. Leave the bustle & tumult
of society to those who have not talents to occupy themselves with-
out them. Friendship is but another name for an alliance with
the follies & the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries
is sufficient : why enter then as volunteers into those of another ?
Is there so little gall poured into our cup that we must needs help
to drink that of our neighbor ? A friend dies or leaves us : we
feel as if a limb was cut off. He is sick : we must watch over
him, & participate of his pains. His fortune is shipwrecked ;
ours must be laid under contribution. He loses a child, a parent,
or a partner : we must mourn the loss as if it were our own.
Heart. And what more sublime delight than to mingle tears
with one whom the hand of heaven hath smitten ! to watch over
the bed of sickness, & to beguile it's tedious & it's painful mo-
ments ! to share our bread with one to whom misfortune has left
none ! This world abounds indeed with misery : to lighten it's
burthen we must divide it with one another. But let us now try the
virtues of your mathematical balance, & as you have put into one
scale the burthen of friendship, let me put it's comforts into the
other. When languishing then under disease, how grateful is the
solace of our friends ! how are we penetrated with their assidui-
ties & attentions ! how much are we supported by their en-
couragements & kind offices ! When heaven has taken from us
some object of our love, how sweet is it to have a bosom whereon
to recline our heads, & into which we may pour the torrent of
our tears ! Grief, with such a comfort, is almost a luxury ! In
a life where we are perpetually exposed to want & accident,
yours is a wonderful proposition, to insulate ourselves, to retire
from all aid, & to wrap ourselves in the mantle of self-sufficiency!
For assuredly nobody will care for him who cares for nobody
1786] THOMAS JEFFERSON. 319
But friendship is precious, not only in the shade but in the sun-
shine of life ; & thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the
greater part of life is sunshine. I will recur for proof to the days
we have lately passed. On these indeed the sun shone brightly.
How gay did the face of nature appear ! Hills, valleys, chateaux,
gardens, rivers, every object wore it's liveliest hue ! Whence did
they borrow it ? From the presence of our charming companion.
They were pleasing, because she seemed pleased. Alone, the
scene would have been dull & insipid : the participation of it
with her gave it relish. Let the gloomy monk, sequestered from
the world, seek unsocial pleasures in the bottom of his cell ! Let
the sublimated philosopher grasp visionary happiness while pur-
suing phantoms dressed in the garb of truth ! Their supreme
wisdom is supreme folly ; & they mistake for happiness the mere
absence of pain. Had they ever felt the solid pleasure of one
generous spasm of the heart, they would exchange for it all the
frigid speculations of their lives, which you have been vaunting
in such elevated terms. Believe me then my friend, that that is a
miserable arithmetic which could estimate friendship at nothing,
or at less than nothing. Respect for you has induced me to enter
into this discussion, & to hear principles uttered which I detest &
abjure. Respect for myself now obliges me to recall you into the
proper limits of your office. When nature assigned us the same
habitation, she gave us over it a divided empire. To you she
allotted the field of science ; to me that of morals. When the
circle is to be squared, or the orbit of a comet to be traced ; when
the arch of greatest strength, or the solid of least resistance is to
be investigated, take up the problem ; it is yours ; nature has
given me no cognizance of it. In like manner, in denying to you
the feelings of sympathy, of benevolence, of gratitude, of justice,
of love, of friendship, she has excluded you from their controul.
To these she has adapted the mechanism of the heart. Morals
were too essential to the happiness of man to be risked on the in-
certain combinations of the head. She laid their foundation there-
fore in sentiment, not in science. That she gave to all, as neces-
sary to all : this to a few only, as sufficing with a few. I know
indeed that you pretend authority to the sovereign controul of
our conduct in all its parts : & a respect for your grave saws &
320 THE WRITINGS OF [1786
maxims, a desire to do what is right, has sometimes induced me
to conform to your counsels. A few facts however which I can
readily recall to your memory, will suffice to prove to you that
nature has not organized you for our moral direction. When the
poor wearied souldier whom we overtook at Chickahomony with
his pack on his back, begged us to let him get up behind our
chariot, you began to calculate that the road was full of souldiers,
& that if all should be taken up our horses would fail in their
journey. We drove on therefore. But soon becoming sensible
you had made me do wrong, that tho we cannot relieve all the
distressed we should relieve as many as we can, I turned about to
take up the souldier ; but he had entered a bye path, & was no
more to be found ; & from that moment to this I could never find
him out to ask his forgiveness. Again, when the poor woman
came to ask a charity in Philadelphia, you whispered that she
looked like a drunkard, & that half a dollar was enough to give
her for the ale-house. Those who want the dispositions to give,
easily find reasons why they ought not to give. When I sought her
out afterwards, & did what I should have done at first, you know
that she employed the money immediately towards placing her
child at school. If our country, when pressed with wrongs at the
point of the bayonet, had been governed by it's heads instead of
it's hearts, where should we have been now ? Hanging on a gal-
lows as high as Haman's. You began to calculate & to compare
wealth and numbers : we threw up a few pulsations of our warmest
blood ; we supplied enthusiasm against wealth and numbers ; we
put our existence to the hazard when the hazard seemed against
us, and we saved our country : justifying at the same time the
ways of Providence, whose precept is to do always what is right,
and leave the issue to him. In short, my friend, as far as my
recollection serves me, I do not know that I ever did a good
thing on your suggestion, or a dirty one without it. I do forever
then disclaim your interference in my province. Fill papers as
you please with triangles & squares : try how many ways you can
hang & combine them together. I shall never envy nor controul
your sublime delights. But leave me to decide when & where
friendships are to be contracted. You say I contract them at
random. So you said the woman at Philadelphia was a drunkard.
1 786] THOMAS JEFFERSON. 321
I receive no one into my esteem till I know they are worthy of
it. Wealth, title, office, are no recommendations to my friend-
ship. On the contrary great good qualities are requisite to make
amends for their having wealth, title, & office. You confess
that in the present case I could not have made a worthier choice.
You only object that I was so soon to lose them. We are not
immortal ourselves, my friend ; how can we expect our enjoy-
ments to be so ? We have no rose without it's thorn ; no pleasure
without alloy. It is the law of our existence ; & we must
acquiesce. It is the condition annexed to all our pleasures, not
by us who receive, but by him who gives them. True, this con-
dition is pressing cruelly on me at this moment. I feel more fit
for death than life. But when I look back on the pleasures of
which it is the consequence, I am conscious they were worth the
price I am paying. Notwithstanding your endeavours too to
damp my hopes, I comfort myself with expectations of their
promised return. Hope is sweeter than despair, & they were too
good to mean to deceive me. In the summer, said the gentle-
man ; but in the spring, said the lady : & I should love her for-
ever, were it only for that ! Know then, my friend, that I have
taken these good people into my bosom ; that I have lodged them
in the warmest cell I could find : that I love them, & will con-
tinue to love them through life : that if fortune should dispose
them on one side the globe, & me on the other, my affections
shall pervade it's whole mass to reach them. Knowing then my
determination, attempt not to disturb it. If you can at any time
furnish matter for their amusement, it will be the office of a good
neighbor to do it. I will in like manner seize any occasion
which may offer to do the like good turn for you with Condorcet,
Rittenhouse, Madison, La Cretelle, or any other of those worthy
sons of science whom you so justly prize.
I thought this a favorable proposition whereon to
rest the issue of the dialogue. So I put an end to it
by calling for my night-cap. Methinks I hear you
wish to heaven I had called a little sooner, & so
spared you the ennui of such a sermon. I did not
vol. iv 21
322 THE WRITINGS OF [1786
interrupt them sooner because I was in a mood for
hearing sermons. You too were the subject ; & on
such a thesis I never think the theme long ; not even
if I am to write it, and that slowly & awkwardly, as
now, with the left hand. But that you may not be
discouraged from a correspondence which begins so
formidably, I will promise you on my honour that
my future letters shall be of a reasonable length. I
will even agree to express but half my esteem for
you, for fear of cloying you with too full a dose.
But, on your part, no curtailing. If your letters are
as long as the bible, they will appear short to me.
Only let them be brimful of affection. I shall read
them with the dispositions with which Arlequin, in
Les deux billets spelt the words "je faime" and
wished that the whole alphabet had entered into
their composition.
We have had incessant rains since your departure.
These make me fear for your health, as well as that
you had an uncomfortable journey. The same cause
has prevented me from being able to give you any
account of your friends here. This voyage to Fon-
tainebleau will probably send the Count de Moustier
& the Marquise de Brehan to America. Danquer-
ville promised to visit me, but has not done it as yet.
De la Tude comes sometimes to take family soup with
me, & entertains me with anecdotes of his five &
thirty years imprisonment. How fertile is the mind
of man which can make the Bastile & Dungeon of
Vincennes yield interesting anecdotes ! You know
this was for making four verses on Mme de Pompa-
1786] THOMAS JEFFERSON 323
dour. But I think you told me you did not know
the verses. They were these : " Sans esprit, sans
sentiment, Sans etre belle, nineuve, En France onpeut
avoir le premier amant : Pompadour en est /' epreuve"
I have read the memoir of his three escapes. As to
myself my health is good, except my wrist which
mends slowly, & my mind which mends not at all,
but broods constantly over your departure. The
lateness of the season obliges me to decline my jour-
ney into the south of France. Present me in the
most friendly terms to Mr. Cosway, & receive me
into your own recollection with a partiality & a
warmth, proportioned, not to my own poor merit, but
to the sentiments of sincere affection & esteem with
which I have the honour to be, my dear Madam,
your most obedient humble servant.
TO MRS. MARIA COSWAY. J. MSS.
PARIS Octob. 13, 1786.
MY DEAR MADAM, Just as I had sealed the en-
closed I received a letter of a good length, dated
Antwerp with your name at the bottom. I prepared
myself for a feast. I read two or three sentences ;
looked again at the signature to see if I had not
mistaken it. It was visibly yours. Read a sentence
or two more. Diable ! Spelt your name distinctly.
There was not a letter of it omitted. Began to read