Washington, Oct. 24th, 1808.
Dear Jefferson—I inclose you a letter from Ellen, which I presume, will inform you that all are well at Edgehill. I received yours without date of either time or place, but written, I presume, on your arrival at Philadelphia. As the commencement of your lectures is now approaching, and you will hear two lectures a day, I would recommend to you to set out from the beginning with the rule to commit to writing every evening the substance of the lectures of the day. It will be attended with many advantages. It will oblige you to attend closely to what is delivered to recall it to your memory, to understand, and to digest it in the evening; it will fix it in your memory, and enable you to refresh it at any future time. It will be much better to you than even a better digest by another hand, because it will better recall to your mind the ideas which you originally entertained and meant to abridge. Then, if once a week you will, in a letter to me, state a synopsis or summary view of the heads of the lectures of the preceding week, it will give me great satisfaction to attend to your progress, and it will further aid you by obliging you still more to generalize and to see analytically the fields of science over which you are travelling. I wish to hear of the commissions I gave you for Rigden, Voight, and Ronaldson, of the delivery of the letters I gave you to my friends there, and how you like your situation. This will give you matter for a long letter, which will give you as useful an exercise in writing as a pleasing one to me in reading.
God bless you, and prosper your pursuits.
TH. JEFFERSON.
To Thomas Jefferson Randolph.
Washington, November 24th, 1808.
My dear Jefferson—.... I have mentioned good-humor as one of the preservatives of our peace and tranquillity. It is among the most effectual, and its effect is so well imitated, and aided, artificially, by politeness, that this also becomes an acquisition of first-rate value. In truth, politeness is artificial good-humor; it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue. It is the practice of sacrificing to those whom we meet in society all the little conveniences and preferences which will gratify them, and deprive us of nothing worth a moment's consideration; it is the giving a pleasing and flattering turn to our expressions, which will conciliate others, and make them pleased with us as well as themselves. How cheap a price for the good-will of another! When this is in return for a rude thing said by another, it brings him to his senses, it mortifies and corrects him in the most salutary way, and places him at the feet of your good-nature in the eyes of the company. But 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, and shooting one another. Conviction is the effect of our own dispassionate reasoning, either in solitude, or weighing within ourselves, dispassionately, what we hear from others, standing uncommitted in argument ourselves.
It was one of the rules which, above all others, made Doctor Franklin the most amiable of men in society, never to contradict any body. If he was urged to announce an opinion, he did it rather by asking questions, as if for information, or by suggesting doubts. When I hear another express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, He has a right to his opinion, as I to mine; why should I question it? His error does me no injury, and shall I become a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion? If a fact be misstated, it is probable he is gratified by a belief of it, and I have no right to deprive him of the gratification. If he wants information, he will ask it, and then I will give it in measured terms; but if he still believes his own story, and shows a desire to dispute the fact with me, I hear him and say nothing. It is his affair, not mine, if he prefers error.
There are two classes of disputants most frequently to be met with among us. The first is of young students, just entered the threshold of science, with a first view of its outlines, not yet filled up with the details and modifications which a further progress would bring to their knowledge. The other consists of the ill-tempered and rude men in society who have taken up a passion for politics. (Good-humor and politeness never introduce into mixed society a question on which they foresee there will be a difference of opinion.) From both of these classes of disputants, my dear Jefferson, keep aloof, as you would from the infected subjects of yellow fever or pestilence. Consider yourself, when with them, as among the patients of Bedlam, needing medical more than moral counsel. Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially in politics. In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or principle. They are determined as to the facts they will believe, and the opinions on which they will act. Get by them, therefore, as you would by an angry bull; it is not for a man of sense to dispute the road with such an animal. You will be more exposed than others to have these animals shaking their horns at you because of the relation in which you stand with me....
My character is not within their power. It is in the hands of my fellow-citizens at large, and will be consigned to honor or infamy by the verdict of the republican mass of our country, according to what themselves will have seen, not what their enemies and mine shall have said. Never, therefore, consider these puppies in politics as requiring any notice from you, and always show that you are not afraid to leave my character to the umpirage of public opinion. Look steadily to the pursuits which have carried you to Philadelphia, be very select in the society you attach yourself to; avoid taverns, drinkers, smokers, idlers, and dissipated persons generally; for it is with such that broils and contentions arise; and you will find your path more easy and tranquil. The limits of my paper warn me that it is time for me to close, with my affectionate adieu.
TH. JEFFERSON.
P.S.—Present me affectionately to Mr. Ogilvie; and in doing the same to Mr. Peale, tell him I am writing with his polygraph, and shall send him mine the first moment I have leisure enough to pack it.
T. J.
To Cornelia Randolph.
Washington, Dec. 26th, '08.
I congratulate you, my dear Cornelia, on having acquired the valuable art of writing. How delightful to be enabled by it to converse with an absent friend as if present! To this we are indebted for all our reading; because it must be written before we can read it. To this we are indebted for the Iliad, the Æneid, the Columbiad, Henriad, Dunciad, and now, for the most glorious poem of all, the Terrapiniad, which I now inclose you. This sublime poem consigns to everlasting fame the greatest achievement in war ever known to ancient or modern times: in the battle of David and Goliath, the disparity between the combatants was nothing in comparison to our case. I rejoice that you have learnt to write, for another reason; for as that is done with a goose-quill, you now know the value of a goose, and of course you will assist Ellen in taking care of the half-dozen very fine gray geese which I shall send by Davy. But as to this, I must refer to your mamma to decide whether they will be safest at Edgehill or at Monticello till I return home, and to give orders accordingly. I received letters a few days ago from Mr. Bankhead and Anne. They are well. I had expected a visit from Jefferson at Christmas, had there been a sufficient intermission in his lectures; but I suppose there was not, as he is not come. Remember me affectionately to your papa and mamma, and kiss Ellen and all the children for me.
TH. JEFFERSON.
P.S.—Since writing the above, I have a letter from Mr. Peale informing me that Jefferson is well, and saying the best things of him.
The Mr. Bankhead mentioned in the preceding letter was a gentleman who had married Mrs. Randolph's eldest daughter, Anne.
The following letter I give here, though of a later date by nearly two years than others that follow:
To Cornelia Randolph.
Monticello, June 3d, '11.
My dear Cornelia—I have lately received a copy of Miss Edgeworth's Moral Tales, which, seeming better suited to your years than mine, I inclose you the first volume. The other two shall follow as soon as your mamma has read them. They are to make a part of your library. I have not looked into them, preferring to receive their character from you, after you shall have read them. Your family of silk-worms is reduced to a single individual. That is now spinning his broach. To encourage Virginia and Mary to take care of it, I tell them that, as soon as they can get wedding-gowns from this spinner, they shall be married. I propose the same to you; that, in order to hasten its work, you may hasten home; for we all wish much to see you, and to express in person, rather than by letter, the assurance of our affectionate love.
TH. JEFFERSON.
P.S.—The girls desire me to add a postscript to inform you that Mrs. Higginbotham has just given them new dolls.
The precepts inculcating good temper, good humor and amiability, which we have found Jefferson giving to his grandson in the foregoing letters were faithfully carried into practice by him. There never lived a more amiable being than himself; yet, like all men of powerful minds and strong wills, he was not incapable of being aroused in anger on occasions of strong provocation. His biographer mentions two instances of this kind. On one occasion it was with his favorite coachman, Jupiter. A boy had been ordered to take one of the carriage-horses to go on an errand. Jupiter refused to allow his horses to be used for any such purpose. The boy returned to his master with a message to that effect. Mr. Jefferson, thinking it a joke of Jupiter's played off on the boy, sent him back with a repetition of the order. He, however, returned in a short time, bearing the same refusal from the coachman. "Tell Jupiter to come to me at once," said Mr. Jefferson, in an excited tone. Jupiter came, and received the order and a rebuke from his master in tones and with a look which neither he nor the terrified bystanders ever forgot.