New York, April 11th, 1790.
Where are you, my dear Maria? how are you occupied? Write me a letter by the first post, and answer me all these questions. Tell me whether you see the sun rise every day? how many pages you read every day in Don Quixote? how far you are advanced in him? whether you repeat a grammar lesson every day; what else you read? how many hours a day you sew? whether you have an opportunity of continuing your music? whether you know how to make a pudding yet, to cut out a beefsteak, to sow spinach? or to set a hen? Be good, my dear, as I have always found you; never be angry with any body, nor speak harm of them; try to let every body's faults be forgotten, as you would wish yours to be; take more pleasure in giving what is best to another than in having it yourself, and then all the world will love you, and I more than all the world. If your sister is with you, kiss her, and tell her how much I love her also, and present my affections to Mr. Randolph. Love your aunt and uncle, and be dutiful and obliging to them for all their kindness to you. What would you do without them, and with such a vagrant for a father? Say to both of them a thousand affectionate things for me; and adieu, my dear Maria.
TH. JEFFERSON.
To Martha Jefferson Randolph.
New York, April 26th, 1791.
I write regularly once a week to Mr. Randolph, yourself, or Polly, in hopes it may induce a letter from one of you every week also. If each would answer by the first post my letter to them, I should receive it within the three weeks, so as to keep a regular correspondence with each....
I long to hear how you pass your time. I think both Mr. Randolph and yourself will suffer with ennui at Richmond. Interesting occupations are essential to happiness. Indeed the whole art of being happy consists in the art of finding employment. I know none so interesting, and which crowd upon us so much as those of a domestic nature. I look forward, therefore, to your commencing housekeepers in your own farm, with some anxiety. Till then you will not know how to fill up your time, and your weariness of the things around you will assume the form of a weariness of one another. I hope Mr. Randolph's idea of settling near Monticello will gain strength, and that no other settlement will, in the mean time, be fixed on. I wish some expedient may be devised for settling him at Edgehill. No circumstance ever made me feel so strongly the thralldom of Mr. Wayles's debt. Were I liberated from that, I should not fear but that Colonel Randolph and myself, by making it a joint contribution, could effect the fixing you there, without interfering with what he otherwise proposes to give Mr. Randolph. I shall hope, when I return to Virginia in the fall, that some means may be found of effecting all our wishes.
From Mary Jefferson.
Richmond, April 25th, 1790.
My dear Papa—I am afraid you will be displeased in knowing where I am, but I hope you will not, as Mr. Randolph certainly had some good reason, though I do not know it.[41] I have not been able to read in Don Quixote every day, as I have been travelling ever since I saw you last, and the dictionary is too large to go in the pocket of the chariot, nor have I yet had an opportunity of continuing my music. I am now reading Robertson's America. I thank you for the advice you were so good as to give me, and will try to follow it. Adieu, my dear papa. I am your affectionate daughter,
MARIA JEFFERSON.
To Mary Jefferson.
New York, May 2d, 1790.
My dear Maria—I wrote to you three weeks ago, and have not yet received an answer. I hope, however, that one is on the way, and that I shall receive it by the first post. I think it very long to have been absent from Virginia two months, and not to have received a line from yourself, your sister, or Mr. Randolph, and I am very uneasy at it. As I write once a week to one or the other of you in turn, if you would answer my letter the day, or the day after you receive it, it would always come to hand before I write the next to you. We had two days of snow the beginning of last week. Let me know if it snowed where you are. I send you some prints of a new kind for your amusement. I send several to enable you to be generous to your friends. I want much to hear how you employ yourself. Present my best affections to your uncle, aunt, and cousins, if you are with them, or to Mr. Randolph and your sister, if with them. Be assured of my tender love to you, and continue yours to your affectionate,
TH. JEFFERSON.
From Mary Jefferson.
Eppington, May 23d, 1790.
Dear Papa—I received your affectionate letter when I was at Presqu'il, but was not able to answer it before I came here, as the next day we went to Aunt Bolling's and then came here. I thank you for the pictures you were so kind as to send me, and will try that your advice shall not be thrown away. I read in Don Quixote every day to my aunt, and say my grammar in Spanish and English, and write, and read in Robertson's America. After I am done that, I work till dinner, and a little more after. It did not snow at all last month. My cousin Bolling and myself made a pudding the other day. My aunt has given us a hen and chickens. Adieu, my dear papa. Believe me to be your dutiful, and affectionate daughter,
MARIA JEFFERSON.
To Mary Jefferson.