Washington, July 16th, 1801.
My dear Maria—I received yesterday Mr. Eppes's letter of the 12th, informing me that you had got safely to Eppington, and would set out to-morrow at furthest for Monticello. This letter, therefore, will, I hope, find you there. I now write to Mr. Craven to furnish you all the supplies of the table which his farm affords. Mr. Lilly had before received orders to do the same. Liquors have been forwarded, and have arrived with some loss. I insist that you command and use every thing as if I were with you, and shall be very uneasy if you do not. A supply of groceries has been lying here some time waiting for a conveyance. It will probably be three weeks from this time before they can be at Monticello. In the mean time, take what is wanting from any of the stores with which I deal, on my account. I have recommended to your sister to send at once for Mrs. Marks. Remus and my chair, with Phill as usual, can go for her. I shall join you between the second and seventh—more probably not till the seventh. Mr. and Mrs. Madison leave this about a week hence. I am looking forward with great impatience to the moment when we can all be joined at Monticello, and hope we shall never again know so long a separation. I recommend to your sister to go over at once to Monticello, which I hope she will do. It will be safer for her, and more comfortable for both. Present me affectionately to Mr. Eppes, and be assured of my constant and tenderest love.
TH. JEFFERSON.
The Mrs. Marks alluded to in this last letter was Mr. Jefferson's sister. Her husband lived in Lower Virginia, and, his means being very limited, he could not afford to send his family from home during the sickly season. For a period of thirty years Mr. Jefferson never failed to send his carriage and horses for her, and kept her for three or four months at Monticello, which after her husband's death became her permanent home. Mr. Jefferson left in his will the following touching recommendation of her to his daughter: "I recommend to my daughter, Martha Randolph, the maintenance and care of my well-beloved sister, Anne Scott, and trust confidently that from affection to her, as well as for my sake, she will never let her want a comfort." It is needless to add that this trust was faithfully fulfilled, and when Mrs. Randolph had no home save her eldest son's house, the same roof sheltered Mrs. Marks as well as herself.
Mr. Jefferson paid his usual visit to Monticello this summer, and was there surrounded by his children and grandchildren. On his return to Washington, he wrote the following letters to Mrs. Eppes, in which the anxiety that he shows about her is what might have been expected from the tender love of a mother.
To Mary Jefferson Eppes, Monticello.
Washington, Oct. 26th, 1801.
My ever dear Maria—I have heard nothing of you since Mr. Eppes's letter, dated the day se'nnight after I left home. The Milton[49] mail will be here to-morrow morning, when I shall hope to receive something. In the mean time, this letter must go hence this evening. I trust it will still find you at Monticello, and that possibly Mr. Eppes may have concluded to take a journey to Bedford, and still further prolonged your stay. I am anxious to hear from you, lest you should have suffered in the same way now as on a former similar occasion. Should any thing of that kind take place, and the remedy which succeeded before fail now, I know nobody to whom I would so soon apply as Mrs. Suddarth. A little experience is worth a great deal of reading, and she has had great experience and a sound judgment to observe on it. I shall be glad to hear, at the same time, that the little boy is well.
If Mr. Eppes undertakes what I have proposed to him at Pantops and Poplar Forest the next year, I should think it indispensable that he should make Monticello his head-quarters. You can be furnished with all plantation articles for the family from Mr. Craven, who will be glad to pay his rent in that way. It would be a great satisfaction to me to find you fixed there in April. Perhaps it might induce me to take flying trips by stealth, to have the enjoyment of family society for a few days undisturbed. Nothing can repay me the loss of that society, the only one founded in affection and bosom confidence. I have here company enough, part of which is very friendly, part well enough disposed, part secretly hostile, and a constant succession of strangers. But this only serves to get rid of life, not to enjoy it; it is in the love of one's family only that heartfelt happiness is known. I feel it when we are all together, and, when alone, beyond what can be imagined. Present me affectionately to Mr. Eppes, Mr. Randolph, and my dear Martha, and be assured yourself of my tenderest love.
TH. JEFFERSON.
To Mary Jefferson Eppes.—[Extract.]
I perceive that it will be merely accidental when I can steal a moment to write to you; however, that is of no consequence, my health being always so firm as to leave you without doubt on that subject. But it is not so with yourself and little one. I shall not be easy, therefore, if either yourself or Mr. Eppes do not once a week or fortnight write the three words "All are well." That you may be so now, and so continue, is the subject of my perpetual anxiety, as my affections are constantly brooding over you. Heaven bless you, my dear daughter.
Congress met on the 7th of December. It had been the custom for the session to be opened pretty much as the English Parliament is by the Queen's speech. The President, accompanied by a cavalcade, proceeded in state to the Capitol, took his seat in the Senate Chamber, and, the House of Representatives being summoned, read his address. Mr. Jefferson, on the opening of this session of Congress (1801), swept away all these inconvenient forms and ceremonies by introducing the custom of the President sending a written message to Congress. Soon after his inauguration he did away with levees, and established only two public days for the reception of company, the first of January and the Fourth of July, when his doors were thrown open to the public. He received private calls, whether of courtesy or on business, at all other times.
We have preserved to us an amusing anecdote of the effect of his abolishing levees. Many of the ladies at Washington, indignant at being cut off from the pleasure of attending them, and thinking that their discontinuance was an innovation on former customs, determined to force the President to hold them. Accordingly, on the usual levee-day they resorted in full force to the White House. The President was out taking his habitual ride on horseback. On his return, being told that the public rooms were filled with ladies, he at once divined their true motives for coming on that day. Without being at all disconcerted, all booted and spurred, and still covered with the dust of his ride, he went in to receive his fair guests. Never had his reception been more graceful or courteous. The ladies, charmed with the ease and grace of his manners and address, forgot their indignation with him, and went away feeling that, of the two parties, they had shown most impoliteness in visiting his house when not expected. The result of their plot was for a long time a subject of mirth among them, and they never again attempted to infringe upon the rules of his household.
The Reverend Isaac Story having sent him some speculations on the subject of the transmigration of souls, he sent him, on the 5th of December, a reply, from which we take the following interesting extract: