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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO MRS. ELIZABETH TRIST 1 - Thomas Jefferson, The Works, vol. 5 (Correspondence 1786-1789) [1905]

Edition used:

The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Federal Edition (New York and London, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904-5). Vol. 5.

Part of: The Works of Thomas Jefferson, 12 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO MRS. ELIZABETH TRIST1

Paris, Dec. 15, 1786.

Dear Madam,

—I have duly received your friendly letter of July 24 & received it with great pleasure as I do all those you do me the favor to write me. If I have been long in acknowledging the receipt, the last cause to which it should be ascribed would be want of inclination. Unable to converse with my friends in person, I am happy when I do it in black & white. The true cause of the delay has been an unlucky dislocation of my wrist which has disabled me from writing three months. I only begin to write a little now, but with pain. I wish, while in Virginia, your curiosity had led you on to James river. At Richmond you would have seen your old friends mr. & mrs. Randolph, and a little further you would have become acquainted with my friend, mrs. Eppes, whom you would have found among the most amiable women on earth. I doubt whether you would ever have got away from her. This trip would have made you better acquainted too with my lazy & hospitable countrymen, & you would have found that their character has some good traits mixed with some feeble ones. I often wish myself among them, as I am here burning the candle of life without present pleasure, or future object. A dozen or twenty years ago this scene would have amused me, but I am past the age for changing habits. I take all the fault on myself, and it is impossible to be among a people who wish more to make one happy, a people of the very best character it is possible for one to have. We have no idea in America of the real French character, with some true samples we have had many false ones. I am very, very sorry I did not receive your letter three or four months sooner. It would have been absolutely convenient for me while in England to have seen Browse’s relations, and I should have done it with infinite pleasure. At present I have no particular expectation of returning there yet it is among possible events, and the desire of being useful to him would render it a pleasing one. The former journey thither was made at a week’s warning, without the least previous expectation. Living from day to day, without a plan for four & twenty hours to come, I form no catalogue of impossible events. Laid up in port, for life, as I thought myself at one time, I am thrown out to sea, and an unknown one to me. By so slender a thread do all our plans of life hang.—My hand itself further, every letter admonishing me, by a pain, that it is time to finish, but my heart would go on in expressing to you all its friendship. The happiest moments it knows are those in which it is pouring forth its affections to a few esteemed characters. I will pray you to write me often. I wish to know that you enjoy health and that you are happy. Present me in the most friendly terms to your mother & brother, & be assured of the sincerity of the esteem with which I am, dear Madam, your affectionate friend & humble servant.

[1 ]From a copy courteously furnished by Mr. Jules J. Vail of New York.