I recieved your kind favour of the 24th Yesterday morning never did a letter prove more welcome as I had suffer’d a great degree of anxiety at not hearing from you it is three weeks since the date of your last and I was very apprehensive you had been prevented from writing by indisposition I am wretched if you do not write me once a week at least to inform of your health— It is perhaps fancy my most loved friend but from the stile of your two last letters it appears to me that your spirits are unusually depressed which gives me real uneasiness1 I cannot indulge a hope that my absence can have produced this effect as we are less together at Quincy than at any other time however let the cause my best friend be what it may I am ready and willing to return home immediately and to do every thing in my power to lessen the heavy burthen which I hourly feel I am become I brought you nothing and therefore have no claim on you whatever my life ever has been and ever must remain a life of painful obligation cease then to talk of expence on my account had I imagined my remaining here would have proved more expensive than living at your Farm I should never have proposed it if you will send the means of return I will with pleasure take charge of the Children provided you will let me bring one of my Sisters to assist me Women frequently do such things and I am not more timid than the rest of my Sex As for the House while my family are obliged to live upon the bounty of others any house is good enough for me I believe I never made any objection to it I only said that in the state you represented your affairs to be that it would be both imprudent and inconsistent to build. I think you had better make what alterations you please and as soon as possible if Mrs Adams could reside there with four Children I can certainly live there with two—

You have seen by the papers I suppose the loss the President has 371 sustain’d Mrs Epps died of an Abcess in her breast producd by a cold taken during her confinement she was removed in a litter to Monticello where for a day or two she appear’d to recover which raised her fathers hopes and render’d the shock more bitter2 Mrs. Maddisson says this stroke as been almost too severe for him she was his favorite Child—

Our English friends have got into more difficulties but I do not exactly know of what nature some persons slave in the Country was employed by the domestics as report says and upon application of the Master they refused to give him up upon which the man took a Constable to the House and carried of his slave the right power of the Constable in that House is the question in dispute I understand and will probably be made a national question—3

I was at Stewards yesterday he has finished all the Pictures we saw and several others he has now a most beautiful likeness of Mrs. Merry I do not like Mrs. Bonaparte’s at all though a very fine likeness—4

The Children are both well George is grown half an inch since the last time you measur’d him the rest of us are well

Adieu my beloved friend remember me affectionately to your family and believe there is no human being who loves you half as well as your faithful and affectionate wife

I recieved your favor of the 3d three days since it gave me real pleasure as you appear to be in good spirits and write much more cheerfully than you have done some time past—1

I was much surprized at the change you mention in Mrs. Whitcombs person she wrote Caroline she had been unwell but I did not think she had been seriously sick—

I have just done reading Madame de Staals new Novel which makes so much noise in the fashionable world. I scarcely dare form much more give an opinion of it the language is most beautiful but the morals appear to me detestable her characters appear to me to be very much overdrawn and the faults of her hero and heroine are so dressed as to wear the semblance of virtue I wish very much that you would read it as there are several letters in it which I should like to know your oponion of one of these letters is on the subject of divorce it is in general much approved but it strikes me in a very different light in this letter she asks how it is possible if we represent the Deity to ourselves as merciful and good to imagine that any vows can bind us during life upon this idea she recommends every body to divorce as soon as they upon trial find that there dispositions do not accord this letter is I am told very much admired I think I must have misundertood it very much for it appears to me calculated to destroy every moral principal to destroy every tie which binds society together—2

Mr: & Mrs. Law are really seperated She says she has made a Vow never to live with him and he has very generously declared her insanity to be the cause of his parting from Mrs. L. retires into the Country though she says only for a time Mr. L. goes to England and the child is to be taken from her mother and placed at a Boarding School this is setting the opinion of the world at defiance3 I never 373 wish to court it but I should dread it too much ever to set it at defiance—

Adieu my beloved friend write me soon and indulge me by reading this book though the last Vol. is Sentiment on stilts I am sure your mother would like to read it and it would afford her great amusement do not let any one see what I write you as it would destroy all the pleasure I feel when writing to you and though I am now a wretched correspondent time and a sincere desire to please may improve me—

Our Children are both well I have wean’d John and have got over this painful business without much difficulty he has never slept from me one night—

Our family are all pretty well Harriet is so much reduced she is now thinner than I am however she does not complain they all desire to be remember’d to yourself and friends time rolls heavily along my beloved friend and this delightful season seems to me to have lost its greatest charm it is my own fault and I must not complain Adieu believe me most sincerely and affectionately yours