Knoxville Whig and chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1875-1882, 1875-04-28
"OLD AGE"
How Jea-r.on and Adam. Dreaded 4,

How JeR- rson and Adams Dreaded A..
The Boston Globe publishes the follow
ing letters, which have never been pub
| lished In the works OF either these two
| Presidents
FROM MIR. JEFFERSON TO MIR. ADAMS.
MONTICELLO. June LIST, 1922.
1t is very long, my dear sir, since
have written to you. My disloeated wrist
Is now become so stiff that | write slowly
and with pain, aud therefore write rs lit
tie as | can. Yet it is due to mutual
friendship to ask once in while how YOU
do. The papers tell us that Gen. Starke
is Off at the age of ninety-three. still lives,
at about the same age. cheerful, slender
as grasshopper, and so much without
memory that he scarcely recognizes his
own household. Intimate friends Of his
called on him not long since. IL was DIFF
ficult to make him understand or recol-
lect who he was, aud sitting one hour he
told him the same story four times over
Is this life wit laboring steps
To tread our former footsteps? pace the
round
The beaten track--to see what
70 taste the tasted-o'er our pallets de-
scant
Another vintage.
1t is but most the life of cabbage,
surely not worth wish. When all our
faculties have left, or are leaving us one
by one, sight, hearing, memory, every
avenue of pleasing sensation, is closed,
and -, debility and mal-aise left In
their places. when the friends of their
youth are all gone, and generation is
risen around us whom we know not. is
death an evil?
When one by one our ties are torn
And friend from friend is snatch'd forlorn,
When man is left alone to mourn,
Oh then how sweet it is to die
When trembling limbs refuse their weight
And films, slow gathering, dim the sight
When clouds obscure the mental light,
IT'S natures kindest boon to die?
Ireally think so. have ever dreaded
a doating old age, and my health has
been generally so good that dread it
still The rapid decline of my strength
during the last winter has made me hope
sometimes that | see land. During sum
mer, enjoy its temperature, but shud-
der at the approach of winter and wish
could sleep through it with the dormouSe,
and only wake with him in spring, If ever.
They say that Starke could walk about
y
firmly can only reach my garden, aud
that with sensible fatigue. | ride, how
ever, daily but reading is my delight
should wish never to put my pen to pa
per, and the more because of the treach-
erous practice some people have of pub
fishing ones letters without leave. Lord
Mansfield declared it breach Of trust,
and punishable at law. | think it should
be a penitentiary felony; yet you will
have seen that they have drawn me out
into the arena of the newspapers. Al
thought know it Is too late for me to
buckle on the armor of youth, yet my in
dignation would not permit me passively
to receive the kick of an ass.
TO turn to the news of the day, ii
seems that the cannibals of Europe are
going to eating one another again. A
war between Russia and Turkey is like
the battle of the kite and snake which,
ever destroys the other leaves the de-
stroyer the les, for the world. This pug
nacious humor of mankind seems to be
the Ia fAOf his nature--one of the obstacles
to tooagreat multiplication provided in
the mechanism Of the universe. The
cocks of the hrn-yard kill one another;
bears, bulls, rams, do the same and the
horse, in his wild state Kills all the young
males until, worn down with age and
war. some vigorous youth kills him. |
hope we shall prove how much happier
for man the Quaker policy is, and that
the life of the feeder is better than that of
the fighter; and it is some consolation
that the desolation of these manacs OF
one part of the earth is the means of I'M
proving the other parts. Let the latter
be our office, and let MS milk the COW
while the Russians hold her by the horns
and the Turks by the tail. God bless you
and give you health, strength, good spir-
its and rs much of lie as you think worth
having. - -
THOMAS JEFFERSON.