Year: 1875

The Boston Gts6e publishes the following
letters, which have never been published in
the works of either thesetwo Presidents.


FROM MIR. JEFFERSON TO MR.. ADAMS.


MONTICELLO, JSine /, 1922.


1t is very long, my dear sir, since have
written to you. My dislocated wrist is now
become so stiff that write slowly and with
pain, and therefore write as little rs 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.
1t was difficult to make him understand OF
recollect who he was, and sitting one hour
he told him the same story four times over.
Is this lifel with laboring steps


To tread our former footsteps pace the round
The beaten track-to see whatf


To taste the tasted-o'er our palates dcscant
Another vintage.


1t is but most the life of cabbage, sure
" not worth wish. When all our facul-
ties have left, or are leaving us one by one,
sight, hearing, memory, every avenue of
pleasing sensation, is closed, and ...., de-
bility 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 evill


When one by one our ties are torn


And friend from friend Is snatch'd forlOrn,


When man is left alone 20 mourn,


Obi then how sweet tits TO diet


When trembling limbs refuse their weight


And aims slow gathering, dim the sight;


When clouds obscure the mental light,


'Tis natures kindOst boon TO dies


l really think so. 1 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 summer, ! enjoy its tenn
perature, but l shudder 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 his room. i am told you
walk well aud firmly. can only reach my
garden, and that with sensible fatigue.
light. / should wish never to put my pen
to paper, and the more because of the
treacherous practice some people have of
publishing ones letters without leave.
Lord Mansfield declared it breach Of trust,
and punishable at law. l think it should
be penitentiary felony; yet you viii have
seen that they have drawn me out into the
arena of the newspaper. Although know
it is too late for me to buckle on the armor
of youth, yet my indignation would not
permit me passively to receive the kick Of
an ass.


To turn to the news of the day, il seems
that the cannibals of Europe are going to
eat one another again. A war between
Russia and Turkey is like the battle of the
kite and snake; whichever destroys the
other leaves the destroyer the less for the
world. This pugnacious humor of man
kind seems to be the law of his nature
one of the obstacles to too great multipli-
cation provided in the mechanism of the
universe. The cocks of the hen-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 maniacs of one part OF
the earth is the means of improving the
other parts. Let the latter be our Office,
and let us 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 spirits and as much Of life
as you think worth having.


| THOMAS i A. EIFErReO,y