1From Thomas Jefferson to Mary Jefferson, 11 April 1790 (Jefferson Papers)
Where are you, my dear Maria? How do you do? How are you occupied? Write me a letter by the first post and answer me all these questions. Tell me whether you see the sun rise every day? How many pages a-day you read in Don Quixot ? How far you are advanced in him? Whether you repeat a Grammar lesson every day? What else you read? How many hours a day you sew? Whether you have an opportunity of...
2From Thomas Jefferson to Mary Jefferson, 2 May 1790 (Jefferson Papers)
I wrote to you three weeks ago, and have not yet received an answer. I hope however that one is on the way and that I shall receive it by the first post. I think it very long to have been absent from Virginia two months and not to have received a line either from yourself, your sister or Mr. Randolph, and I am very uneasy at it. As I write once a week to one or the other of you in turn, if you...
3From Thomas Jefferson to Mary Jefferson, 23 May 1790 (Jefferson Papers)
I was glad to receive your letter of April 25. because I had been near two months without hearing from any of you. I hope you will now always write immediately on receiving a letter from me. Your last told me what you were not doing: that you were not reading Don Quixot, not applying to your music. I hope your next will tell me what you are doing. Tell your Uncle that the President after...
4From Thomas Jefferson to Mary Jefferson, 13 June 1790 (Jefferson Papers)
I have recieved your letter of May 23. which was in answer to mine of May 2. but I wrote you also on the 23d. of May, so that you still owe me an answer to that, which I hope is now on the road. In matters of correspondence as well as of money you must never be in debt. I am much pleased with the account you give me of your occupations, and the making the pudding is as good an article of them...
5From Thomas Jefferson to Mary Jefferson, 4 July 1790 (Jefferson Papers)
I have written you, my dear Maria, four letters since I have been here, and I have received from you only two. You owe me two then, and the present will make three. This is a kind of debt I will not give up. You may ask how I will help myself? By petitioning your aunt, as soon as you receive a letter to make you go without your dinner till you have answered it. How goes on the Spanish? How...