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...
6From Thomas Jefferson to Mary Jefferson, 25 July 1790 (Jefferson Papers)
No letter from you yet, my dear Maria. You now owe me four, and I insist on you writing me one every week till you shall have paid the debt. I write to you every three weeks, and I think you have quite as little to do as I have, so that I may expect letter for letter. The account stands at present as follows. Maria Jefferson Dr. to Th: Jefferson Cr. April 11. To letter of this date 1 April 25....
7From Thomas Jefferson to Mary Jefferson, 7 December 1790 (Jefferson Papers)
This week I write to you, and if you answer my letter as soon as you recieve it, and send it to Colo. Bell at Charlottesville I shall recieve it the day before I write to you again, which will be three weeks hence: and this I shall expect you to do always so that by the correspondence of Mr. Randolph, your sister and yourself I may hear from home once a week. Mr. Randolph’s letter from...
8From Thomas Jefferson to Mary Jefferson, 5 January 179[1] (Jefferson Papers)
I did not write to you, my dear Poll, the last week, because I was really angry at recieving no letter. I have now been near nine weeks from home, and have never had a scrip of a pen, when by the regularity of the post, I might recieve your letters as frequently and as exactly as if I were at Charlottesville. I ascribed it at first to indolence, but the affection must be weak which is so long...
9From Thomas Jefferson to Mary Jefferson, 16 February 1791 (Jefferson Papers)
At length I have recieved, a letter from you. As the spell is now broke, I hope you will continue to write every three weeks. Observe I do not admit the excuse you make of not writing because your sister had not written the week before: let each write their own week without regard to what others do, or do not do.—I congratulate you my dear aunt on your new title. I hope you pay a great deal of...
10From Thomas Jefferson to Mary Jefferson, 9 March 1791 (Jefferson Papers)
I am happy to have at length a letter of yours to answer, for that which you wrote to me Feb. 13. came to hand Feb. 28. I hope our correspondence will now be more regular, that you will be no more lazy, and I no more in the growls on that account. On the 27th. of February I saw blackbirds and Robinredbreasts and on the 7th. of this month I heard frogs for the first time this year. Have you...