11From 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...
12From 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...
13From Thomas Jefferson to Mary Jefferson, 31 July 1791 (Jefferson Papers)
The last letter I have from you, my dear Maria, was of the 29th. of May. which is 9 weeks ago. Those which you ought to have written the 19th. of June and 10th. of July would have reached me before this if they had been written.—I mentioned in my letter of the last week to your sister that I had sent off some stores to Richmond which I should be glad to have carried to Monticello in the course...
14From 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...
15From 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...
16From Thomas Jefferson to Mary Jefferson, 26 June 1791 (Jefferson Papers)
I hope you have recieved the letter I wrote you from lake George, and that you have well fixed in your own mind the geography of that lake, and of the whole of my tour, so as to be able to give me a good account of it when I shall see you. On my return here, I found your letter of May 29. giving me the information it is always so pleasing to me to recieve that you are all well. Would to god I...
17From 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...
18[From Thomas Jefferson to Mary Jefferson, 7 May 1784] (Jefferson Papers)
[ Annapolis, 7 May 1784 . An entry in SJL of this date indicates that in his letter to Elizabeth Wayles Eppes TJ “inclosed one to Polly.” Neither the letter to Mrs. Eppes nor that to Polly has been found.]
19From Thomas Jefferson to Mary Jefferson, [12 July 1788] (Jefferson Papers)
I am now writing to your aunt Eppes, and wish to inclose her something of your drawing. Bring with you tomorrow the best lesson you have done and the smallest. Or could you to-day and Monday begin, and finish something on purpose to be sent? Desire your sister to write to your aunt to-day, and to bring the letter tomorrow. Kiss her for me and kiss Kitty too. Be always good, practise your...
20From Thomas Jefferson to Mary Jefferson, 25 May 1797 (Jefferson Papers)
I wrote to your sister the last week, since which I have been very slowly getting the better of my rheumatism, though very slowly indeed; being only able to walk a little stronger. I see by the newspapers that Mr. and Mrs. Church and their family are arrived at New York. I have not heard from them, and therefore am unable to say anything about your friend Kitty, or whether she be still Miss...
21From Thomas Jefferson to Mary Jefferson, 31 March 1791 (Jefferson Papers)
I am happy to have a letter of yours to answer. That of Mar. 6. came to my hands on the 24th. By the bye you never acknowlege the receipt of my letters, nor tell me on what day they came to hand. I presume that by this time you have received the two dressing tables with marble tops. I give one of them to your sister and the other to you. Mine is here with the top broke in two. Mr. Randolph’s...
22From 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...
23From Thomas Jefferson to Mary Jefferson, 11 March 1797 (Jefferson Papers)
I recieved with great pleasure your letter from Varina, and though I never had a moment’s doubt of your love for me, yet it gave me infinite delight to read the expressions of it. Indeed I had often and always read it in your affectionate and attentive conduct towards me. On my part, my love to your sister and yourself knows no bounds, and as I scarcely see any other object in life, so would I...
24From 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...
25From Thomas Jefferson to Mary Jefferson, 17 November 1793 (Jefferson Papers)
No letter yet from my dear Maria, who is so fond of writing, so punctual in her correspondencies! I enjoin as a penalty that the next be written in French.—Now for news. The fever is entirely vanished from Philadelphia. Not a single person has taken infection since the great rains about the 1st. of the month, and those who had it before are either dead or recovered. All the inhabitants who had...
26From Thomas Jefferson to Mary Jefferson, 20 September 1785 (Jefferson Papers)
I have not received a letter from you since I came to France. If you knew how much I love you and what pleasure the receipt of your letters gave me at Philadelphia, you would have written to me, or at least have told your aunt what to write, and her goodness would have induced her to take the trouble of writing it. I wish so much to see you that I have desired your uncle and aunt to send you...
27From 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...
28To Thomas Jefferson from Abigail Adams, with List of Purchases for Mary Jefferson, 10 July 1787 (Jefferson Papers)
When I wrote you last I did not know that petit had taken places in the Stage and paid for them. This being the case I have represented it to your little daughter and endeavourd to prevail with her to consent to going at the time appointed. She says if I must go I will, but I cannot help crying so pray dont ask me to. I should have taken great pleasure in presenting her to you here, as you...
29From 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...