1From Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, [5 October 1786] (Jefferson Papers)
I have passed the night in so much pain that I have not closed my eyes. It is with infinite regret therefore that I must relinquish your charming company for that of the Surgeon whom I have sent for to examine into the cause of this change. I am in hopes it is only the having rattled a little too freely over the pavement yesterday. If you do not go to day I shall still have the pleasure of...
2From Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, 12 October 1786 (Jefferson Papers)
Having performed the last sad office of handing you into your carriage at the Pavillon de St. Denis, and seen the wheels get actually into motion, I turned on my heel and walked, more dead than alive, to the opposite door, where my own was awaiting me. Mr. Danquerville was missing. He was sought for, found, and dragged down stairs. [We] were crammed into the carriage, like recruits for the...
3From Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, 13 October 1786 (Jefferson Papers)
Just as I had sealed the inclosed I received a letter of a good length, dated Antwerp, with your name at the bottom. I prepared myself for a feast. I read two or three sentences: looked again at the signature to see if I had not mistaken it. It was visibly yours. Read a sentence or two more. Diable! Spelt your name distinctly. There was not a letter of it omitted. Began to read again. In fine...
4From Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, 19 November 1786 (Jefferson Papers)
I begin, my dear Madam, to write a little with the right hand, and you are by promise, as well as by inclination entitled to it’s first homage . But I write with pain and must be short. This is good news for you; for were the hand able to follow the effusions of the heart, that would cease to write only when this shall cease to beat. My first letter warned you of this danger. I became sensible...
5From Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, 29 November 1786 (Jefferson Papers)
My letters which pass thro’ the post office either of this country or of England being all opened, I send thro’ that channel only such as are very indifferent in their nature. This is not the character, my dear madam of those I write to you. The breathings of a pure affection would be profaned by the eye of a Commis of the poste . I am obliged then to wait for private conveiances. I wrote to...
6From Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, 24 December 1786 (Jefferson Papers)
Yes, my dear Madam, I have received your three letters, and I am sure you must have thought hardly of me, when at the date of the last, you had not yet received one from me. But I had written two. The second, by the post, I hope you got about the beginning of this month: the first has been detained by the gentleman who was to have carried it. I suppose you will receive it with this. I wish...
7From Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, 1 July 1787 (Jefferson Papers)
You conclude, Madam, from my long silence that I am gone to the other world. Nothing else would have prevented my writing to you so long. I have not thought of you the less. But I took a peep only into Elysium. I entered it at one door, and came out at another, having seen, as I past, only Turin, Milan, and Genoa. I calculated the hours it would have taken to carry me on to Rome. But they were...
8From Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, [31] January [1788] (Jefferson Papers)
I went to breakfast with you according to promise, and you had gone off at 5. oclock in the morning. This spared me indeed the pain of parting, but it deprives me of the comfort of recollecting that pain. Your departure was the signal of distress to your friends. You know the accident which so long confined the Princess to her room. Madame de Corny too was immediately thrown into great alarm...
9From Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, 24 April 1788 (Jefferson Papers)
I arrived here, my dear friend, the last night, and in a bushel of letters presented me by way of reception, I saw that one was of your handwriting. It is the only one I have yet opened, and I answer it before I open another. I do not think I was in arrears in our epistolary account when I left Paris. In affection I am sure you were greatly my debtor. I often determined during my journey to...
10From Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, 27 July 1788 (Jefferson Papers)
Hail, dear friend of mine! for I am never so happy as when business, smoothing her magisterial brow, says ‘I give you an hour to converse with your friends.’ And with none do I converse more fondly than with my good Maria: not her under the poplar, with the dog and string at her girdle: but the Maria who makes the Hours her own, who teaches them to dance for us in so charming a round, and lets...
11From Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, 30 July 1788 (Jefferson Papers)
Cease to chide me. It is hard to have been chained to a writing table, drudging over business daily from morning to night ever since my return to Paris. It will be a cruel exaggeration, if I am to lose my friends into the bargain. The only letter of private friendship I wrote on my return, and before entering on business, was to you. The first I wrote after getting through my budget was to...
12From Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, 26 September 1788 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of Aug. the 19., my very dear friend, is put into my hands this 26th. day of September 1788. and I answer it in the same instant to shew you there is nothing nearer my heart than to meet all the testimonies of your esteem. It is a strong one that you will occupy yourself for me on such a trifle as a visiting card. But sketch it only with your pencil, my friend, and do not make of it...
13From Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, 14 January 1789 (Jefferson Papers)
Fearing, my dear Madam, that I might not be able to write to you by this occasion, I had charged my friend Trumbull to lay my homage at your feet. But this is an office I would always chuse to perform myself. It is very long since I have heard from you: tho I have no right to complain, as it is long since I wrote to you. A great deal of business, and some tribulation must be my excuse. I have...