“My visit to Montpellier last week my dear sister prevented me from writing. […] I accompanied [Martha Jefferson Randolph] as far as Mr Madisons. […] I was much pleased with Montpellier and think both the house and situation delightful, I found too, much amusement in looking at the endless variety of pictures, statues, and engravings, with which every room is crowded and in walking over the grounds and in the garden which gives promise of a great abundance of fruit and vegetables in their proper seasons, though when I saw it, nothing remained of the former but a few figs still hanging among the curled and withered leaves which no longer afforded them protection or concealment, and the tomatoes whose green and flourishing appearance I so much admired one evening were found blackening and falling in the next morning’s sun, the work of a single night of frost. The trees too were fast losing their leaves and the atmosphere was so thick and hazy as to afford me but one transient view of the mountains while I staid: but I still found pleasure in walking in the grove which skirts the lawn at the back of the house, in treading on the beautiful soft grass, still in the full pride of its verdure, and listening to the dropping of the chesnuts which every wind brought down in showers from the boughs of the old trees, nothing however gave such real gratification to my heart as the kind affectionate manners of our hostess who with all her usual politeness, and attention to the comforts, and anxiety to promote the pleasures of her guests, seemed to feel and express towards all of us a kinder and warmer interest I thought, than she would have shown towards persons in prosperity, merely possessing the same claims on her kindness that we had. The old lady too, Mr Madison’s mother, whom I saw frequently must be an object of interest I should think to every one, there is always something melancholy in the sight of old age even under the best circumstances but hers appears so respectable and so tranquil, so free from the irritability and waywardness of temper that we so often see in persons of her advanced age, that you feel cheered by the conviction that under such a form as this it is at least a bearable evil. She still possesses her eye sight, her hearing, and her memory in an uncommon degree, she made many enquiries about you, as did also your old acquaintance Miss Nelly.”