December 18

[On December 18, 1825, I dispatched this poignant letter from Monticello to John Adams, my former presidential predecessor and legendary revolutionary brother with whom I share a deeply affectionate and reconciled lifelong friendship. Having left public office many years ago, I am living as an ailing private citizen in the final year of my life, a period defined by failing health and deep reflections on the legacy of our generation. My granddaughter, Ellen Wayles Randolph Coolidge, recently married and moved to Boston, where Adams kindly received her, an act of generosity that deeply touched my heart. I contemplate our shared history and find myself willing to relive the fat and lean of life all over again, though I heavily lament that a disastrous medical trip to the Virginia warm springs seven years ago permanently shattered my physical health. I playfully note that while a newly published biography of our revolutionary colleague Richard Henry Lee correctly lauds his eloquence, the proud descendants of George Mason, Patrick Henry, and George Washington might want to reclaim a few feathers from the noble plumage his biographer bestowed upon him.]

Your letters are always welcome, the last more than all others, its subject being one of the dearest to my heart. To my grand-daughter your commendations cannot fail to be an object of high ambition, as a certain passport to the good opinion of the world. If she does not cultivate them with assiduity and affection, she will illy fulfil my parting injunctions. I trust she will merit a continuance of your favor, and find in her new situation the general esteem she so happily possessed in the society she left. You tell me she repeated to you an expression of mine, that I should be willing to go again over the scenes of past life. I should not be unwilling, without, however, wishing it; and why not? I have enjoyed a greater share of health than falls to the lot of most men; my spirits have never failed me except under those paroxysms of grief which you, as well as myself, have experienced in every form, and with good health and good spirits, the pleasures surely outweigh the pains of life. Why not, then, taste them again, fat and lean together? Were I indeed permitted to cut off from the train the last seven years, the balance would be much in favor of treading the ground over again. Being at that period in the neighborhood of our warm springs, and well in health, I wished to be better, and tried them. They destroyed, in a great degree, my internal organism, and I have never since had a moment of perfect health. I have now been eight months confined almost constantly to the house, with now and then intervals of a few days on which I could get on horseback.

I presume you have received a copy of the life of Richard H. Lee, from his grandson of the same name, author of the work. You and I know that he merited much during the revolution. Eloquent, bold, and ever watchful at his post, of which his biographer omits no proof. I am not certain whether the friends of George Mason, of Patrick Henry, yourself, and even of General Washington, may not reclaim some feathers of the plumage given him, noble as was his proper and original coat. But on this subject I will anticipate your own judgment.

I learn with sincere pleasure that you have experienced lately a great renovation of your health. That it may continue to the ultimate period of your wishes is the sincere prayer of usque ad eras amicissimi tui.