Description:

Jefferson Thomas

Thomas Jefferson ALS, scarce signed association letter.

 

Single page signed letter, 8" x 9.75". Dated "Monticello June 6.22". Penned entirely in the hand of Thomas Jefferson and signed by him "ThJefferson". Page lightly toned. Watermarked paper stock of D Ames. Expected folds. Vibrant, unfaded, strongly contrasting ink with a bold signature. Matted with a lovely portrait engraving of Thomas Jefferson to 20" x 13". Included is a photocopy of the free frank envelope addressed to "Mr John Laval / Philadelphia".

 

Following his retirement from the presidency, Jefferson continued his pursuit of educational interests; he sold his vast collection of books to the Library of Congress, and founded and built the University of Virginia. Jefferson continued to correspond with many of the country's leaders, and the Monroe Doctrine bears a strong resemblance to solicited advice that Jefferson gave to Monroe in 1823. As he settled into private life at Monticello, Jefferson developed a daily routine of rising early. He would spend several hours writing letters, with which he was often deluged. 

 

Offered here is a lovely poetic letter from an aging Jefferson, who still remains ever passionate about books, to his Philadelphia book dealer, John Laval.  Jefferson apologizes for being a negligent correspondent, while writing in his unique personal writing style of combining humor and wit with eloquent prose. Although Jefferson was 80 years old at the writing of this letter, during this era of his life the National archives show he wrote quite regularly even though he was known to have just suffered from a dislocated wrist (which he wrote about such to John Adams), and he complained that his wrist "become so stiff that I write slow and with pain, and therefore write as little as I can". His letter to Laval is shown in full below:

 

 

"Dear Sir                         Monticello June 6 22

     I have this moment received your favor of May 11 which renders unnecessary any answer to mine of yesterday where yours has been loitering for nearly a month is unaccountable

Respectfully yours

Th Jefferson"

 

 

However much Jefferson may have complained about writing, it did not appear to have stopped him, as write he did- and with fluid prose. During these years, this principle author of the Declaration of Independence, motivator of American colonists and nation builder, now writes over 1200 letters a year to both people he knew, did not know, and other politicians. He was known to have said (in letters to John Adams from June 1822):

 

"I happened to turn to my letter-list some time ago and a curiosity was excited to count those recieved in a single year. it was the year before the last. I found the number to be 1267. many of them requiring answers of elaborate research, and all to be answered with due attention and consideration."

 

" I do not know how far you may suffer as I do, under the persecution of letters, of which every mail brings a fresh load."

 

Jefferson often wrote to John Adams, and would commiserate and lament about their mutual old age. Below are several quotes from his letters dated in 1822 to John Adams in which he discussing aging:

 

"Another vintage?—it is at most but the life of a cabbage, surely not worth a wish. when all our faculties have left, or are leaving us, one by one, sight, hearing, memory, every avenue of pleasing sensation is closed, and athsimy, debility and mal-aise left in their places, when the friends of our youth are all gone, and a generation is risen around us whom we know not, is death an evil?

 

However Jefferson still had his feisty side when he wrote to him:

"To turn to the news of the day, it seems that the Cannibals of Europe are going to eating one another again. a war between Russia and Turkey is like the battle of the kite and snake. whichever destroys the other, leaves a destroyer the less for the world"

 

Perhaps as often as Jefferson wrote, few of his autographed letters come available for purchase with most being held by institutions. This letter has wonderful strong vibrant ink with a beautiful bold signature. But of equal importance, the letter has an outstanding association, having been written to a person who held the same passion in common with Jefferson, one he held his entire that- that of books. 

On July 4 at 12:50 p.m., Jefferson died at age 83 on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and just a few hours before the death of John Adams.


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