Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 2Jefferson, Thomas
History
Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 2
Jefferson, Thomas
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1865
Head. These are the eternal consequences of your warmth and
precipitation. This is one of the scrapes into which you are ever
leading us. You confess your follies, indeed; but still you hug and
cherish them; and no reformation can be hoped, where there is no
repentance.
Heart. Oh, my friend! this is no moment to upbraid my foibles. I am rent
into fragments by the force of my grief! If you have any balm, pour it
into my wounds; if none, do not harrow them by new torments. Spare me
in this awful moment! At any other, I will attend with patience to your
admonitions.
Head. On the contrary, I never found that the moment of triumph, with
you, was the moment of attention to my admonitions. While suffering
under your follies, you may perhaps be made sensible of them; but, the
paroxysm over, you fancy it can never return. Harsh, therefore, as the
medicine may be, it is my office to administer it. You will be pleased
to remember, that when our friend Trumbull used to be telling us of the
merits and talents of these good people, I never ceased whispering to
you that we had no occasion for new acquaintances; that the greater
their merit and talents, the more dangerous their friendship to our
tranquillity, because the regret at parting would be greater.
Heart. Accordingly, Sir, this acquaintance was not the consequence of my
doings. It was one of your projects, which threw us in the way of it.
It was you, remember, and not I, who desired the meeting at Legrand and
Motinos. I never trouble myself with domes nor arches. The _Halle aux
bleds_ might have rotted down, before I should have gone to see it. But
you, forsooth, who are eternally getting us to sleep with your diagrams
and crotchets, must go and examine this wonderful piece of architecture;
and when you had seen it, oh! it was the most superb thing on earth!
What you had seen there was worth all you had yet seen in Paris! I
thought so too. But I meant it of the lady and gentleman to whom we had
been presented; and not of a parcel of sticks and chips put together
in pens. You then, Sir, and not I, have been the cause of the present
distress.
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