TH. JEFFERSON. His daughter Maria, to whom the following letter is addressed, was at the time, as I have said, not quite twelve years old. _To Mary Jefferson._ New York, April 11th, 1790. Where are you, my dear Maria? how are you occupied? Write me a letter by the first post, and answer me all these questions. Tell me whether you see the sun rise every day? how many pages you read every day in Don Quixote? how far you are advanced in him? whether you repeat a grammar lesson every day; what else you read? how many hours a day you sew? whether you have an opportunity of continuing your music? whether you know how to make a pudding yet, to cut out a beefsteak, to sow spinach? or to set a hen? Be good, my dear, as I have always found you; never be angry with any body, nor speak harm of them; try to let every body's faults be forgotten, as you would wish yours to be; take more pleasure in giving what is best to another than in having it yourself, and then all the world will love you, and I more than all the world. If your sister is with you, kiss her, and tell her how much I love her also, and present my affections to Mr. Randolph. Love your aunt and uncle, and be dutiful and obliging to them for all their kindness to you. What would you do without them, and with such a vagrant for a father? Say to both of them a thousand affectionate things for me; and adieu, my dear Maria. TH. JEFFERSON. _To Martha Jefferson Randolph._ New York, April 26th, 1791. I write regularly once a week to Mr. Randolph, yourself, or Polly, in hopes it may induce a letter from one of you every week also. If each would answer by the first post my letter to them, I should receive it within the three weeks, so as to keep a regular correspondence with each....