I long to hear how you pass your time. I think both Mr. Randolph and yourself will suffer with ennui at Richmond. Interesting occupations are essential to happiness. Indeed the whole art of being happy consists in the art of finding employment. I know none so interesting, and which crowd upon us so much as those of a domestic nature. I look forward, therefore, to your commencing housekeepers in your own farm, with some anxiety. Till then you will not know how to fill up your time, and your weariness of the things around you will assume the form of a weariness of one another. I hope Mr. Randolph's idea of settling near Monticello will gain strength, and that no other settlement will, in the mean time, be fixed on. I wish some expedient may be devised for settling him at Edgehill. No circumstance ever made me feel so strongly the thralldom of Mr. Wayles's debt. Were I liberated from that, I should not fear but that Colonel Randolph and myself, by making it a joint contribution, could effect the fixing you there, without interfering with what he otherwise proposes to give Mr. Randolph. I shall hope, when I return to Virginia in the fall, that some means may be found of effecting all our wishes. _From Mary Jefferson._ Richmond, April 25th, 1790. My dear Papa--I am afraid you will be displeased in knowing where I am, but I hope you will not, as Mr. Randolph certainly had some good reason, though I do not know it.[41] I have not been able to read in Don Quixote every day, as I have been travelling ever since I saw you last, and the dictionary is too large to go in the pocket of the chariot, nor have I yet had an opportunity of continuing my music. I am now reading Robertson's America. I thank you for the advice you were so good as to give me, and will try to follow it. Adieu, my dear papa. I am your affectionate daughter, MARIA JEFFERSON. [41] Mr. Randolph took her to Richmond. _To Mary Jefferson._ New York, May 2d, 1790.