The great cause which divides our countries is not to be decided by individual animosities. The harmony of private societies can not weaken national efforts. To contribute by neighborly intercourse and attention to make others happy, is the shortest and surest way of being happy ourselves. As these sentiments seem to have directed your conduct, we should be as unwise as illiberal, were we not to preserve the same temper of mind. He also had some pleasant intercourse and correspondence with young De Ungar, an accomplished officer, who seems to have had many literary and scientific tastes congenial with Jefferson's. He thus winds up a letter to this young officer: When the course of human events shall have removed you to distant scenes of action, where laurels not moistened with the blood of my country may be gathered, I shall urge my sincere prayers for your obtaining every honor and preferment which may gladden the heart of a soldier. On the other hand, should your fondness for philosophy resume its merited ascendency, is it impossible to hope that this unexplored country may tempt your residence, by holding out materials wherewith to build a fame, founded on the happiness and not the calamities of human nature? Be this as it may--a philosopher or a soldier--I wish you personally many felicities. The following extract from a letter, written in 1778 to a friend in Europe, shows Jefferson's extreme fondness of music: If there is a gratification which I envy any people in this world, it is, to your country, its music. This is the favorite passion of my soul, and fortune has cast my lot in a country where it is in a state of deplorable barbarism. From the line of life in which we conjecture you to be, I have for some time lost the hope of seeing you here. Should the event prove so, I shall ask your assistance in procuring a substitute, who may be a proficient in singing, etc., on the harpsichord. I should be contented to receive such an one two or three years hence, when it is hoped he may come more safely, and find here a greater plenty of those useful things which commerce alone can furnish. The bounds of an American fortune will not admit the indulgence of a domestic band of musicians, yet I have thought that a passion for music might be reconciled with that economy which we are obliged to observe. From his correspondence for the year 1780 I take the following pleasantly written letter to General De Riedesel. I have elsewhere alluded to the pleasant intercourse between his family and Jefferson's, when he was a prisoner on parole in the neighborhood of Monticello. _To General De Riedesel._ Richmond, May 3d, 1780.