“MONTICELLO, _November 13th, 1818_.
“The public papers, my dear friend, announce the fatal event of which
your letter of October the 20th had given me ominous foreboding. Tried
myself in the school of affliction, by the loss of every form of
connection which can rive the human heart, I know well, and feel what
you have lost, what you have suffered, are suffering, and have yet to
endure. The same trials have taught me that for ills so immeasurable,
time and silence are the only medicine. I will not, therefore, by
useless condolences, open afresh the sluices of your grief, nor,
although mingling sincerely my tears with yours, will I say a word more
where words are vain, but that it is of some comfort to us both that the
time is not very distant at which we are to deposit in the same casement
our sorrows and suffering bodies, and to ascend in essence to an
ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved and lost, and whom we
shall still love and never lose again. God bless you, and support you
under your heavy affliction.
“TH. JEFFERSON.”
Side by side in the Congregational church in Quincy, to which he had
given the donation to erect it with, lie the mortal remains of Mr. and
Mrs. Adams. Within the same house, a plain white marble slab, on the
right hand of the pulpit, surmounted by his bust, bears the following
inscription, written by his eldest son:
Libertatem. Amicitiam. Fidem Retinebis.
D. O. M.
Beneath these walls,
Are deposited the mortal remains of