you what America is doing. Let us return, then, to our point. I wish to
make you sensible how imprudent it is to place your affections without
reserve on objects you must so soon lose, and whose loss, when it comes,
must cost you such severe pangs. Remember the last night. You knew your
friends were to leave Paris to-day. This was enough to throw you into
agonies. All night you tossed us from one side of the bed to the other;
no sleep, no rest. The poor Crippled wrist, too, never left one moment
in the same position; now up, now down, now here, now there; was it
to be wondered at, if its pains returned? The surgeon then was to be
called, and to be rated as an ignoramus, because he could not divine the
cause of this extraordinary change. In fine, my friend, you must mend
your manners. This is not a world to live at random in, as you do. To
avoid those eternal distresses, to which you are for ever exposing
us, you must learn to look forward before you take a step, which may
interest our peace. Every thing in this world is matter of calculation.
Advance, then, with caution, the balance in your hand. Put into one
scale the pleasures which any object may offer; but put fairly into the
other the pains which are to follow, and see which preponderates. The
making an acquaintance is not a matter of indifference. When a new
one is proposed to you, view it all round. Consider what advantages it
presents, and to what inconveniences it may expose you. Do not bite at
the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it. The
art of life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot, who
steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset. Pleasure
is always before us; but misfortune is at our side: while running after
that, this arrests us. The most effectual means of being secure
against pain, is to retire within ourselves, and to suffice for our own
happiness. Those which depend on ourselves, are the only pleasures a
wise man will count on; for nothing is ours, which another may deprive
us of. Hence the inestimable value of intellectual pleasures. Ever in
our power, always leading us to something new, never cloying, we
ride serene and sublime above the concerns of this mortal world,
contemplating truth and nature, matter and motion, the laws which bind
up their existence, and that Eternal Being, who made and bound them up
by those laws. Let this be our employ. Leave the bustle and tumult of
society to those who have not talents to occupy themselves without them.
Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and
the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why
enter then as volunteers into those of another? Is there so little
gall poured into our cup, that we must heed help to drink that of our
neighbor? A friend dies, or leaves us: we feel as if a limb was cut off.
He is sick: we must watch over him, and participate of his pains. His
fortune is shipwrecked: ours must be laid under contribution. He loses a
child, a parent, or a partner: we must mourn the loss as if it were our
own.
Heart. And what more sublime delight, than to mingle tears with one whom
the hand of Heaven hath smitten! to watch over the bed of sickness, and
to beguile its tedious and its painful moments! to share our bread with
one to whom misfortune has left none! This world abounds indeed with
misery: to lighten its burthen, we must divide it with one another. But
let us now try the virtue of your mathematical balance, and as you have
put into one scale the burthens of friendship, let me put its comforts
into the other. When languishing then under disease, how grateful is the
solace of our friends! how are we penetrated with their assiduities and
attentions! how much are we supported by their encouragements and kind
offices! When Heaven has taken from us some object of our love, how
sweet is it to have a bosom whereon to recline our heads, and into which
we may pour the torrent of our tears! Grief, with such a comfort, is
almost a luxury! In a life where we are perpetually exposed to want and
accident, yours is a wonderful proposition, to insulate ourselves,
to retire from all aid, and to wrap ourselves in the mantle of
self-sufficiency! For assuredly nobody will care for him, who cares for
nobody. But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the
sunshine of life: and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the
greater part of life is sunshine. I will recur for proof to the days we
have lately passed. On these, indeed, the sun shone brightly! How
gay did the face of nature appear! Hills, valleys, chateaux, gardens,
rivers, every object wore its liveliest hue! Whence did they borrow it?
From the presence of our charming companion. They were pleasing, because
she seemed pleased. Alone, the scene would have been dull and insipid:
the participation of it with her gave it relish. Let the gloomy monk,
sequestered from the world, seek unsocial pleasures in the bottom of his
cell! Let the sublimated philosopher grasp visionary happiness, while
pursuing phantoms dressed in the garb of truth! Their supreme wisdom is
supreme folly: and they mistake for happiness the mere absence of pain.
Had they ever felt the solid pleasure of one generous spasm of the
heart, they would exchange for it all the frigid speculations of their
lives, which you have been vaunting in such elevated terms. Believe
me, then, my friend, that that is a miserable arithmetic, which could
estimate friendship at nothing, or at less than nothing. Respect for
you has induced me to enter into this discussion, and to hear principles
uttered, which I detest and abjure. Respect for myself now obliges me to
recall you into the proper limits of your office. When nature assigned
us the same habitation, she gave us over it a divided empire. To you she
allotted the field of science; to me that of morals.
When the circle is to be squared, or the orbit of a comet to be traced;
when the arch of greatest strength, or the solid of least resistance is
to be investigated, take up the problem; it is yours; nature has given
me no cognizance of it. In like manner, in denying to you the feelings
of sympathy, of benevolence, of gratitude, of justice, of love, of
friendship, she has excluded you from their control. To these she has
adapted the mechanism of the heart. Morals were too essential to the
happiness of man, to be risked on the uncertain combinations of the
head. She laid their foundation, therefore, in sentiment, not in
science. That she gave to all, as necessary to all: this to a few only,
as sufficing with a few. I know indeed, that you pretend authority to
the sovereign control of our conduct, in all its parts: and a respect
for your grave saws and maxims, a desire to do what is right, has
sometimes induced me to conform to your counsels. A few facts, however,
which I can readily recall to your memory, will suffice to prove to you,
that nature has not organized you for our moral direction. When the poor
wearied soldier, whom we overtook at Chickahominy, with his pack on
his back, begged us to let him get up behind our chariot, you began to
calculate that the road was full of soldiers, and that if all should be
taken up, our horses would fail in their journey. We drove on therefore.
But soon becoming sensible you had made me do wrong, that though we
cannot relieve all the distressed, we should relieve as many as we can,
I turned about to take up the soldier; but he had entered a by-path,
and was no more to be found: and from that moment to this, I could never
find him out to ask his forgiveness. Again, when the poor woman came
to ask a charity in Philadelphia, you whispered, that she looked like
a drunkard, and that half a dollar was enough to give her for the
ale-house. Those who want the dispositions to give, easily find reasons
why they ought not to give. When I sought her out afterwards, and did
what I should have done at first, you know, that she employed the money
immediately towards placing her child at school. If our country, when
pressed with wrongs at the point of the bayonet, had been governed by
its heads instead of its’ hearts, where should we have been now? Hanging
on a gallows as high as Hainan’s. You began to calculate, and to compare
wealth and numbers: we threw up a few pulsations of our blood; we
supplied enthusiasm against wealth and numbers; we put our existence to
the hazard, when the hazard seemed against us, and we saved our country:
justifying, at the same time, the ways of Providence, whose precept is,
to do always what is right, and leave the issue to him. In short, my
friend, as far as my recollection serves me, I do not know that I ever
did a good thing on your suggestion, or a dirty one without it. I do for
ever, then, disclaim your interference in my province. Fill paper as you
please with triangles and squares: try how many ways you can hang and
combine them together. I shall never envy nor control your sublime
delights. But leave me to decide when and where friendships are to be
contracted. You say I contract them at random. So you said the woman at
Philadelphia was a drunkard. I receive none into my esteem, till I know
they are worthy of it. Wealth, title, office, are no recommendations to
my friendship. On the contrary, great good qualities are requisite to
make amends for their having wealth, title, and office. You confess,
that, in the present case, I could not have made a worthier choice.
You only object, that I was so soon to lose them. We are not immortal
ourselves, my friend; how can we expect our enjoyments to be so? We have
no rose without its thorn; no pleasure without alloy. It is the law of
our existence; and we must acquiesce. It is the condition annexed to all
our pleasures, not by us who receive, but by him who gives them. True,
this condition is pressing cruelly on me at this moment. I feel more fit
for death than life. But when I look back on the pleasures of which
it is the consequence, I am conscious they were worth the price I am
paying. Notwithstanding your endeavors, too, to damp my hopes, I comfort
myself with expectations of their promised return. Hope is sweeter than
despair; and they were too good to mean to deceive me. ‘In the summer,’
said the gentleman; but ‘In the spring,’ said the lady; and I should
love her for ever, were it only for that! Know, then, my friend, that I
have taken these good people into my bosom; that I have lodged them in
the warmest cell I could find; that I love them, and will continue to
love them through life; that if fortune should dispose them on one side
the globe, and me on the other, my affections shall pervade its whole
mass to reach them. Knowing then my determination, attempt not to
disturb it. If you can at any time furnish matter for their amusement,
it will be the office of a good neighbor to do it. I will, in like
manner, seize any occasion which may offer, to do the like good turn for
you with Condorcet, Rittenhouse, Madison, La Cretelle, or any other of
those worthy sons of science, whom you so justly prize.
I thought this a favorable proposition whereon to rest the issue of the
dialogue. So I put an end to it by calling for my nightcap. Methinks, I
hear you wish to Heaven I had called a little sooner, and so spared you
the _ennui_ of such a sermon. I did not interrupt them sooner, because
I was in a mood for hearing sermons. You, too, were the subject; and on
such a thesis, I never think the theme long; not even if I am to write
it, and that slowly and awkwardly, as now, with the left hand. But
that you may not be discouraged from a correspondence, which begins
so formidably, I will promise you, on my honor, that my future letters
shall be of a reasonable length. I will even agree to express but half
my esteem for you, for fear of cloying you with too full a dose. But on
your part, no curtailing. If your letters are as long as the Bible,
they will appear short to me. Only let them be brim full of affection. I
shall read them with the dispositions with which Arlequin, in _Les
Deux Billets_, spelt the words ‘_Je t’aime,_’ and wished that the whole
alphabet had entered into their composition.
We have had incessant rains since your departure. These make me fear for
your health, as well as that you had an uncomfortable journey. The same
cause has prevented me from being able to give you any account of your
friends here. This voyage to Fontainebleau will probably send the Count
de Moutier and the Marquis de Brehan to America. Danquerville promised
to visit me, but has not done it as yet. De la Tude comes sometimes to
take family soup with me, and entertains me with anecdotes of his five
and thirty years’ imprisonment. How fertile is the mind of man, which
can make the Bastille and dungeon of Vincennes yield interesting
anecdotes! You know this was for making four verses on Madame de
Pompadour. But I think you told me you did not know the verses. They
were these.
‘Sans esprit, sans sentiment,
Sans etre belle, ni neuve,
En France on peut avoir le premier amant:
Pompadour en est Tepreuve.’
I have read the memoir of his three escapes. As to myself, my health is
good, except my wrist, which mends slowly, and my mind, which mends not
at all, but broods constantly over your departure. The lateness of
the season obliges me to decline my journey into the south of France.
Present me in the most friendly terms to Mr. Cosway, and receive me into
your own recollection with a partiality and warmth, proportioned not
to my own poor merit, but to the sentiments of sincere affection and
esteem, with which I have the honor to be, my Dear Madam,
Your most obedient, humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER XXIX.--TO MRS. COSWAY, October 13, 1786
TO MRS. COSWAY.
Paris, October 13, 1786.
My Dear Madam,
Just as I had sealed the enclosed, I received a letter of a good length,
dated Antwerp, with your name at the bottom. I prepared myself for a
feast. I read two or three sentences: looked again at the signature, to
see if I had not mistaken it. It was visibly yours. Read a sentence or
two more. Diable! Spelt your name distinctly. There was not a letter of
it omitted. Began to read again. In fine, after reading a little, and
examining the signature alternately, half a dozen times, I found that
your name was to four lines only, instead of four pages. I thank you
for the four lines, however, because they prove you think of me; little,
indeed, but better little than none. To show how much I think of you, I
send you the enclosed letter of three sheets of paper, being a history
of the evening I parted with you. But how expect you should read a
letter of three mortal sheets of paper? I will tell you. Divide it into
six doses of half a sheet each, and every day, when the toilette begins,
take a dose, that is to say, read half a sheet. By this means, it
will have the only merit its length and dulness can aspire to, that of
assisting your coiffeuse to procure you six good naps of sleep. I will
even allow you twelve days to get through it, holding you rigorously to
one condition only, that is, that at whatever hour you receive this, you
do not break the seal of the enclosed till the next toilette. Of this
injunction I require a sacred execution. I rest it on your friendship,
and that in your first letter, you tell me honestly, whether you have
honestly performed it. I send you the song I promised. Bring me in
return the subject, _Jours heureux!_ Were I a songster, I should sing it
all to these words; ‘_Dans ces lieux qu’elle tarde à se rendre!_’ Learn
it, I pray you, and sing it with feeling. My right hand presents its
devoirs to you, and sees with great indignation the left supplanting it
in a correspondence so much valued. You will know the first moment it
can resume its rights. The first exercise of them shall be addressed to
you, as you had the first essay of its rival. It will yet, however, be
many a day. Present my esteem to Mr. Cosway, and believe me to be yours
very affectionately,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER XXX.--M. LE ROY DE L’ACADEMIE DES SCIENCES, November 13, 1786
M. LE ROY DE L’ACADEMIE DES SCIENCES.
Paris, November 13, 1786.
Sir,
I received the honor of yours of September the 18th, a day or two after
the accident of a dislocated wrist had disabled me from writing. I have
waited thus long in constant hope of recovering its use. But finding
that this hope walks before me like my shadow, I can no longer oppose
the desire and duty of answering your polite and learned letter. I
therefore employ my left hand in the office of scribe, which it performs
indeed slowly, awkwardly, and badly.
The information given by me to the Marquis de Chastellux, and alluded to
in his book and in your letter, was, that the sea breezes which prevail
in the lower parts of Virginia, during the summer months, and in the
warm parts of-the day, had made a sensible progress into the interior
country: that formerly, within the memory of persons living, they
extended but little above Williamsburg; that afterwards they became
sensible as high as Richmond; and that, at present, they penetrate
sometimes as far as the first mountains, which are above an hundred
miles further from the sea coast, than Williamsburg is. It is very rare,
indeed, that they reach those mountains, and not till the afternoon is
considerably advanced. A light northwesterly breeze is, for the most
part, felt there, while an easterly or northeasterly wind is blowing
strongly in the lower country. How far northward and southward of
Virginia, this easterly breeze Takes place, I am not informed. I must,
therefore, be understood as speaking of that State only, which extends
on the sea coast from 36 1/2 to 38° of latitude.
This is the fact. We know too little of the operations of nature in the
physical world, to assign causes with any degree of confidence. Willing
always, however, to guess at what we do not know, I have sometimes
indulged myself with conjectures on the causes of the phenomena above
stated. I will hazard them on paper, for your amusement, premising for
their foundation some principles believed to be true.
Air resting on a heated and reflecting surface, becomes warmer, rarer,
and lighter: it ascends therefore, and the circumjacent air, which is
colder and heavier, flows into its place, becomes warmed and lightened
in its turn, ascends, and is succeeded as that which went before. If the
heated surface be circular, the air flows to it from every quarter,
like the rays of a circle to its centre. If it be a zone of determinate
breadth and indefinite length, the air will flow from each side
perpendicularly on it. If the currents of air flowing from opposite
sides, be of equal force, they will meet in equilibrio, at a line
drawn longitudinally through the middle of the zone. If one current be
stronger than the other, the stronger one will force back the line of
equilibrium, towards the further edge of the zone, or even beyond it:
the motion it has acquired causing it to overshoot the zone, as the
motion acquired by a pendulum in its descent, causes it to vibrate
beyond the point of its lowest descent.
Earth, exposed naked to the sun’s rays, absorbs a good portion of them;
but, being an opaque body, those rays penetrate to a small depth only.
Its surface, by this accumulation of absorbed rays, becomes considerably
heated. The residue of the rays are reflected into the air resting on
that surface. This air, then, is warmed, 1. by the direct rays of the
sun; 2. by its reflected rays; 3. by contact with the heated surface.
A forest receiving the sun’s rays, a part of them enters the intervals
between the trees, and their reflection upwards is intercepted by the
leaves and boughs. The rest fall on the trees, the leaves of which being
generally inclined towards the horizon, reflect the rays downwards. The
atmosphere here, then, receives little or no heat by reflection. Again,
these leaves having a power of keeping themselves cool by their own
transpiration, they impart no heat to the air by contact. Reflection
and contact, then, two of the three modes before-mentioned, of
communicating heat, are wanting here; and, of course, the air over
a country covered by forest must be colder than that over cultivated
grounds.
The sea being pellucid, the sun’s rays penetrate it to a considerable
depth. Being also fluid, and in perpetual agitation, its parts are
constantly mixed together; so that instead of its heat being all
accumulated in its surface, as in the case of a solid, opaque body,
it is diffused through its whole mass. Its surface, therefore, is
comparatively cool, for these reasons; to which may be added that of
evaporation. The small degree of reflection which might otherwise take
place, is generally prevented by the rippled state of its surface. The
air resting on the sea, then, like that resting on a forest, receives
little or no heat by reflection or contact; and is therefore colder than
that which lies over a cultivated country.
To apply these observations to the phenomena under consideration. The
first settlements of Virginia were made along the sea coast, bearing
from the south, towards the north, a little eastwardly. These
settlements formed a zone, in which, though every point was not cleared
of its forest, yet a good proportion was cleared and cultivated. The
cultivated earth, as the sun advances above the horizon in the morning,
acquires from it an intense heat, which is retained and increased
through the warm parts of the day. The air resting on it becomes warm
in proportion, and rises. On one side is a country still covered with
forest: on the other is the ocean. The colder air from both of these,
then rushes towards the heated zone, to supply the place left vacant
there by the ascent of its warm air. The breeze from the west is light
and feeble; because it traverses a country covered with mountains and
forests, which retard its current. That from the east is strong; as
passing over the ocean, wherein there is no obstacle to its motion.
It is probable, therefore, that this easterly breeze forces itself far
into, or perhaps beyond, the zone which produces it. This zone is,
by the increase of population, continually widening into the interior
country. The line of equilibrium between the easterly and westerly
breezes is, therefore, progressive.
Did no foreign causes intervene, the sea breezes would be a little
southwardly of the east, that direction being perpendicular to our
coast. But within the tropics, there are winds which blow continually
and strongly from the east. This current affects the course of the air,
even without the tropics. The same cause, too, which produces a strong
motion of the air, from east to west, between the tropics, to wit, the
sun, exercises its influence without those limits, but more feebly, in
proportion as the surface of the globe is there more obliquely presented
to its rays. This effect, though not great, is not to be neglected when
the sun is in or near our summer solstice, which is the season of these
easterly breezes. The northern air, too, flowing towards the equatorial
parts, to supply the vacuum made there by the ascent of their heated
air, has only the small rotary motion of the polar latitudes from which
it comes. Nor does it suddenly acquire the swifter rotation of the parts
into which it enters. This gives it the effect of a motion opposed to
that of the earth, that is to say, of an easterly one. And all these
causes together are known to produce currents of air in the Atlantic,
varying from east to northeast, as far as the fortieth degree of
latitude. It is this current which presses our sea breeze out of its
natural southeasterly direction, to an easterly, and sometimes almost a
northeasterly one.