University of Virginia Library

9178. WRITING, Illegible.—

I return
you Mr. Coxe's letter which has cost me much
time at two or three different attempts to decipher
it. Had I such a correspondent, I
should certainly admonish him that, if he would
not so far respect my time as to write to me
legibly, I should so far respect it myself as
not to waste it in decomposing and recomposing
his hieroglyphics.—
To James Madison. Ford ed., x, 275.
(M. 1823)