4747. LIFE, Jefferson's habits of.—[continued].
My present course of life admits less reading than I wish. From breakfast,
or noon at latest, to dinner, I am mostly
on horseback, attending to my farm or other
concerns, which I find healthful to my body,
mind and affairs; and the few hours I can pass
in my cabinet, are devoured by correspondences;
not those with my intimate friends,
with whom I delight to interchange sentiments,
but with others, who, writing to me on concerns
of their own in which I have had an agency,
or from motives of mere respect and approbation,
are entitled to be answered with respect
and a return of good will. My hope is that
this obstacle to the delights of retirement, will
wear away with the oblivion which follows
that, and that I may at length be indulged in
those studious pursuits, from which nothing
but revolutionary duties would ever have called
me.—
To Dr. Benjamin Rush. Washington ed. v, 558.
Ford ed., ix, 294.
(M.
1811)
