Paris, and which neither time nor distance has lessened. I often pass in
review the many happy hours I spent with Madame Diodati and yourself on
the banks of the Seine, as well as at Paris, and I count them among
the most pleasing I enjoyed in France. Those were indeed days of
tranquillity and happiness. They had begun to cloud a little before I
left you; but I had no apprehension that the tempest, of which I saw the
beginning, was to spread over such an extent of space and time. I have
often thought of you with anxiety, and wished to know how you weathered
the storm, and into what port you had retired. The letters now received
give me the first information, and I sincerely felicitate you on your
safe and quiet retreat. Were I in Europe, _pax et panis_ would certainly
be my motto. Wars and contentions, indeed, fill the pages of history
with more matter. But more blest is that nation whose silent course of
happiness furnishes nothing for history to say. This is what I ambition
for my own country, and what it has fortunately enjoyed now upwards of
twenty years, while Europe has been in constant volcanic eruption. I
again, my friend, repeat my joy that you have escaped the overwhelming
torrent of its lava.

At the end of my present term, of which two years are yet to come, I
propose to retire from public life, and to close my days on my patrimony
of Monticello, in the bosom of my family. I have hitherto enjoyed
uniform health; but the weight of public business begins to be too heavy
for me, and I long for the enjoyments of rural life, among my books, my
farms, and my family. Having performed my _quadragena stipendia_, I
am entitled to my discharge, and should be sorry, indeed, that others
should be sooner sensible than myself when I ought to ask it. I have,
therefore, requested my fellow-citizens to think of a successor for
me, to whom I shall deliver the public concerns with greater joy than I
received them. I have the consolation too of having added nothing to my