Mr. Jefferson left the Seat of Government on the first of March; and the following letters, written immediately on his arrival at Monticello, will show how much his affairs at home suffered during his absence. Indeed he seemed to be able only to get the workmen fairly under way on his house, when a call to Philadelphia would again suspend operations on it almost entirely until his return.
[46] At Mont Blanco, a place near Petersburg.
My dear Maria--I am this moment arrived here, and the post being about to depart, I sit down to inform you of it. Your sister came over with me from Belmont, where we left all well. The family will move over the day after to-morrow. They give up the house there about a week hence. We want nothing now to fill up our happiness but to have you and Mr. Eppes here. Scarcely a stroke has been done towards covering the house since I went away, so that it has remained open at the north end another winter. It seems as if I should never get it inhabitable. I have proposed to your sister a flying trip, when the roads get fine, to see you. She comes into it with pleasure; but whether I shall be able to leave this for a few days is a question which I have not yet seen enough of the state of things to determine. I think it very doubtful. It is to your return, therefore, that I look with impatience, and shall expect as soon as Mr. Eppes's affairs will permit. We are not without hopes he will take a trip up soon to see about his affairs here, of which I yet know nothing. I hope you are enjoying good health, and that it will not be long before we are again united in some way or other. Continue to love me, my dear, as I do you most tenderly. Present me affectionately to Mr. Eppes, and be assured of my constant and warmest love. Adieu, my ever dear Maria.
Mrs. Eppes reached Monticello at last, and Jefferson was made happy by having all of his children and grandchildren once more assembled under his roof, where they spent the summer happily together. Jefferson returned to Philadelphia the last days of December; and we find the same weariness of the life he led there, and the same longing for home, in the following letters, as we have seen in the preceding. In these we find, however, a stronger spice of politics than in the former.