PROLOUGE
Sarah Knox Taylor in 1830, aged 16
***
Fort Gibson, Arkansas Territory,
December 16th 1834
My Dear Sarah,
'Tis strange how superstitious intense feeling renders us, but stranger still what aids chance sometimes brings to support our superstition, dreams my...we will agree are our weakest thoughts, and yet by dreams have I been lately almost crazed, for they were of you and the sleeping imagination painted you not such as I left you, not such as I could like and see you, for you seemed a sacrifice to your parents desire the bride of a wretch that your pride and sense equally compelled you to despise...Neglected by you I should be worse than nothing and if the few good qualities I possess shall under your smiles yield a fruit it will be your's as the grain is the husbandman's.
It has been a sour productive of regret with me that our union must separate you from your earliest and best friends, a test to which the firmness of very few are equal, though giddy with passion or bound by the hope of reconciliation there be many who brave it, from you I am prepared to expect all that intellect and dignified pride brings, the question as it has occurred to you is truly startling. Your own answer is the most gratifying to me, is that which I should expected from you, for as you are the first with whom I ever ought to have one fortune so you would be the last from whom I would expect desertion. When I wrote to you I supposed you did not intend soon to return to Kentucky. I approve entirely of your preference to a meeting elsewhere than at Prarie-du-Chien and your desire to avoid any embarrassment might widen the breach made already cannot be greater than my own, did I know when you would be at St Louis I could meet you there. At all events we meet in Kentucky. Shall we not soon meet Sarah to part no more? Oh! How I long to lay my head upon that breast which beats in unison with my own, to turn from the sickening sights of worldly duplicity and look in those eyes so eloquent of purity and love.
My lines like the beggars days are dwindling to the shortest span. Write to me immediately, my dear Sarah, my betrothed. No formality is proper between us. Adieu.
Jefferson
***
Sarah Knox Taylor in 1830, aged 16
***
Fort Gibson, Arkansas Territory,
December 16th 1834
My Dear Sarah,
'Tis strange how superstitious intense feeling renders us, but stranger still what aids chance sometimes brings to support our superstition, dreams my...we will agree are our weakest thoughts, and yet by dreams have I been lately almost crazed, for they were of you and the sleeping imagination painted you not such as I left you, not such as I could like and see you, for you seemed a sacrifice to your parents desire the bride of a wretch that your pride and sense equally compelled you to despise...Neglected by you I should be worse than nothing and if the few good qualities I possess shall under your smiles yield a fruit it will be your's as the grain is the husbandman's.
It has been a sour productive of regret with me that our union must separate you from your earliest and best friends, a test to which the firmness of very few are equal, though giddy with passion or bound by the hope of reconciliation there be many who brave it, from you I am prepared to expect all that intellect and dignified pride brings, the question as it has occurred to you is truly startling. Your own answer is the most gratifying to me, is that which I should expected from you, for as you are the first with whom I ever ought to have one fortune so you would be the last from whom I would expect desertion. When I wrote to you I supposed you did not intend soon to return to Kentucky. I approve entirely of your preference to a meeting elsewhere than at Prarie-du-Chien and your desire to avoid any embarrassment might widen the breach made already cannot be greater than my own, did I know when you would be at St Louis I could meet you there. At all events we meet in Kentucky. Shall we not soon meet Sarah to part no more? Oh! How I long to lay my head upon that breast which beats in unison with my own, to turn from the sickening sights of worldly duplicity and look in those eyes so eloquent of purity and love.
My lines like the beggars days are dwindling to the shortest span. Write to me immediately, my dear Sarah, my betrothed. No formality is proper between us. Adieu.
Jefferson
***