Let the exit of the spiral ... look on a small and distant part of the blue mountains. In the middle of the temple an altar, the sides of turf, the top a plain stone.

the frize to be ornamented with human figures as in Palladio B. 4. pl. 13.14.15.

I am savage enough to prefer the woods, the wilds, & the independance of Monticello, to all the brilliant pleasures of this gay capital. ... for tho’ there is less wealth there, there is more freedom, more ease & less misery.

the art of life is the art of avoiding pain: & he is the best pilot who steers clearest of the rocks & shoals with which it is beset. pleasure is always before us; but misfortune is at our side: while running after that, this arrests us. the most effectual means of being secure against...

I have often seen a leg of the bow below my level. my situation at Monticello admitted this, because there is a mountain there in the opposite direction of the afternoon’s sun, the valley between which & Monticello is 500 feet deep. I have seen a leg of a rainbow plunge down on the river...

your account of Clarkson’s conduct gives me great pleasure. my first wish is that the labourers may be well treated, the second that they may enable me to have that treatment continued by making as much as will admit it. the man who can effect both objects is rarely to be found. I wish you would...

I, like other people, am so much the dupe of the fondness for the natale solum as to believe seriously there is no quarter of the globe so desireable as America, no state in america so desireable as Virginia, no county in Virginia equal to Albemarle & no spot in Albemarle to compare to...

I examined with great satisfaction your barometrical estimate of the heights of our mountains, and with the more as they corroborated conjectures on this subject which I had made before. my estimates had made them a little higher than yours (I speak of the blue ridge.) measuring with a very nice...

Dinsmore alone made & put up the semicircular arch of the Cabinet (wide) in 10. days.

This is merely to...

the grounds which I destine to improve in the style of the English gardens…compose the Northern quadrant of a mountain for about 2/3 of it’s height, & then spread for the upper third over it’s whole crown. they contain about 300. acres, washed at the foot, for about a mile, by a river of the...

The house is an irregular octagon, with porticoes on the east and west sides, and piazzas on the north and south ends. Its extent, including the porticoes and piazzas, is about one hundred and ten by ninety feet; the external is finished in the Doric order complete, with a ballustrade on the top...