“I really think so.  I have ever dreaded a doting old age; and my health has been generally so good, and is now so good, that I dread it still.  The rapid decline of my strength during the last winter, has made me hope sometimes, that I see land.  During summer, I enjoy its temperature, but I shudder at the approach of winter, and wish I could sleep through it, with the dormouse, and only wake with him in spring, if ever.  They say that Starke could walk about his room.  I am told you walk well and firmly.  I can only reach my garden, and that with sensible fatigue.  I ride, however, daily; but reading is my delight.  I should wish never to put pen to paper; and the more because of the treacherous practice some people have, of publishing one’s letters without leave.  Lord Mansfield declared it a breach of trust, and punishable at law.  I think it should be a penitentiary felony; yet you will have seen that they have drawn me out into the arena of the newspapers.  Although I know it is too late for me to buckle on the armor of youth, yet my indignation would not permit me passively to receive the kick of an ass.

“To return to the news of the day, it seems that the cannibals of Europe are going to eat one another again.  A war between Russia and Turkey is like the battle of the kite and snake; whichever destroys the other, leaves a destroyer the less for the world.  This pugnacious humor of mankind seems to be the law of his nature; one of the obstacles to too great multiplication, provided in the mechanism of the universe.  The cocks of the hen-yard kill one another; bears, bulls, rams, do the same, and the horse in his wild state kills all the young males, until, worn down with age and war, some vigorous youth kills him. * * * * * * I hope we shall prove how much happier for man the Quaker policy is, and that the life of the feeder is better than that of the fighter.  And it is some consolation that the desolation by these maniacs of one part of the earth is the means of improving it in other parts.  Let the latter be our office; and let us milk the cow while the Russian holds her by the horns, and the Turk by the tail.  God bless you, and give you health, strength, good spirits, and as much of life as you think worth having. 
          
                                          Thomas Jefferson.”

Mr. Adams’ reply. 
“Quincy, June 11, 1822. 
“Dear sir:—­Half an hour ago I received, and this moment have heard read, for the third or fourth time, the best letter that ever was written by an octogenarian, dated June 1st.

* * * * * * * * * *

“I have not sprained my wrist; but both my arms and hands are so overstrained that I cannot write a line.  Poor Starke remembered nothing, and could talk of nothing but the battle of Bennington! ******** is not quite so reduced.  I cannot mount my horse, but I can walk three miles over a rugged, rocky mountain, and have done it within a month; yet I feel, when sitting in my chair, as if I could not rise out of it; and when risen, as if I could not walk across the room.  My sight is very dim, hearing pretty good, memory poor enough.