| Episodes |
1) Maria: I tell you freely about myself and my life, but about yourself you keep everything hidden and closed.
Jefferson: When my wife died, I destroyed every letter that had ever passed between us. I wanted no one to find the least trace of our happiness. It was hers and mine. And then only mine, to be shared with no one.
Jefferson in Paris 30:15
2) Oh, my friend! This is no moment to upbraid my foibles. I am rent into fragments by the force of my grief! If you have any balm, pour it into my wounds; if none, do not harrow them by new torments. Spare me in this awful moment! At any other I will attend with patience to your admonitions.
Thomas Jefferson, "Head and Heart"
3) Jefferson: I missed you. I missed you immensely . . . I kept having a debate between my head and my heart.
Maria: Which, in your case, the head always wins.
Jefferson: Not this time. My poor head was simply whirled around by my unruly heart.
Maria: Oh, your heart.
Jefferson: It kept telling me "I love the lady, and will to continue to love her forever . . . If she were on one side of the globe and I on the other, I would pierce through the whole mass of the world to reach her."
Jefferson in Paris 49:58
4) Yet all these were to be sacrificed, that you might dine together. Lying messengers were to be dispatched into every quarter of the city, with apologies for your breach of engagement. You particularly had the effrontery to send word to the Dutchess Danville that, on the moment we were setting out to dine with her, dispatches came to hand which required immediate attention. You wanted me to invent a more ingenious excuse; but I knew you were getting into a scrape, & I would have nothing to do with it. Well, after dinner to St. Cloud, from St. Cloud to Ruggieris, from Ruggieri to Krumfoltz, & if the day had been as long as a Lapland summer day, you would still have contrived means among you to have filled it.
Thomas Jefferson, "Head and Heart"
5) Jefferson: I can't deny that all my wishes end, where I hope my days will end, at Monticello. But to leave you. To leave you behind, with all the ocean between us, and no way, no hope of ever seeing you again.
[Jefferson and Maria have their first passionate kiss]
Maria: But even if I have no vows to break, but what about yours? Hm? Your vow, to your wife?
Jefferson: You and I are alive, and the earth belongs to us, to the living. Would you dare?
Maria: Would you?
Jefferson: Yes, yes. For you, for you, I would dare anything.
Jefferson in Paris 54:55
6) To you she allotted the field of science; to me that of morals. When the circle is to be squared, or the orbit of a comet to be traced; when the arch of greatest strength, or the solid of least resistance is to be investigated, take up the problem; it is yours; nature has given me no cognizance of it. In like manner, in denying to you the feelings of sympathy, of benevolence, of gratitude, of justice, of love, of friendship, she has excluded you from their control. To these she has adapted the mechanism of the heart. Morals were too essential to the happiness of man to be risked on the uncertain combinations of the head.
Thomas Jefferson, "Head and Heart"
7) Jefferson: "Are you still scared of me, Sally?"
Sally: "I ain't scared of you, Massa."
Jefferson in Paris 1:55:02
8) My Dear Madam, Paris Octob.12.1786
Having performed the last sad office of handing you into your carriage at the Pavillon de St. Denis, and seen the wheels get actually into motion, I turned on my heel & walked, more dead than alive, to the opposite door, where my own was awaiting me. Mr. Danquerville was missing, he was sought for, found, & dragged down stairs. We were crammed into the carriage, like recruits for the Bastille, & not having soul enough to give orders to the coachman, he presumed Paris our destination, & drove off. after a considerable interval, silence was broke with a "je suis vraiment affigh du depart de ces bons gens." this was the signal for a mutual confession of distress. we began immediately to talk of mr. and mrs. Cosway, of their goodness, their talents, their amiability; & tho we spoke of nothing else, we seemed hardly to have entered into matter when the coachman announced the rue St. Denis, & that we were opposite mr. Danquerville's. he insited on descending there & traversing a short passage to his lodgings. I was carried home. Seated by my fire side, solitary & sad, the following dialogue took place between my Head & my Heart.
Jefferson in Jon Kukla, "Appendix C. Dialogue Between My Head And My Heart. Thomas Jefferson To Maria Cosway. October 12. 1786" (in Mr. Jefferson's Women) 204
9) James: Master, we stayin' in Paris. Sally and I are stayin'.
Jefferson: You consider yourself free, then, to go or stay as you please?
James: We is free here, Master. Ain't nobody is a slave in France.
Jefferson: Does your sister also wish to follow the law prevailing here rather than the American law under which she was born?
James: She don't understand nothing. She do what I say.
Jefferson: With no regard for what I say?
James: She be wantin' her freedom, master. For her own self and the little one what's comin'.
Jefferson: So you, James, will provide for Sally and her child?... And remember, once I have left and you are here on your own, there's nothin' more I shall be able to do for you. You will be livin' among strangers in a strange land of which you do not even know the language.
James: I know some. More than you master.
Jefferson: Yes, well, that is true. But if James . . . If I say "Come home to Virginia and I shall give you your freedom"?
James: You'd give me my freedom?
Jefferson: That is what I'm proposing . . . Everything that is legally required to release you from my ownership.
James: And her [Sally] and the little one?
Jefferson: What do you say, Sally? Now think very carefully. You and your child will be free to leave Monticello and earn your living elsewhere as a free woman.
Sally: Where's I goin'?
Jefferson: Wherever you wish.
Sally: [crying] Where do I go?
Jefferson: Let me make another proposal. While you, James, may claim your freedom whenever you wish after our return home, Sally and her child will remain at Monticello under my care, but upon my death to be given her freedom.
James: How will we know it'll happen like that when we get back to Monticello?
Jefferson: You have my word.
[James gets the Holy Bible for Jefferson to swear on]
Jefferson: You wish me to swear an oath on the Bible?
[Jefferson calls in Patsy to witness and to promise that she will fulfill the oath if something were to happen to Jefferson]
Jefferson: "Now here's a strange to-do, Patsy. I am about to swear an oath that on our return to Virginia, James should have his freedom. But should anything happen to me, Patsy, it would be you who will have to fulfill that promise. Do you understand me?"
[Patsy nods]
Jefferson: "And further, as an oath to Sally, that she too upon my death shall be free."
James: "Her AND the little one."
Jefferson: "Yes, Sally and the child she is expecting . . . and all other children that shall be born to her in the future."
[Patsy solemnly nods]
Jefferson: I swear by Almighty God that upon my return to the state of Virginia I shall, within a period of not more than two years, give his freedom to James Hemings. [aside from the oath] Since, however, James was brought to Paris, at great expense to me, for the purpose of learning the art of French cookery, he shall continue to reside at Monticello, in my service, until he shall have taught the same art to such persons as I shall place under him. Do you swear? [James swears] I also hereby promise and declare that Sally Hemings, sister of James, shall be freed upon my death. Likewise, all children born to her shall be freed from my ownership, or that of my heirs, upon reaching the age of 21.
Jefferson in Paris 2:07:20
10) HEAD. Well, friend, you seem to be in a pretty trim.
HEART. I am indeed the most wretched of all earthly beings. overwhelmed with grief, every fibre of my frame distended beyond it's natural powers to hear, I would willingly meet whatever catastrophe should leave me no more to feel or to fear.
Jefferson in Jon Kukla, "Appendix C. Dialogue Between My Head And My Heart. Thomas Jefferson To Maria Cosway. October 12. 1786" (in Mr. Jefferson's Women) 204-6
11) [After Jefferson suggesting Maria come to Monticello with him]
Maria: Leave everything, leave everything here, leave my husband? [sigh] I've thought of it sometimes. Mr. Cosway and I have even spoken of it. We are good friends, although he does not . . . he cannot love the way a man loves a woman. You must have guessed that.
Jefferson: What I guessed from the beginning was that you needed me as I need you.
[Jefferson kisses Maria's hand]
Jefferson in Paris 53:45
12) HEAD. Thou art the most incorrigible of all the beings that ever sinned! I reminded you of the follies of the first day, intending to deduce from thence some useful lessons for you. but instead of listening to these, you kindle at the recollection, you retrace the whole series with a fondness which shews you want nothing but the opportunity to act it over again. I often told you during it's course that you were imprudently engaging your affections under circumstances that must cost you a great deal of pain: that the persons indeed were of the greatest merit, possessing good sense, good humour, honest hearts, honest manners, & eminence in a lovely art: that the lady had moreover qualities & accomplishments, belonging to her sex, which might form a chapter apart for her: such as music, modesty, beauty, & that softness of disposition which is the ornament of her sex& charm of ours. but that all these considerations would increase the pang of separation: that their stay here was to be short: that you rack our whole system when you are parted from those you love, complaining that such a separation is worse than death, inasmuch as this ends our sufferings, whereas that only begins them: & that the separation would in this instance be the more severe as you would probably never see them again.
HEART. But they told me they would come back again the next year.
HEAD. But in the meantime see what you suffer: & their return too depends on so many circumstances that if you had a grain of prudence you would not count upon it. upon the whole it is improbable & therefore You should abandon the idea of ever seeing them again
HEART. May heaven abandon me if I do!
Jefferson in Jon Kukla, "Appendix C. Dialogue Between My Head And My Heart. Thomas Jefferson To Maria Cosway. October 12. 1786" (in Mr. Jefferson's Women) 207-8
13) Jefferson: I came back as soon as I could. I was restless for Paris.
Maria: I can't imagine you restless, or even thinking of anyone or anything except -- what do call it? -- the business at hand.
Jefferson: I though of you constantly. I wrote you constantly.
Maria: Yes, about smoked bacon and hogs. (laugh) What an extraordinary person you are. Jefferson: I hoped to interest you in what interested me.
Jefferson in Paris 49:25
14) HEAD. I did not begin this lecture my friend with a view to learn from you what America is doing. let us return then to our point. I wished to make you sensible how imprudent it is to place your affections without reserve, on objects you must so soon lose, & whose loss when it Comes must cost you such severe pangs. Remember the last night. you knew your friends were to leave Paris to-day. this was enough to throw you into agonies. all night you tossed us from one side of the bed to the other. no sleep, no rest. the poor crippled wrist too, never left one moment in the same position, now up, now down, now here, now there; was it to be wondered at if it's pains returned? the Surgeon then was to be called, & to be rated as an ignoramus because he could not divine the cause of this extraordinary change.â€"In fine, my friend, you must mend your manners. this is not a world to live at random in as you do. to avoid those eternal distresses, to which you are forever exposing us, you must learn to look forward before you take a step which may interest our peace. everything in this world is matter of calculation. advance then with caution, the balance in your hand. put into one scale the pleasures which any object may offer; but put fairly into the other the pains which are to follow, & see which preponderates. the making an acquaintance is not a matter of indifference.
Jefferson in Jon Kukla, "Appendix C. Dialogue Between My Head And My Heart. Thomas Jefferson To Maria Cosway. October 12. 1786" (in Mr. Jefferson's Women) 209-10
15) Jefferson: My affections have not altered. There has been no change in the friendship that has been between us from the first moment.
Maria: You are becoming the perfect diplomat: courteous and amiable always and always on you guard.
Jefferson: I confess I fear unguarded moments.
Maria: As when you fell and hurt your wrist. I do feel most horribly responsible for that, as though it were I who led you into recklessness.
Jefferson: No, no, no. It was my own middle-aged vanity that made me attempt what only a youth can do.
Jefferson: If I have erred in some way; if I have offended you; I beg you to be a frank with me as I have always tried to be with you.
Maria: On all subjects? Or are there some that are best left unexplained.
Jefferson in Paris 1:52:05
16) "I have passed the night in so much pain that I have not closed my eyes," he confessed to Maria.
It is with infinite regret therefore that I must relinquish your charming company for that of a Surgeon whom I have sent for to examine the cause of this change. I am in hopes it is only the having rattled a little too freely over the pavement yesterday. If you do not go to day I shall still have the pleasure of seeing you again. If you do, god bless you wherever you go. Present me in the most friendly terms to Mr. Cosway, and let me hear of your safe arrival in England. Addio. Addio. [PS:] Let me know if you do not go to day.
Jefferson in Jon Kukla "Maria Cosway" (in Mr. Jefferson's Women) 96-97
17) "Hope is sweeter than despair and they were too good to mean to deceive me. In the summer, said the gentleman; but in the spring, said the lady: and I should love her forever, were it only for that! Know then . . . that I have taken these good people into my bosom: that I have lodged them in the warmest cell I could find: that I love them, and will continue to love them through life: that if fortune should dispose them on one side the globe, and me on the other, my affections shall pervade its whole mass to reach them."
Jefferson, qtd. in Jon Kukla, "Maria Cosway" (in Mr. Jefferson's Women) 101
18) According to Jefferson, Cosway possessed, "qualities and accomplishments, belonging to her sex, which might form a chapter apart for her: such as music, modesty, beauty, and that softness of disposition which is the ornament of her sex and charms of ours."
John Kaminski 12
19) "I cannot breakfast with you to morrow; to bid you adieu is sufficiently painful, for I leave you with very melancholy ideas . . . and I have the reflection that I cannot be useful to you; who have rendered me so many civilities. Friday night [unsigned]"
Jefferson, qtd. in Jon Kukla, "Maria Cosway" (in Mr. Jefferson's Women) 106
20) HEAD. Very well. suppose then they come back -- they are to stay two months, & when these are expired, what is to follow? perhaps you flatter yourself they may come to America?
HEART. God only knows what is to happen. I see nothing impossible in that supposition. and I see things wonderfully contrived sometimes to make us happy. where could they find such objects as in America for the exercise of their enchanting art? Especially the lady, who paints landscapes so inimitably. she wants only subjects worthy of immortality to render her pencil immortal. the Falling spring, the Cascade of Niagara, the Passage of the Potowmac thro the Blue mountains, the Natural bridge. it is worth a voiage across the Atlantic to see these objects: much more to paint, and make them, & thereby ourselves, known to all ages, and our own dear Monticello, where has Nature spread so rich a mantle under the eye? mountains, forests, rocks, rivers. with what majesty do we there ride above the storms! how sublime to look down into the workhouse of nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow, rain, thunder, all fabricated at our feet! And the glorious Sun, when rising as if out of a distant water, just gilding the tops of the mountains & giving life to all nature! -- I hope in god no circumstance may ever make either seek an asylum from grief! with what sincere sympathy I would open every cell of my composition to receive the effusion of their woes! I would pour my tears into their wounds:& if a drop of balm could be found on the top of the Cordilleras, or at the remotest sources of the Missouri, I would go thither myself to seek & to bring it. Deeply practiced in the school of affliction, the human heart knows no joy which I have not lost, no sorrow of which I have not drank! Fortune can present no grief of unknown form to me! who then can so softly bind up the wound of another as he who has felt the same wound himself?
Jefferson in Jon Kukla, "Appendix C. Dialogue Between My Head And My Heart. Thomas Jefferson To Maria Cosway. October 12. 1786" (in Mr. Jefferson's Women) 208-9
21) Thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine. I will recur for proof to the days we have lately passed. On these indeed the sun shone brightly! how gay did the face of nature appear! hills, vallies, chateaux, gardens, rivers, every object wore it's liveliest hue! whence did they borrow it? from the presence of our charming companion. They were pleasing, because she seemed pleased. alone, the scene would have been dull & insipid: the participation of it with her gave it relish. let the gloomy Monk, sequestered from the world, seek unsocial pleasures in the bottom of his cell! Let the sublimated philosopher grasp visionary happiness while pursuing phantoms dressed in the garb of truth! their supreme wisdom is supreme folly: & they mistake for happiness the mere absence of pain. had they ever felt the solid pleasure of one generous spasm of the heart, they would exchange for it all the frigid speculations of their lives, which you have been vaunting in such elevated terms. believe me then, my friend, that that is a miserable arithmetic which would estimate friendship at nothing, or at less than nothing.
Jefferson in Jon Kukla, "Appendix C. Dialogue Between My Head And My Heart. Thomas Jefferson To Maria Cosway. October 12. 1786" (in Mr. Jefferson's Women) 211
22) I feel more fit for death than life. but when I look back on the pleasures of which it is the consequence, I am conscious they were worth the price I am paying. notwithstanding your endeavours too to damp my hopes, I comfort myself with expectations of their promised return. hope is sweeter than despair and they were too good to mean to deceive me. in the summer, said the gentleman; but in the spring, said the lady: & I should love her forever, were it only for that! know then, my friend, that I have taken these good people into my bosom: that I have lodged them in the warmest cell I could find: that I love them, & will continue to love them through life: that if fortune should dispose them on one side the globe, & me on the other, my affections shall pervade it's whole mass to reach them.
Jefferson in Jon Kukla, "Appendix C. Dialogue Between My Head And My Heart. Thomas Jefferson To Maria Cosway. October 12. 1786" (in Mr. Jefferson's Women) 213
