a good, rather than an evil; and that, in any event, the examples will be so rare, as never to amount to a serious evil.  If the case then be neither clear nor urgent, would it not be better to let it lie undisturbed?  Perhaps its decision may never be called for.  But if it be indispensable to establish this disqualification now, would it not look better to declare such others, at the same time, as may be proper?  I frankly confide to yourself these opinions, or rather no-opinions, of mine; but would not wish to have them go any farther.  I want to be quiet:  and although some circumstances now and then excite me to notice them, I feel safe, and happier in leaving events to those whose turn it is to take care of them; and, in general, to let it be understood, that I meddle little or not at all with public affairs.  There are two subjects, indeed, which I shall claim a right to further as long as I breathe, the public education and the subdivision of the counties into wards.  I consider the continuance of republican government as absolutely hanging on these two hooks.  Of the first, you will, I am sure, be an advocate, as having already reflected on it, and of the last, when you shall have reflected.  Ever affectionately yours.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CXIX.—­TO JOHN ADAMS, July 5, 1814

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Monticello, July 5, 1814

Dear Sir,

Since mine of January the 24th, yours of March the 14th has been received.  It was not acknowledged in the short one of May the 18th, by Mr. Rives, the only object of that having been to enable one of our most promising young men to have the advantage of making his bow to you.  I learned with great regret the serious illness mentioned in your letter; and I hope Mr. Rives will be able to tell me you are entirely restored.  But our machines have now been running seventy or eighty years, and we must expect that, worn as they are, here a pivot, there a wheel, now a pinion, next a spring, will be giving way; and however we may tinker them up for a while, all will at length surcease motion.  Our watches, with works of brass and steel, wear out within that period.  Shall you and I last to see the course the seven-fold wonders of the times will take?  The Attila of the age dethroned, the ruthless destroyer of ten millions of the human race, whose thirst for blood appeared unquenchable, the great oppressor of the rights and liberties of the world, shut up within the circuit of a little island of the Mediterranean, and dwindled to the condition of an humble and degraded pensioner on the bounty of those he has most injured.  How miserably, how meanly, has he closed his inflated career!  What a sample of the bathos will his history present!  He should have perished on the swords of his enemies, under the walls of Paris.

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