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SCI LIBRARY

The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson

By Subject


PAINE, THOMAS / RETIREMENT TO NEW YORK FARM



I congratulate you on your retirement to your farm, and still more that it is of a character so worthy of your attention. I much doubt whether the open room on your second story will answer your expectations. There will be a few days in the year in which it will be delightful, but not many. Nothing but trees, or Venetian blinds, can protect it from the sun. The semi-cylindrical roof you propose will have advantages. You know it has been practised on the cloth market at Paris. De Lorme, the inventor, shows many forms of roofs in his book to which it is applicable. I have used it at home for a dome, being one hundred and twenty degrees of an oblong octagon, and in the capitol we unite two quadrants of a sphere by a semi-cylinder; all framed in De Lorme's manner. How has your planing machine answered? Has it been tried and persevered in by any workmen?

It seems very difficult to find out what turns things are to take in Europe. I suppose it depends on Austria, which, knowing it is to stand in the way of receiving the first hard blows, is cautious of entering into a coalition. As to France and England we can have but one wish, that they may disable one another from injuring others.

to Thomas Paine, 5 June 1805