Summary
“For, neither by Reason, nor by her experience, is it impossible that a Commonwealth should be immortal; seeing the people, being the materials, never dies; and the form, which is motion, must, without opposition, be endless. The bowl which is thrown from your hand, if there be no rub, no impediment, shall never cease; for which cause the glorious luminaries, that are the bowls of God, were once thrown for ever.”
—Harrington's Oceana.While I was at Washington, I received a kind invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Madison, to visit them at their seat, Montpelier, Virginia. I was happy to avail myself of it, and paid the visit on my way down to Richmond. At six o'clock, in the morning of the 18th of February, my party arrived at Orange Court House, five miles from Montpelier; and while two proceeded to Charlottesville, where we were to join them in three or four days, a friend and I stopped, first to rest for a few hours, and then to proceed to Mr. Madison's. After some sleep, and breakfast at noon, we took a carriage for the five miles of extremely bad road we had to travel. The people at the inn overcharged us for this carriage, and did not mention that Mr. Madison had desired that a messenger should be sent over for his carriage, as soon as we should arrive.
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- Retrospect of Western Travel , pp. 1 - 18Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010