DOROTHY TODD PAYNE MADISON ("DOLLEY") | An autograph quotation by Dolley Madison of an evidently original philosophical meditation

Property from the Collection of Elsie and Philip Sang

DOROTHY TODD PAYNE MADISON ("DOLLEY")

AUTOGRAPH TRANSCRIPTION SIGNED ("DP MADISON"), QUOTING AN EVIDENTLY ORIGINAL MEDITATION ON NATURE AND GENIUS

One page (5 3/4 x 3 3/4 in.; 145 x 97 mm) on a leaf of writing paper, headed "For Mrs. McGregor," Washington, 29 February 1848; stained from glue residue on verso.

On leap day, 1848, Dolley Madison wrote out this metaphysical musing for a friend: "'The passions are like the sounds of Nature, only heard in her solitudes! Our senses may captivate us with beauty, but in absence we forget, or by reason we can conquer so superficial an impression. Our vanity may enamour us with rank; but the affections of vanity are traced in sand: but who can love genius and not feel that the sentiment it excites partakes of its own intenseness and its own immortality.'"

The former First Lady was evidently quite proud of this composition, also inscribing it in her younger sister's friendship album (see J. Madison Cutts, "Dolly Madison," in Records of the Columbia Historical Society Washington, D.C., III (1900), p. 49) and for William W. Stickney (Smythe, 26 February 1998, lot 437).