Letter from Dolley Madison, Washington, D.C., to an unidentified recipient, 1839 May 15 : autograph manuscript.

Answering a letter about President Madison's habits: "Mr. Madison was ever temperate, but reasonably fond of generous dish and good wines tea and coffee. He never used tobacco was always studious taking great delight in reading and being read to retired early to bed when he passed a [part] of every night in writing reading and study, requiring but a few hours sleep. His health was delicate from childhood and in later years he was subject to rheumatism. He was attached to the pursuit of agriculture but from his public occupations it necessarily became more a theory than practice as was the case in all business pursuits, other than political."