A passage from Tristram Shandy, inscribed by Martha and Thomas Jefferson on her deathbed, reproduced here by Maira Kalman.

[written by Martha] Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity life follows my pen. The days and hours of it are flying over our heads like clouds of a windy day never to return… [and written by Thomas] and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, every absence which follows it, are preludes to the eternal separation which we are shortly to make!

(For the remainder of his life, Jefferson kept this paper with a lock of Martha’s hair entwined around it.)

(via meaghano, of course)