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all in a blaze of fire I've seen a house high as the moon and higher," etc., which, he says, "will be a good lesson to convince you of the importance of minding your stops in writing." To two others, still younger, who had undertaken to raise a colony of silk-worms, which had become reduced to a single spinner, he sends a promise that, "as soon as you can get weddinggowns from that spinner, you shall be married."

formality which had been observed by Washing- | having acquired the valuable art of writing," ton and Adams. Instead of opening Congress and sending the old puzzle, "I've seen the sea in person by delivering an address, he sent in a written message. He did away with formal levées, the only days on which his doors were thrown open to the public being New-Year's and the Fourth of July, although he at all times received private calls, whether of courtesy or business. Some of the ladies of the capital were vexed at the abolition of levées, and they resolved to force him to continue them. Upon the usual levée day they resorted in full force to the White House. Jefferson was out taking his habitual horseback ride. Upon his return, being informed that the public rooms were filled with ladies in full dress, he went there, booted and spurred and covered with dust. He welcomed his visitors with the utmost courtesy, just as though they had happened to come at the same time by chance. The experiment was never repeated.

His family letters are all marked by the same affection as of old. The spring of 1804 was darkened by a domestic calamity-the death of his daughter Mary. To a letter of condolence he replies:

When Jefferson finally returned to his home, says Mrs. Randolph, "his whole demeanor betokened the feelings of one who has been relieved of a heavy and wearisome burden. His family noticed the elasticity of his step while engaged in arranging his books and papers, and not unfrequently heard him humming a favorite air, or singing snatches of old songs which had been almost forgotten since the days of his youth." In a letter to Kosciusko he gives some account of his way of life a few months after his retirement:

breakfast to dinner I am in my shops, my garden, or "My mornings are devoted to correspondence. From on horseback among my farms; from dinner to dark "My loss is great indeed. Others may lose of their Igive to society and recreation with my neighbors and abundance, but I, of my want, have lost even the half friends; and from candle-light to early bed-time I read. of all I had. My evening prospects now hang on the My health is perfect, and my strength considerably reenforced by the activity of the course I pursue; perhaps slender thread of a single life. Perhaps I may be des- it is as great as usually falls to the lot of near sixtytined to see even this last cord of parental affection broken! The hope with which I had looked forward seven years of age. I talk of plows and harrows, of to the moment when, resigning public cares to youn-itics too, if they choose, with as little reserve as the rest seeding and harvesting, with my neighbors; and of polger hands, I was to retire to that domestic comfort of my fellow-citizens, and feel, at length, the blessing from which the last great step is to be taken, is fear of being free to say and do what I please without befully blighted." ing responsible for it to any mortal. A part of my occupation, and by no means the least pleasing, is the direction of the studies of such young men as ask it. They place themselves in the neighboring village, and have the use of my library and counsel, and make a part of my society. In advising the course of their reading, I endeavor to keep their attention fixed on the main objects of all science-the freedom and happiness of man."

Jefferson had in mind to retire from the Presidency at the close of his first term, but his friends insisted upon renominating him, and, besides their urgency, he had some other reasons for acceding. In July, 1804, he wrote:

"I should have retired at the end of the first four years, but that the immense load of Tory calumnies which have been manufactured respecting me, and have filled the European market, have obliged me to appeal once more to my country for justification. I have no fear but that I shall receive honorable testimony by their verdict on these calumnies. At the end of the next four years I shall certainly retire. Age, inclination, and principle all dictate this."

His grandson thus describes Jefferson's personal appearance at this and subsequent periods of his life:

as he advanced in years; his eye, hazel. Dying in his "His hair, when young, was of a reddish cast; sandy eighty-fourth year, he had not lost a tooth, nor had one Toward the close of his second term his ex- defective; his skin thin, peeling from his face on exposure to the sun, and giving it a tettered appearance; pressions of longing for retirement grow stronger the superficial veins so weak as, upon the slightest and more frequent. To one friend he writes: blow, to cause extensive suffusions of blood; in early "The weight of public business begins to be life, upon standing to write for any length of time, too heavy for me, and I long for the enjoy-bursting beneath the skin. It, however, gave him no inconvenience. His countenance was mild and benigments of rural life, among my books, my farm, nant, and attractive to strangers. His stature was comand my family." To another: "I am tired of manding-six feet two and a half inches in heightan office where I can do no more good than well formed, indicating strength, activity, and robust health; his carriage erect; step firm and elastic, which many others who would be glad to be employ- he preserved to his death; his temper, naturally strong, ed in it. To myself personally it brings noth- under perfect control; his courage cool and impassive. ing but unceasing drudgery and daily loss of friends." To another: "My longings for retirement are so strong that I with difficulty encounter the daily drudgery of my duty."

His grandchildren, of whom he had now seven, the children of Mrs. Randolph, now begin to come in for a share of his letters. To one, a girl of ten, he writes, congratulating her "on

"A bold and fearless rider, you saw at a glance, from his easy and confident seat, that he was master of his horse, which was usually the fine blood-horse of Virginia. The only impatience of temper he ever exhibited was with his horse, which he subdued to his will by a fearless application of the whip on the slightest his fondness for riding on horseback. He rode within manifestation of restiveness. He retained to the last three weeks of his death, when, from disease, debility, and age, he mounted with difficulty. He rode with

confidence, and never permitted a servant to accompany him. He was fond of solitary rides and musing, and said that the presence of a servant annoyed him. "He always made his own fire. He drank water but once a day, a single glass, when he returned from his ride. He ate heartily, and much vegetable food, preferring French cookery, because it made the meats more tender. He never drank ardent spirits or strong wines. Such was his aversion to ardent spirits that when, in his last illness, his physician desired him to use brandy as an astringent, he could not induce him to take it strong enough.

"His dress was simple, and adapted to his ideas of neatness and comfort. He paid little attention to fashion, wearing whatever he liked best, and sometimes blending the fashions of several different periods. He wore long waistcoats when the mode was for very short; white cambric stocks, fastened behind with a buckle, when cravats were universal. He adopted the pantaloon very late in life, because he found it more comfortable and convenient, and cut off his queue for the same reason. He made no change except from motives of the same kind, and did nothing to be in conformity with the fashion of the day. He considered such independence as the privilege of his age."

Jefferson was supposed to be a rich man. How could the master of the mansion of Monticello, the owner of 10,000 acres, and master of 150 slaves be otherwise? But he had scarcely returned to his home before he found that his affairs were almost hopelessly embarrassed. The struggle against absolute pecuniary ruin, unavailing in the end, lasted through the last fifteen years of his life. Yet running through it was an idyllic charm arising from his intercourse with his daughter and her children. Several of his granddaughters have given their recollections; and these form one of the most pleasing episodes in the book of his great-granddaughFrom these we extract and abridge a few paragraphs, almost at random. One granddaughter writes:

ter.

on the terrace, sit with him over the fire during the winter twilight, or by the open windows in summer. As child, girl, and woman, I loved and honored him above all earthly beings. And well I might. From him seemed to flow all the pleasures of my life. To him I owed all the small blessings and joyful surprises of my childish and girlish years. I was fond of riding, and was rising above that childish simplicity when, provided I was mounted on a horse, I cared nothing for my equipments, and when an old saddle or broken bridle were matters of no moment. I was beginning to be fastidious, but I had never told my wishes. I was standing one bright day in the portico, when a man rode up to the door with a beautiful lady's saddle and bridle before him. My heart bounded. These coveted articles were deposited at my feet. My grandfather came out of his room to tell me they were mine. When about fifteen years old I began to think of a watch, but knew the state of my father's finances promised no such indulgence. One afternoon the letter-bag was brought in. Among the letters was a small packet addressed to my grandfather. It had the Philadelphia mark upon it. I looked at it with indifferent, incurious eye. Three hours after an elegant lady's watch, with chain and seals, was in my hand, which trembled for very joy. My Bible came from him, my Shakspeare, my first writing-table, my first handsome writing-desk, my first Leghorn hat, my first silk dress. What, in short, of all my small treasures did not come from him ?"

Still another granddaughter writes:

He

"I can not describe the feelings of veneration, admiration, and love that existed in my heart toward him. I looked on him as a being too great and good for my comprehension; and yet I felt no fear to approach him, and be taught by him some of the childish sports that I delighted in. When he walked in the garden, and would call the children to go with him, we raced after and before him, and we were made perfectly hapPy by this permission to accompany him. Not one of us, in our wildest moods, ever placed a foot on one of the garden beds, for that would violate one of his rules; and yet I never heard him utter a harsh word to one of us, or speak in a raised tone of voice, or use a threat. He simply said, 'Do,' or 'Do not.' would gather fruit for us, seek out the ripest figs, or bring down the cherries from on high above our heads with a long stick, at the end of which there was a hook and little net bag....One of our earliest amusements was in running races on the terrace, or around the lawn. He placed us according to our ages, giving the youngest and smallest the start of all the others by some yards, and so on; and then he raised his arm high, with his white handkerchief in his hand, on which our eager eyes were fixed, and slowly counted three, at which number he dropped the handkerchief, and we started off to finish the race by returning to the starting-place, and receiving our reward of dried fruit

"He loved farming and gardening, the fields, the orchards, and his asparagus beds. Of flowers, too, he was very fond. I remember the planting of the first hyacinths and tulips. The precious roots were committed to the earth under his own eye, with a crowd of happy young faces of his grandchildren clustering around to see the process, and inquire anxiously the name of each separate deposit. In the morning, immediately after breakfast, he used to visit his flower beds and gardens. In the summer, as the day grew warmer he retired to his own apartments, where he remained until about one o'clock. My mother would sometimes send me on a message to him. A gentle-three figs, prunes, or dates to the victor, two to the knock, a call, 'Come in,' and I would enter, with a mixed feeling of love and reverence, and some pride in being the bearer of a communication to one whom I approached with all the affection of a child, and something of the loyalty of a subject."

Another granddaughter writes:

"My grandfather's manners to us, his grandchildren, were delightful; I can characterize them by no other word. He talked with us freely, affectionately; never lost an opportunity of giving a pleasure or a good lesson. He reproved without wounding us, and commended without making us vain. He took pains to correct our errors and false ideas, checked the bold, encouraged the timid, and tried to teach us to reason soundly and feel rightly. Our smaller follies he treated with good-humored raillery; our graver ones with kind and serious admonition.

"As a child, I used to follow him about, and draw as near to him as I could. I remember when I was

small enough to sit on his knee and play with his watch-chain. As a girl, I would join him in his walks

second, and one to the lagger who came in last. Often he discovered, we knew not how, some cherished object of our desires, and the first intimation we had of his knowing the wish was its unexpected gratification. Sister Anne gave a silk dress to sister Ellen. Cornelia (then eight or ten years old), going up stairs, involuntarily expressed aloud some feelings which possessed her bosom on the occasion by saying, 'I never had a silk dress in my life.' The next day a silk dress came from Charlottesville to Cornelia, and (to make the rest of us equally happy) also a pair of pretty dresses for Mary and myself."

We pass as lightly as possible over the matter of the pecuniary troubles which darkened Jefferson's last years. They arose primarily from his almost continual absence from his estates, which, when he at last returned to them, were almost ruined by bad management, while in none of his offices, except that of Vice-President, had his salary equaled his expenses.

Still the estates were so extensive that under | home" by people who really thought they were ordinary circumstances they might have been rendering him a compliment by "paying their brought into order. But the war of 1812 was respects." ruinous to the Southern planter. He himself describes the state of affairs during the war:

As early as 1815 he had found it necessary to raise money apart from his usual receipts. He offered his valuable library for sale to ConFor this he received $23,950. This gress. sum proved only a temporary relief. In 1816 he placed the management of his affairs in the hands of his young grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph. The young man did all that man could do, and in the effort to relieve his grandfather sunk the whole of his own large patrimony. In 1825 his affairs had come to a crisis. Money must be had to meet his debts. No Mr. Benton thus characterizes the state of his still unproductive landed property; but still one could be found who could or would buy the country soon after the war:

"By the total annihilation in value of the produce which was to give me subsistence and independence, I shall be, like Tantalus, up to the shoulders in water, yet dying with thirst. We can make, indeed, enough to eat, drink, and clothe ourselves; but nothing for our salt, iron, groceries, and taxes, which must be paid in money. For what can we raise for the market? Wheat? we can only give it to our horses, as we have been doing ever since harvest. Tobacco? it is not worth the pipe it is smoked in. Some say whisky; but all mankind must become drunkards to consume it."

"No price for property or produce; no sales but those of the sheriff and the marshal; no purchasers at

the execution sales but the creditor or some hoarder of money; no employment for industry; no demand for labor; no sale for the product of the farm; no sound of the hammer but that of the auctioneer knocking down property. Stop laws, property laws, replevin laws, stay laws, loan-office laws, the intervention of the legislator between the creditor and the debtor-this was the business of legislation in threefourths of the States of the Union-of all south and west of New England."

During all this time the necessary-or what seemed necessary · expenses of Jefferson's household were enormous, owing to the constant influx of visitors. There were few eminent men who did not consider it a sort of duty to "pay their respects" to Jefferson. They came of all nations, at all times, and for all lengths of time. One New England judge, for example, brought a mere letter of introduction, and tarried three weeks. One of Jefferson's granddaughters writes:

"We had persons from abroad, from all the States of the Union, from every part of the State-men, women, and children. In short, almost every day, for at least eight months of the year, brought its contingent of guests. People of wealth, fashion, men in office, professional men-military and civil-lawyers, doctors, Protestant clergymen, Catholic priests, members of Congress, foreign ministers, missionaries, Indian agents, tourists, travelers, artists, strangers, friends. Some came from affection and respect, some from curiosity, some to give or receive advice or instruction, some from idleness, some because others set the example."

there were, doubtless, many who would risk a small sum for the chance of gaining a large estate. Jefferson proposed to dispose of his lands by lottery. To enable him to do this required a special act of the Virginia Legislature. He asked for this legal permission. "To me," he wrote, "it is almost a question of life and death......If it is permitted, my lands, mills, etc., will pay every thing, and will leave me Monticello and a farm free. If refused, I must sell every thing here, perhaps considerably in Bedford, move thither with my family, where I have not even a log-hut to put my head into, and where ground for burial will depend on the depredations which, under the form of sales, shall have been committed on my property."

The Legislature doubted and haggled, but finally passed the bill. Meanwhile private persons, learning of his distress, sent him something. From New York came $8500; from Philadelphia $5000; from Baltimore $3000. But this was all swallowed up in part payment of debts. From his own State of Virginia came an abundance of fair words, but nothing more. Before the lottery scheme could be carried into execution Jefferson had passed from earth, his death having been preceded by a few weeks by that of Anne Bankhead, his eldest granddaughter. Six months after his death his furniture was sold at auction to pay his debts; Monticello was advertised for sale at the street corners; and Martha Randolph, who, in a letter written almost with his dying hand, is called Monticello, moreover, was some miles distant "my dear and beloved daughter, the cherished —and by very rough roads-from any tavern. companion of my early life, and the nurse of Visitors, even the most casual, could only arrive my age," went forth apparently penniless into late in the day. According to the old Virgin- the world. One gleam of light shines through ian views of hospitality, it could hardly be omit- this gloom. On learning the destitute condition ted that they should be asked to dinner; and, in which Mrs. Randolph was left, the Legislaas all rode or drove over, their horses and driv-tures of South Carolina and Louisiana each ers must also be cared for. Many, indeed, granted her a donation of $10,000-" acts," so came so late that it seemed unavoidable that writes one of those descendants, "which will they should be invited to stay overnight. Mrs. ever be gratefully remembered by the descendRandolph said that she had once been unex-ants of Martha Jefferson." pectedly called upon to provide accommoda- Two episodes which marked the later years tions for the night for fifty persons. It was of Jefferson's life must be noted before we relike keeping a large hotel where no bills were cord its closing scenes. to be paid. Jefferson was, in the most literal sense of the phrase, "eaten out of house and

During the fierce political struggles of 1805 and the following years an estrangement had

sprung up between Adams and Jefferson. Both the year before last. I found the number to be old friends longed for a reconciliation. This, by the intervention of Benjamin Rush, took place in 1812, Adams making the first direct advance, to which Jefferson warmly responded. "My dear old friend," he writes, "a letter from you calls up recollections very dear to my heart. It carries me back to the times when, beset with difficulties and dangers, we were fellow-laborers in the same cause, struggling for what is most valuable to man-his right to self-government......No circumstances have suspended for one moment my sincere esteem for you, and I now salute you with unchanged affection and respect."

one thousand two hundred and sixty-seven, many of them requiring answers of elaborate research, and all to be answered with due attention and consideration. Is this life? At best it is the life of a mill-horse, who sees no end to his circle but in death." In 1823, in a letter to Adams, is found the estimate of the character of Napoleon already quoted. In the same year: "Crippled wrists and fingers make writing slow and laborious. But while writing to you I lose the sense of these things in the recollection of ancient times when youth and health made happiness out of every thing. I forget for a while the hoary winter of age, when we can think of nothing but how to keep ourselves warm, and how to get rid of our heavy hours until the friendly hand of death shall rid us of all at once." He then goes on to speak of a "hobby on which he was fortunately mounted;" this being "the establishment of a university on a scale more comprehensive, and in a country more healthy and central, than our old William and Mary." The University of Virginia was indeed the work of Jefferson's last years, and in the epitaph which he wrote for himself it is one of the three things recorded. He describes himself as "Author of the Decla

There are few of Jefferson's many letters more characteristic than those written after this date to Adams. In 1816 he writes: "You ask if I would agree to live my seventy, or rather seventy-three, years over again. To which I say, yea. I think, with you, that it is a good world, on the whole; that it has been framed on a principle of benevolence, and more pleasure than pain dealt out to us......I steer my bark with Hope in the head, leaving Fear far astern. My hopes, indeed, sometimes fail, but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy." Again, in 1818, upon learning of the death of Mrs. Adams: "Tried myself in the school of affliction by the|ration of Independence, of the Statute of Virloss of every form of connection which can rive the human heart, I know well and feel well what you have suffered, are suffering, and have yet to endure. It is some comfort to us both that the term is not very distant at which we are to deposit in the same cerement our sorrows and suffering bodies, and to ascend in essence to an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved and lost, and whom we shall still love and never lose again. God bless you, and support you under your heavy affliction!" These are the words of one who has been held up as an atheist. Again, in 1822: "It is very long, my dear Sir, since I have written to you. My dislocated wrist is now become so stiff that I write slowly and with pain, and therefore write as little as I can. Yet it is due to mutual friendship to ask once in a while how we do.

The papers tell us that General Stark is off at the age of ninety-three. Charles Thompson still lives at about the same age-cheerful, slender as a grasshopper, and so much without memory that he scarcely recognizes the members of his household......I have ever dreaded a doting old age; and my health has been generally so good, and is now so good, that I dread it still. The rapid decline of my strength during the last winter has made me hope sometimes that I see land. During summer I enjoy its temperature; but I shudder at the approach of winter, and wish I could sleep through it with the dormouse, and only wake with him in spring, if ever."

ginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia;" directing that, save name and date of birth and death, there should be "not a word more" placed on his monument.

Jefferson's last letter to Adams was written March 26, 1826, three months and five days before that Fourth of July when both passed from earth. It reads:

"DEAR SIR,-My grandson, Thomas J. Randolph, the bearer of this letter, being on a visit to Boston, would think he had seen nothing were he to leave without seeing you. Although I truly sympathize with you for him permission to pay to you his personal respects. in the trouble these interruptions give, yet I must ask Like other young people he wishes to be able, in the winter nights of old age, to recount to those around him what he has heard and learned of the heroic age preceding his birth, and which of the Argonauts individually he has seen.

"It was the lot of our early years to witness nothing but the dull monotony of a colonial subservience, and of our riper years to breast the perils of working out of it. Theirs are the halcyon calms succeeding the storms which our argosy had so stoutly weathered. Gratify his ambition, then, by receiving his best bow, and my solicitude for your health by enabling him to different, but not so my friendship and respect for you.” bring me a favorable account of it. Mine is but in

In 1824 Lafayette visited America, after an absence of more than forty years. At Jefferson's urgent request he visited him at Monticello. Their meeting is thus described by an eye-witness:

"The lawn on the eastern side of the house at Monticello contains not quite an acre. On this spot was the In the same year he writes to Adams com- meeting of Jefferson and Lafayette on the latter's visit plaining of the burden of his correspondence. to the United States. The barouche containing Lafay“I happened," he says, "to turn to my letter-ette stopped at the edge of this lawn. His escort-one list some time ago, and a curiosity was excited to count those received in a single year. It was

hundred and twenty mounted men-formed on one side in a semicircle extending from the carriage to the house. A crowd of about two hundred men, who were