American Adventures: A Second Trip 'Abroad at home'Street, Julian
General
American Adventures: A Second Trip 'Abroad at home'
Street, Julian
Southern States -- Description and travel; Southern States -- Social life and customs
"I don't believe so," he replied. "I don't think he calls trains for any
such purpose. He only warns people so they will expect to hear the
train, and not be frightened when it goes through."
* * * * *
Thomas Jefferson is most widely remembered, I suppose, as the author of
the Declaration of Independence, the third President, the purchaser of
Louisiana, and the unfortunate individual upon whom the Democratic party
casts the blame for its existence, precisely as the Republican party
blames itself on Washington and Lincoln--although the lamentable state
into which both parties have fallen is actually the fault of living men.
It is significant, however, that of this trio of Jeffersonian items,
Jefferson himself selected but one to be included in the inscription
which he wrote for his tombstone--a modest obelisk on the grounds at
Monticello. The inscription mentions but three of his achievements: the
authorship of the Declaration, that of the Virginia statute for
religious freedom, and the fact that he was "Father of the University of
Virginia."
Regardless of other accomplishments, the man who built the university
and the house at Monticello was great. It is more true of these
buildings than of any others I have seen that they are the
autobiography, in brick and stone, of their architect. To see them, to
see some of the exquisitely margined manuscript in Jefferson's clean
handwriting, preserved in the university library, and to read the
Declaration, is to gain a grasp of certain sides of Jefferson's nature
which can be achieved in no other way.
Monticello stands on a lofty hilltop, with vistas, between trees, of
neighboring valleys, hills, and mountains. It is a supremely lovely
house, unlike any other, and, while it is too much to say that one would
recognize it as the house of the writer of the Declaration, it is not
too much to say that, once one does know it, one can trace a clear
affinity resulting from a common origin--an affinity much more apparent,
by the way, than may be traced between the work of Michelangelo on St.
Peter's at Rome, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and in his
"David."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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