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
The introductory paragraph to the Declaration ascends into the body of
the document as gracefully and as certainly as the wide flights of easy
steps ascend to the doors of Monticello; the long and beautifully
balanced paragraph which follows, building word upon word and sentence
upon sentence into a central statement, has a form as definite and
graceful as that of the finely proportioned house; the numbered
paragraphs which follow, setting forth separate details, are like rooms
within the house, and--I have just come upon the coincidence with a
pleasant start such as might be felt by the discoverer of some complex
and important cipher--as there are twenty-seven of the numbered
paragraphs in the Declaration, so there are twenty-seven rooms in
Monticello. Last of all there are two little phrases in the Declaration
(the phrases stating that we shall hold our British brethren in future
as we hold the rest of mankind--"enemies in war; in peace, friends"),
which I would liken to the small twin buildings, one of them Jefferson's
office, the other that of the overseer, which stand on either side of
the lawn at Monticello, at some distance from the house. These office
buildings face, and balance upon each other, and upon the mansion, but
they are so much smaller that to put them there required daring, while
to make them "compose" (as painters say) with the great house, required
the almost superhuman sense of symmetry which Jefferson assuredly
possessed.
The present owner of Monticello is Mr. Jefferson Monroe Levy, former
United States congressman from New York. Mr. Levy is a Democrat and a
bachelor, according to the Congressional Directory, which states further
that he inherited Monticello from an uncle, Commodore Uriah P. Levy,
U.S.N., and that the latter purchased the place in 1830 "at the
suggestion of President Jackson."
Dorothy Dix, writing in "Good Housekeeping," tells a tale which I have
heard repeatedly of the acquisition of Monticello by Uriah Levy. Says
Miss Dix:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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