The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson Compiled From Family Letters and ReminiscencesRandolph, Sarah N. (Sarah Nicholas)
History
The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson Compiled From Family Letters and Reminiscences
Randolph, Sarah N. (Sarah Nicholas)
Jefferson, Thomas, 1743-1826; Presidents -- United States -- Biography
Turning from the picture of the gifted but dissipated royal Governor,
it is a relief to glance at the character given by Jefferson of the
equally gifted but pure and virtuous George Wythe. We can not refrain
from giving the conclusion of his sketch of Wythe, completing, as it
does, the picture of the "_partie quarrée_" which so often met at the
Governor's hospitable board:
No man ever left behind him a character more venerated than
George Wythe. His virtue was of the purest tint; his integrity
inflexible, and his justice exact; of warm patriotism, and,
devoted as he was to liberty, and the natural and equal rights
of man, he might truly be called the Cato of his country,
without the avarice of the Roman; for a more disinterested
man never lived. Temperance and regularity in all his habits
gave him general good health, and his unaffected modesty and
suavity of manners endeared him to every one. He was of easy
elocution; his language chaste, methodical in the arrangement
of his matter, learned and logical in the use of it, and of
great urbanity in debate; not quick of apprehension, but, with a
little time, profound in penetration and sound in conclusion. In
his philosophy he was firm; and neither troubling, nor, perhaps,
trusting, any one with his religious creed, he left the world
to the conclusion that that religion must be good which could
produce a life of such exemplary virtue. His stature was of the
middle size, well formed and proportioned, and the features
of his face were manly, comely, and engaging. Such was George
Wythe, the honor of his own and the model of future times.
CHAPTER II.
Intense Application as a Student.--Habits of Study kept up
during his Vacations.--First Preparations made for Building
at Monticello.--Letters to his College Friend, John Page.--
Anecdote of Benjamin Harrison.--Jefferson's Devotion to his
eldest Sister.--He witnesses the Debate on the Stamp Act.--First
Meeting with Patrick Henry.--His Opinion of him.--His superior
Education.--Always a Student.--Wide Range of Information.--
Anecdote.--Death of his eldest Sister.--His Grief.--Buries
himself in his Books.--Finishes his Course of Law Studies.--
Begins to practise.--Collection of Vocabularies of Indian
Languages.--House at Shadwell burnt.--Loss of his Library.--
Marriage.--Anecdote of his Courtship.--Wife's Beauty.--Bright
Prospects.--Friendship for Dabney Carr.--His Talents.--His
Death.--Jefferson buries him at Monticello.--His Epitaph.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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