Mr. Jefferson’s daily life was simple and methodical. He rose as soon as it was light enough for him to see the hands of a clock which was opposite his bed. Till breakfast time, which was about nine o’clock, he employed himself in writing. The whole morning was devoted to an immense correspondence; the discharge of which was not only mentally, but physically distressing, inasmuch as his crippled hands, each wrist having been fractured, could not be used without pain. In a letter to his old friend, John Adams, he wrote: “I can read by candle-light only, and stealing long hours from my rest; nor would that time be indulged to me could I by that light see to write. From sunrise to one or two o’clock, and often from dinner to dark, I am drudging at the writing-table. And all this to answer letters, in which neither interest nor inclination on my part enters; and often from persons whose names I have never before heard. Yet writing civilly, it is hard to refuse them civil answers.” At his death Jefferson left copies of 16,000 letters, being only a part of those written by himself, and 26,000 letters written by others to him. At one o’clock he set out upon horseback, and was gone for one or two hours,—never attended by a servant, even when he became old and infirm. He continued these rides until he had become so feeble that he had to be lifted to the saddle; and his mount was always a fiery one. Once, in Mr. Jefferson’s old age, news came that a serious accident had happened in the neighboring village to one of his grandsons. Immediately he ordered his horse to be brought round, and though it was night and very dark, he mounted, despite the protests of the household, and, at a run, dashed down the steep ascent by which Monticello is reached. The family held their breath till the tramp of his horse’s feet, on the level ground below, could faintly be heard.