But this is the Jefferson of 1808, the mature man, almost the aged sage of Monticello. How far he was from having reached that poise and that clear vision of the moral world, appears in the confusion and contradictions of the abstracts collected in the "Literary Bible." Yet when he read Homer, Euripides, Cicero, Shakespeare, and even Buchanan, Jefferson had a clear and single purpose. He was reading more for profit than for pleasure, to gather material with which to build anew, by himself and for himself, a moral shelter in which he could find refuge for the rest of his days. He was not thinking then of devoting his life to his country; if he had any patriotism, it was dormant, and if he had any sense of abstract justice it is nowhere manifest. And yet, quite in contrast with the general run of quotations in the "Literary Bible" are some maxims scribbled in one of his unpublished Memorandum books under the year 1770. He had already levelled the top of the hill on which he was to build Monticello and was digging the cellar. But one day, after noting carefully that "4 good fellows, a lad and two girls, of about 16 each, have dug in my cellar a place in 8 hrs. 1/2, 3 feet deep, 8 feet wide and 16½ feet long," he stopped to recapitulate the most striking maxims by which he intended to regulate his life: ... no liberty no life--endure and abstain--_bonum est quod honestum, macte virtute esto, nil desperandum, faber suae quisque fortunae, fari quae sentiat_, what is, is right--_ex recto decus_--_ne cede malis sed contra audientior ito_--long life, long health, long pleasure and a friend--_non votum nobis sed patriae_--_fiat justitia ruat coelum_.