Famous American Statesmen. Sarah K. Bolton

      He was opposed to ostentation. He used to quote the words of Cotton Mather to him when he was a boy. On leaving the minister's house, he hit his head against a beam. "'Stoop,' said Mather; 'you are young, and have the world before you; stoop as you go through it, and you will miss many hard thumps!' This advice, thus beat into my head, has frequently been of use to me, and I often think of it when I see pride mortified, and misfortunes brought upon people by their carrying their heads too high."

      Tolerant with all religions, sweet-tempered, with remarkable tact and genuine kindness, honest, and above jealousy, he adopted this as his rule, which we may well follow: "To go straight forward in doing what appears to me to be right, leaving the consequences to Providence."

      THOMAS JEFFERSON

      Five miles east of Charlottesville, Virginia, near where the River Rivanna enters the James, Thomas Jefferson was born, April 13, 1743, the third in a family of eight children.

      Peter Jefferson, his father, descended from a Welsh ancestry, was a self-made man. The son of a farmer, with little chance for schooling, he improved every opportunity to read, became, like George Washington, a surveyor, and endured cheerfully all the perils of that pioneer life. Often, in making his survey across the Blue Ridge Mountains, he was obliged to defend himself against the attacks of wild beasts, and to sleep in hollow trees. When the provisions gave out, and his companions fell fainting beside him, he subsisted on raw flesh, and stayed on until his work was completed.

      So strong was he physically that when two hogsheads of tobacco, each weighing a thousand pounds, were lying on their sides, he could raise them both upright at once. Besides this great strength of body, he developed great strength of mind. Shakespeare and Addison were his favorites. It was not strange that by and by he became a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses.

      When Peter Jefferson was thirty-one, he married into a family much above his own socially – Jane, the daughter of Isham Randolph, a rich and cultured gentleman. She was but nineteen, of a most cheerful and hopeful temperament, with a passionate love of nature in every flower and tree.

      From these two the boy Thomas inherited the two elements that make a man's character beautiful, not less than a woman's – strength and sweetness. With his mother's nature, he found delight in every varying cloud, every rich sunset or sunrise, and in that ever new and ever wonderful change from new moon to full and from full to new again. How tender and responsive such a soul becomes! How it warms toward human nature from its love for the material world!

      When Thomas was five years old, he was sent to a school where English only was taught. The hours of confinement doubtless seemed long to a child used to wander at will over the fields, for one day, becoming impatient for school to be dismissed, he went out-of-doors, knelt behind the house, and repeated the Lord's Prayer, thus hoping to expedite matters!

      At nine he entered the family of Rev. William Douglas, a Scotch clergyman, where he learned Greek, Latin, and French. So fond did he become of the classics that he said, years later, if he were obliged to decide between the pleasure derived from them and the estate left him by his father, he would have greatly preferred poverty and education.

      All these early years at "Shadwell," the Jefferson home, – so named after his mother's home in England, where she was born, – Thomas had an especially dear companion in his oldest sister, Jane. Her mind was like his own, quick and comprehensive, and her especial delight, like his, was in music. Three things, he said, became a passion with him, "Mathematics, music, and architecture." Jane had a charming voice, and her brother became a skilled performer on the violin, often practising three hours a day in his busy student life.

      Peter Jefferson, the strong, athletic Assemblyman, died suddenly when Thomas was but fourteen, urging, as his dying request, that this boy be well educated. There was but one other son, and he an infant. The sweet-tempered Mrs. Jefferson, under forty, was left with eight children to care for; but she kept her sunny, hopeful heart.

      When Thomas was a little more than sixteen, he entered the college of William and Mary, at Williamsburg. He was a somewhat shy, tall, slight boy, eager for information, and warm-hearted. It was not surprising that he made friends with those superior to himself in mental acquirements. He says, in his Memoirs: "It was my great good-fortune, and what, perhaps, fixed the destinies of my life, that Dr. William Small of Scotland was the professor of mathematics, a man profound in most of the useful branches of science, with a happy talent of communication, correct and gentlemanly manners, and an enlarged and liberal mind. He, most happily for me, became soon attached to me, and made me his daily companion when not engaged in the school; and from his conversation I got my first views of the expansion of science and of the system of things in which we are placed. Fortunately, the philosophical chair became vacant soon after my arrival at college, and he was appointed to fill it per interim; and he was the first who ever gave in that college regular lectures in ethics, rhetoric, and belles-lettres. He returned to Europe in 1762, having previously filled up the measure of his goodness to me by procuring for me, from his most intimate friend, George Wythe, a reception as a student of law under his direction, and introduced me to the acquaintance and familiar table of Governor Fauquier, the ablest man who had ever filled that office."

      The governor, though an accomplished scholar and great patron of learning, was very fond of card-playing, and of betting in the play. In this direction his influence became most pernicious to Virginia. Strangely enough, young Jefferson never knew one card from another, and never allowed them to be played in his house.

      He devoted himself untiringly to his books. He worked fifteen hours a day, allowing himself only time to run out of town for a mile in the twilight, before lighting the candles, as necessary exercise. Though, from the high social position of his mother, he had many acquaintances at Williamsburg, Thomas went little in society, save to dine with the prominent men above mentioned. These were a constant stimulant to him. A great man, or the written life of a great man, becomes the maker of other great men. The boy had learned early in life one secret of success; to ally one's self to superior men and women.

      Years afterward, he wrote to his eldest grandson, "I had the good-fortune to become acquainted very early with some characters of very high standing, and to feel the incessant wish that I could ever become what they were. Under temptations and difficulties, I would ask myself, what would Dr. Small, Mr. Wythe, Peyton Randolph do in this situation? What course in it will insure me their approbation? I am certain that this mode of deciding on my conduct tended more to correctness than any reasoning powers I possessed. Knowing the even and dignified lives they pursued, I could never doubt for a moment which of two courses would be in character for them. From the circumstances of my position, I was often thrown into the society of horse-racers, card-players, fox-hunters, scientific and professional men, and of dignified men; and many a time have I asked myself in the enthusiastic moment of the death of a fox, the victory of a favorite horse, the issue of a question eloquently argued at the bar or in the great council of the nation, well, which of these kinds of reputation should I prefer – that of a horse-jockey, a fox-hunter, an orator, or the honest advocate of my country's rights?"

      The very fact that Jefferson thus early in life valued character and patriotism above everything else was a sure indication of a grand and successful manhood. We usually build for ourselves the kind of house we start to build in early years. If it is an abode of pleasure, we live in the satiety and littleness of soul which such a life brings. If it is an abode of worship of all that is pure and exalted, we walk among high ideals, with the angels for ministering spirits, and become a blessing to ourselves and to mankind.

      In these college-days, Jefferson became acquainted with the fun-loving, brilliant Patrick Henry, forming a friendship that became of great value to both.