Being at large in Virginia,
along in the latter part of
last season, I visited Monticello,
the former home of Thomas
Jefferson, also his grave.
Monticello is about an hour's
ride from Charlottesville,
by diligence. One rides over
a road constructed of rip-raps
and broken stone. It is called
a macadamized road, and twenty
miles of it will make the
pelvis of a long-waisted man
chafe against his ears. I
have decided that the site
for my grave shall be at the
end of a trunk line somewhere,
and I will endow a droska
to carry passengers to and
from said grave.
Whatever my life may have
been, and however short
I may have fallen in my
great struggle for a generous
recognition by the American
people, I propose to place
my grave within reach of
all.
Monticello is reached by
a circuitous route to the
top of a beautiful hill,
on the crest of which rests
the brick house where Mr.
Jefferson lived. You enter
a lodge gate in charge of
a venerable negro, to whom
you pay two bits apiece
for admission. This sum
goes toward repairing the
roads, according to the
ticket which you get. It
just goes toward it, however;
it don't quite get there,
I judge, for the roads are
still appealing for aid.
Perhaps the negro can tell
how far it gets. Up through
a neglected thicket of Virginia
shrubs and ill-kempt trees
you drive to the house.
It is a house that would
readily command $750, with
queer porches to it, and
large, airy windows. The
top of the whole hill was
graded level, or terraced,
and an enormous quantity
of work must have been required
to do it, but Jefferson
did not care. He did not
care for fatigue. With two
hundred slaves of his own,
and a dowry of three hundred
more which was poured into
his coffers by his marriage,
Jeff did not care how much
toil it took to polish off
the top of a bluff or how
much the sweat stood out
on the brow of a hill.
Jefferson wrote the Declaration
of Independence. He sent
it to one of the magazines,
but it was returned as not
available, so he used it
in Congress and afterward
got it printed in the Record.
I saw the chair he wrote
it in. It is a plain, old-fashioned
wooden chair, with a kind
of bosom-board on the right
arm, upon which Jefferson
used to rest his Declaration
of Independence whenever
he wanted to write it.
There is also an old gig
stored in the house. In
this gig Jefferson used
to ride from Monticello
to Washington in a day.
This is untrue, but it goes
with the place. It takes
from 8:30 A. M. until noon
to ride this distance on
a fast train, and in a much
more direct line than the
old wagon road ran.
Mr. Jefferson was the father
of the University of Virginia,
one of the most historic
piles I have ever clapped
eyes on. It is now under
the management of a classical
janitor, who has a tinge
of negro blood in his veins,
mixed with the rich Castilian
blood of somebody else.
He has been at the head
of the University of Virginia
for over forty years, bringing
in the coals and exercising
a general oversight over
the curriculum and other
furniture. He is a modest
man, with a tendency toward
the classical in his researches.
He took us up on the roof,
showed us the outlying country,
and jarred our ear-drums
with the big bell. Mr. Estes,
who has general charge of
Monticello-called Montechello-said
that Mr. Jefferson used
to sit on his front porch
with a powerful glass, and
watch the progress of the
work on the University,
and if the workmen undertook
to smuggle in a soft brick,
Mr. Jefferson, five or six
miles away, detected it,
and bounding lightly into
his saddle, he rode down
there to Charlottesville,
and clubbed the bricklayers
until they were glad to
pull down the wall to that
brick and take it out again.
This story is what made
me speak of that section
a few minutes ago as an
outlying country.
The other day Charles L. Seigel
told us the Confederate version
of an attack on Fort Moultrie during
the early days of the war, which
has never been printed. Mr. Seigel
was a German Confederate, and early
in the fight was quartered, in company
with others, at the Moultrie House,
a seaside hotel, the guests having
deserted the building.
Although large soft beds with
curled hair mattresses were in
each room, the department issued
ticks or sacks to be filled with
straw for the use of the soldiers,
so that they would not forget
that war was a serious matter.
Nobody used them, but they were
there all the same.
Attached to the Moultrie House,
and wandering about the back-yard,
there was a small orphan jackass,
a sorrowful little light-blue
mammal, with a tinge of bitter
melancholy in his voice. He used
to dwell on the past a good deal,
and at night he would refer to
it in tones that were choked with
emotion.
The boys caught him one evening
as the gloaming began to arrange
itself, and threw him down on
the green grass. They next pulled
a straw bed over his head, and
inserted him in it completely,
cutting holes for his legs. Then
they tied a string of sleigh-bells
to his tail, and hit him a smart,
stinging blow with a black snake.
Probably that was what suggested
to him the idea of strolling down
the beach, past the sentry, and
on toward the fort. The darkness
of the night, the rattle of hoofs,
the clash of the bells, the quick
challenge of the guard, the failure
to give the countersign, the sharp
volley of the sentinels, and the
wild cry, "to arms,"
followed in rapid succession.
The tocsin sounded, also the slogan.
The culverin, ukase, and door-tender
were all fired. Huge beacons of
fat pine were lighted along the
beach. The whole slumbering host
sprang to arms, and the crack
of the musket was heard through
the intense darkness.
In the morning the enemy was
found intrenched in a mud-hole,
south of the fort, with his clean
new straw tick spattered with
clay, and a wildly disheveled
tail.
On board the Richmond train not
long ago a man lost his hat as
we pulled out of Petersburg, and
it fell by the side of the track.
The train was just moving slowly
away from the station, so he had
a chance to jump off and run back
after it. He got the hat, but
not till we had placed seven or
eight miles between us and him.
We could not help feeling sorry
for him, because very likely his
hat had an embroidered hat band
in it, presented by one dearer
to him than life itself, and so
we worked up quite a feeling for
him, though of course he was very
foolish to lose his train just
for a hat, even if it did have
the needle-work of his heart's
idol in it.
Later I was surprised to see
the same man in Columbia, South
Carolina, and he then told me
this sad story:
"I started out a month ago
to take a little trip of a few
weeks, and the first day was very,
very happily spent in scrutinizing
nature and scanning the faces
of those I saw. On the second
day out, I ran across a young
man whom I had known slightly
before, and who is engaged in
the business of being a companionable
fellow and the life of the party.
That is about all the business
he has. He knows a great many
people, and his circle of acquaintances
is getting larger all the time.
He is proud of the enormous quantity
of friendship he has acquired.
He says he can't get on a train
or visit any town in the Union
that he doesn't find a friend.
"He is full of stories and
witticisms, and explains the plays
to theater parties. He has seen
a great deal of life and is a keen
critic. He would have enjoyed criticizing
the Apostle Paul and his elocutionary
style if he had been one of the
Ephesians. He would have criticized
Paul's gestures, and said, 'Paul,
I like your Epistles a heap better
than I do your appearance on the
platform. You express yourself well
enough with your pen, but when you
spoke for the Ephesian Y. M. C.nbsp;A.
, we were disappointed in you and
we lost money on you.'
"Well, he joined me, and
finding out where I was going,
he decided to go also. He went
along to explain things to me,
and talk to me when I wanted to
sleep or read the newspaper. He
introduced me to large numbers
of people whom I did not want
to meet, took me to see things
I didn't want to see, read things
to me that I didn't want to hear,
and introduced to me people who
didn't want to meet me. He multiplied
misery by throwing uncongenial
people together and then said:
'Wasn't it lucky that I could
go along with you and make it
pleasant for you?'
"Everywhere he met more
new people with whom he had an
acquaintance. He shook hands with
them, and called them by their
first names, and felt in their
pockets for cigars. He was just
bubbling over with mirth, and
laughed all the time, being so
offensively joyous, in fact, that
when he went into a car, he attracted
general attention, which suited
him first-rate. He regarded himself
as a universal favorite and all-around
sunbeam.
"When we got to Washington,
he took me up to see the President.
He knew the President well-claimed
to know lots of things about the
President that made him more or
less feared by the administration.
He was acquainted with a thousand
little vices of all our public
men, which virtually placed them
in his power. He knew how the
President conducted himself at
home, and was 'on to everything'
in public life.
"Well, he shook hands with
the President, and introduced
me. I could see that the President
was thinking about something else,
though, and so I came away without
really feeling that I knew him
very well.
"Then we visited the departments,
and I can see now that I hurt
myself by being towed around by
this man. He was so free, and
so joyous, and so bubbling, that
wherever we went I could hear
the key grate in the lock after
we passed out of the door.
"He started south with me.
He was going to show me all the
battle-fields, and introduce me
into society. I bought some strychnine
in Washington, and put it in his
buckwheat cakes; but they got
cold, and he sent them back. I
did not know what to do, and was
almost wild, for I was traveling
entirely for pleasure, and not
especially for his pleasure either.
"At Petersburg I was told
that the train going the other
way would meet us. As we started
out, I dropped my hat from the
window while looking at something.
It was a desperate move, but I
did it. Then I jumped off the
train, and went back after it.
As soon as I got around the curve
I ran for Petersburg, where I
took the other train. I presume
you all felt sorry for me, but
if you'd seen me fold myself in
a long, passionate embrace after
I had climbed on the other train,
you would have changed your minds."
He then passed gently from my
sight.
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