 |
| Thomas Jefferson portrait by Thomas Sully (1821). Jefferson Foundation |
[The newspaper was started up with a Whig orientation in 1851. Here Johnston's article gets into Nullification, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798, Patrick Henry, and various witticisms. He devotes a fair amount of print to descriptions of Monticello and the surrounding area. Here is a sampling of the first part, skipping over the introduction. Extra paragraph breaks for easier reading.]
Almost from infancy I was accustomed to see MR. JEFFERSON. It was with reverence; for I was the son of one of those men of ninety-eight, who regarded him as the greatest of all civil geniuses, the very impersonation of philosophic statesmanship; but it was without affection.
For, though possessed in an extraordinary degree of the exterior arts which conciliate the mature, he had none of that naturalness, those unstudied sympathies, which please children; to whose instinctive judgement wily people, because less on their guard, usually betray the most their lack of heart.
A child at the breast would have nestled to the arms of Judge MARSHALL; I have seen JOHN RANDOLPH, when at the height of his sarcastic fame in Congress, the favorite play-mate of my next elder brother, seating himself by him on the floor at his call, and entering with delight into all his childish sports; but nobody, I imagine, ever saw MR. JEFFERSON or MR. CALHOUN pay the slightest attention to a child.
Their attentions were a matter of the head, not heart. They had brains, I think, but no soul. I doubt if they ever felt any strong emotion towards even their own offspring, save those of their idea -- the fantastic procreation of their wits, when in a vagary of political illumination.
A little later, as the pupil of MR. JEFFERSON'S favorite nephew, PETER CARR, and, by and by, as a youthful visitor to Monticello, I had opportunity enough to admire and to study him.
Captivated at once by his boundless reputation among those from whom my early opinions were derived, and by the remarkable charm of his incessant conversation, I heard and I observed him with not less of reverence than of curiosity.
My last and best occasion for doing so occurred in 1823, during a stay of two days which I then, in company with but an elder friend, made at his mansion on the mountain top, from which he seemed (so wide was his prospect) to look down over his abdicated realm of Virginia, a philosophic monarch, who had, like CHARLES V. and Dioclesian, exchanged the crown for a cloister and cabbages.
In its size, its shades, its singularity of design, its seclusion, the character of its grounds, and everything but piety and fasts within its walls, Monticello looked no little the monastery; and as to the cabbages, in the culture of which the self-un-kinged Roman places his consolation, they were supplied to the Virginia sage by more modern fancies of husbandry, which amused not only him, but all his neighbors; at one while upon some new conception of profit, he laid down all his plantation in Irish potatoes; at another, he sowed it in black-eyed peas -- making always excellent but rather imaginary crops, which he could neither sell nor consume.
Meantime he was obliged to buy bread-corn for his negroes, while his oatless horses were, by the laughing farmers around, affirmed to be fed with philosophy . . .
[Edward William Johnston (1799-1867)
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Peter Johnston, Jr. (1763-1831)
Marshall = Chief Justice John Marshall (1755-1835)
John Randolph (1773-1833)
Next eldest brother = Charles Clement Johnston (1795-1832)
Calhoun = John Caldwell Calhoun (1782-1850)
Peter Carr (1770-1815)
Elder friend = unidentified.
His negroes = several of Jefferson's enslaved workers were also his relatives. Sally Hemings (1773-1835) was mother to six of the household children.]
[Many thanks to Sue Davis, William Myers, Mary Davy and Sally Young for their ongoing research collaboration.]
No comments:
Post a Comment
Commentaires