Edward William Johnston: "Jefferson -- The Sage of Monticello" (1853). Part II

Thomas Jefferson by Saint-Mémin, 1805

[Edward William Johnston under the nom de plume Il Segretario, “Great Conversationists, Number Four. Jefferson--The Sage of Monticello." New-York Daily Times. Volume II, number 409 (January 8, 1853), page 2.]

[The newspaper was started up with a Whig orientation in 1851. 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 second part. Extra paragraph breaks for easier reading.]

[After poking fun at Jefferson's crops, Johnston describes the terrain and makes fun of Jefferson's war record, when twice "he . . . took to his heels."]

I am familiar with the wildest views which our mountain ranges, the softest pleasure which our vales afford, from Maine to the Mississippi. Nowhere have I seen them more charmingly at once blended and contrasted than in the prospect which on all sides greets the eye from Monticello.

Had you ever looked forth, as I have often done, from the cloven diadem of vast rocks that crown the conical Peak of [O]tter-like Monticello, an outwork (but a still greater one) of the Blue Ridge, projecting into the Plain of Lowland, Virginia -- I could only tell you that this does not exceed it, except in the height from which you gaze . . . 

Among these novelties is often seen, about sunrise, the phenomena which science calls mirage and sailors "looming." I never witnessed, and have only been told the fact; for I indulge in few of the popular errors, and least of all in early rising.

The distant and detached pinnacle of WILLIS's Mountain -- which alone, some fifty miles off, due south, cuts, with it singularly sharp cone, the otherwise unbroken line of the sea-like horizon -- is the object on which is chiefly exhibited the optical illusion in question. Through it that insulated peak takes a hundred fantastic shapes; sometimes shooting up into the air, like a tower or a column; then suddenly dissolving away, or perhaps changing to figure of a huge tree, or a monstrous giant, or a big wind-mill, such as Don Quixote himself would not have dared tilt with.

I am inclined to think that there was also a backward illusion, by which those below saw the philosopher of the mountain himself, in the same misty, magnified multiformity of shapes. For nobody among us ever knew better than he, the use to be made of airy doctrines -- the advantage of a politician's showing himself through a vapor. He was an able cloud-compeller, and certainly befogged mankind with not a little success. . .

Led away by the natural wonders of the place, I have only said of the building that it was long and low. It was of red brick; the main entrance, by a handsome enough portico; while a sort of cupola, half dome, surmounted and lighted the central hall, its gallery and stairs. To this the access was by the portico.

Its floor was tessellated; its sides adorned with some works of art, and many objects of Natural History; conspicuously among which were bones of the mammoth, and gigantic horns of the elk, moose, &c. 

Behind it lay a reception room, its walls covered with pictures, portraits, and lofty mirrors.

Corridors from the hall led, right and left, to other apartments and the wings -- to other parlors, a dining saloon, the library, the Sage's work-shop, (he tinkered much in other wheels, levers, balances, checks, and curiosities of motion, besides those of political mechanism,) his chambers, and those for visitors -- more than it would please either me or you to describe.

As for the upper story, (the only other of the house) it was indescribable, and indeed, from its peculiarity of structure, I may say, uninhabitable. For -- doubtless, upon the great projector's favorite principle, of sacrificing all orders and gradations to the lowest -- he had, in building his first story, had no regard to the second; but giving to each room of the ground floor a height of ceiling proportioned to its size, had of course made the superior floor all up and down, high and low, a mere series of break-necks, from one room of which to another, (though in the same story,) you could only get by clambering. 

[Edward William Johnston (1799-1867)
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Willis Mountain, in Buckingham County, Virginia, has since been whittled down considerably by the effects of Kyanite mining.]

[More information regarding the Saint-Mémin (1770-1852) engraving can be found via this link.

[Many thanks to Sue Davis, William Myers, Mary Davy and Sally Young for their ongoing research collaboration.]