At first glance, the organization generally seems chronological. The list starts with reference works useful for understanding the numerous gods and goddesses that constitute Greek and Roman mythology. From these beginnings, the catalogue eventually proceeds through Judaism to Christianity. The placement of the Qur’an, much more recent than the sacred scriptures of Judaism and Christianity, disrupts the chronology. Its text was purportedly revealed to Muhammad during the first third of the seventh century, memorized by his followers, and collected in book form after Muhammad’s death. In terms of historical chronology, the Qur’an belongs after Jefferson’s collection of New Testaments. The Qur’an made use of some of the same exemplary figures as the Hebrew Bible—Abraham, most important—and its text even contains specific references to Christians and Christianity. Alternatively, the Qur’an itself makes its removal from historical chronology justifiable. The text of the Qur’an supposedly transcends matters of chronology—as the word of God, it exists outside of time.
Jefferson did not remove the Qur’an from its historical place because of its timelessness, however. Rather, his religious books, as organized in the manuscript catalogue, follow an analytical scheme that mirrors a chronological one. The idea of progress underlies Jefferson’s organization of his religious books, and the list suggests a general progression from pagan to Christian. In Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson displayed a nonchalant indifference to monotheism and atheism, stating that it little mattered to him were his neighbor “to say there are twenty gods, or no god.”27 The phrase would come back to haunt him. The organization of the library catalogue, on the other hand, suggests that Islam, as a monotheistic religion, represents an advance over the pantheism of ancient times. The catalogue implies that the Islamic belief system improves upon the pagan religions yet falls short of the belief system Christianity represented.28
His library catalogue not only reflects how his mind worked, it also reflects Jefferson’s state of mind in the summer of 1783. Within a period of just over one year, his library, in terms of its social and personal functions, had transformed itself multiple times. During Chastellux’s visit, it represented a location for literary conviviality. Upon his wife’s death, it became a site of mourning. Upon his return in May 1783, it became a place of solitude where he could find order by devising his own personal, idiosyncratic scheme of knowledge. The intricate organizational scheme Jefferson devised gave him a way to structure knowledge. Developed in the aftermath of his wife’s death, his organizational scheme also offered a way to erect barriers to guard against the vagaries of life and death.
CHAPTER 19
An American Odyssey
On Thursday, October 16, 1783, Thomas Jefferson, now forty, left Monticello to resume his career as a legislator. Earlier that year he had been reelected to the U.S. Congress, the latest session of which was scheduled to convene at Princeton in November. Leaving home, he chose a circuitous route through the Shenandoah Valley. This detour would let him see some of Virginia’s more distant scenic areas, places he wanted to describe within his revised and expanded version of Notes on the State of Virginia. Patsy, or Martha, as she will now be called, joined her father in the phaeton as he left Monticello, and James Hemings accompanied them on horseback. Think about the time of year and imagine how beautiful the tree-covered hills must have been. Autumn makes a paradise of Virginia, Jefferson told his daughter.1
Saturday they reached Madison’s Cave, where Jefferson spent much of the day spelunking. The description of this cave, combined with the illustration he sketched for Notes on the State of Virginia, brings his experience alive. Reaching the mouth of the cave was no easy task: the entrance was located about two-thirds of the way up a cliff face so steep that, as Jefferson observed, “you may pitch a biscuit from its summit into the river which washes its base.”2 Perhaps Jefferson really did toss a biscuit off the cliff, but he need not have. The proverbial phrase “a biscuit’s toss” was a way of indicating proximity, and Jefferson was using the word “biscuit” in a similar manner.
Upon crossing the threshold, he followed the main cave as far back as it would go—about three hundred feet. Calling his illustration an “eye-draught,” he suggested that the drawing, though based on his own observations, was not derived by precise measurement. To make his eye-draught as accurate as possible, he followed each of the subordinate caves branching off the main one until they terminated or, at least, became impassable. The lofty, yet irregular ceiling of Madison’s Cave contributed to its value as a scenic destination. Jefferson estimated that the height of the ceiling varied from twenty to fifty feet. He also observed water percolating from the ceiling and appreciated the geologic results from an aesthetic standpoint: “This, trickling down the sides of the cave, has incrusted them over in the form of elegant drapery; and dripping from the top of the vault generates on that, and on the base below, stalactites of a conical form, some of which have met and formed massive columns.”3
From Madison’s Cave, the three traveled to the comfortable home of Isaac Zane, where they lingered the better part of a week. Proprietor of the Marlboro Iron Works, Zane wrought fine products for his customers and a substantial profit for himself. Despite his contemporary reputation as a manufacturer and entrepreneur, Zane is better known to literary history as the man who purchased the magnificent library of William Byrd of Westover. Though Jefferson had considered buying the Byrd library shortly after the Shadwell fire, he no longer needed it. By now he had already amassed a collection of books large enough to rival the Byrd collection at its peak. More entrepreneur than bookman, Zane had purchased the library because he thought he could make a profit by reselling it piecemeal. He had the books carted to Philadelphia, where he had contacts in the mercantile business and which had a population large enough to include many well-to-do bookmen among its citizenry.
Consigning the books to Robert Bell, still the city’s foremost auctioneer, Zane hoped for a quick profit, but such was not to be. The Byrd books sold slowly. A few prominent Quaker merchants purchased some volumes, and a few congressmen purchased others. Perhaps no one bought more books from the Byrd-Zane collection than James Madison, who was eager to assemble a great personal library of his own. Despite Bell’s skill as an auctioneer, his efforts to sell the books had been disappointing. Recently Zane had hired Philadelphia bookseller William Pritchard to replace him, but Pritchard had little more success than Bell in selling the Byrd books.4
No doubt the library of William Byrd of Westover occupied part of the conversation during the time Jefferson stayed with Zane, but books were not the only topic the two discussed. Jefferson also mentioned his recent exploration of Madison’s Cave. Zane, in turn, informed him about a large and distinctive cave on his property. Zane scarcely realized what he was getting himself into as he spoke. His information piqued his guest’s curiosity, and Jefferson convinced his host to show him the cave.
Whereas the entrance to Madison’s Cave was horizontal, the one to Zane’s was vertical. Reaching Zane’s cave required some climbing since its entrance was located atop a ridge. Furthermore, the descent into the cave was a little tricky, and its low ceiling made it more difficult to negotiate than Madison’s Cave. Jefferson explained, “You descend 30 or 40 feet, as into a well, from whence the cave then extends, nearly horizontally, 400 feet into the earth, preserving a breadth of from 20 to 50 feet, and a height of from 5 to 12 feet.”5 In practical terms, Jefferson could stand up straight in some parts of the cave, but in others he had to stoop to avoid hitting his head.
During the descent, he noticed that the ambient temperature changed significantly and regretted not having a thermometer with him to record the changes. But Jefferson was not one to give up easily. He wanted those temperature readings, and he was determined to get them. Since he would be stopping in Philadelphia before continuing to Princeton, he was sure he could obtain a proper thermometer there. He secured Zane’s promise to take the temperature readings and sent him a thermomet
er not long afterward, “the only one to be had in Philadelphia.”6 Along with the thermometer, Jefferson supplied precise instructions regarding how to take the cave’s temperature. Attesting to his meticulousness, he also asked Zane to take readings in other nearby locations as experimental controls: his ice house, his well, and a spring. Zane complied with the requests of his friend, who subsequently incorporated the temperature readings in Notes on the State of Virginia.
From Zane’s home, Jefferson proceeded to Harper’s Ferry, where he had some more climbing to do before he could appreciate the scenery fully. Behind the tavern here, a steep hill led to a vantage point overlooking the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers. Once he reached the top, he witnessed one of the most majestic sights he had ever seen. He put his experience into words and placed the description within Notes on the State of Virginia.
His words are so effusive that some readers challenged their accuracy. When the author of an early-nineteenth-century geography textbook questioned the description’s validity, Jefferson refuted him in a personal letter: “I wrote the description from my own view of the spot, stated no fact but what I saw, and can now affirm that no fact is exaggerated. It is true that the same scene may excite very different sensations in different spectators, according to their different sensibilities. The sensations of some may be much stronger than those of others.”7
It is easy to understand why readers questioned the veracity of Jefferson’s description, which constitutes the most highly crafted literary vignette in Notes on the State of Virginia:
The passage of the Patowmac through the Blue ridge is perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in nature. You stand on a very high point of land. On your right comes up the Shenandoah, having ranged along the foot of the mountain an hundred miles to seek a vent. On your left approaches the Patowmac, in quest of a passage also. In the moment of their junction they rush together against the mountain, rend it asunder, and pass off to the sea. The first glance of this scene hurries our senses into the opinion, that this earth has been created in time, that the mountains were formed first, that the rivers began to flow afterwards, that in this place particularly they have been dammed up by the Blue ridge of mountains, and have formed an ocean which filled the whole valley; that continuing to rise they have at length broken over at this spot, and have torn the mountain down from its summit to its base. The piles of rock on each hand, but particularly on the Shenandoah, the evident marks of their disrupture and avulsion from their beds by the most powerful agents of nature, corroborate the impression. But the distant finishing which nature has given to the picture is of a very different character. It is a true contrast to the fore-ground. It is as placid and delightful, as that is wild and tremendous. For the mountain being cloven asunder, she presents to your eye, through the cleft, a small catch of smooth blue horizon, at an infinite distance in the plain country, inviting you, as it were, from the riot and tumult roaring around, to pass through the breach and participate of the calm below. Here the eye ultimately composes itself; and that way too the road happens actually to lead. You cross the Patowmac above the junction, pass along its side through the base of the mountain for three miles, its terrible precipices hanging in fragments over you, and within about 20 miles reach Frederic town and the fine country around that. This scene is worth a voyage across the Atlantic. Yet here, as in the neighbourhood of the natural bridge, are people who have passed their lives within half a dozen miles, and have never been to survey these monuments of a war between rivers and mountains, which must have shaken the earth itself to its center.8
This description would draw many tourists to the passage of the Potomac in search of this beauty. Using the second person, he effectively put the reader within the scene. In a way, his word-picture prefigures the visual techniques of the painters of the Hudson River school, who would characteristically depict an individual standing in the foreground of their landscape paintings. Overlooking a beautiful vista, the figure is both an observer of the scene and a participant in it. Writing in second person and describing the scene from a lofty outlook, Jefferson created much the same effect in words.
He enhanced the literary quality of this passage through the use of allusion. Some years earlier, he had commonplaced an epic simile from Ossian that compared the clash of two chieftains on the battlefield with the confluence of two great rivers. Describing two great rivers in Notes on the State of Virginia, he used personification to reverse the comparison. In his rendering, the confluence of the Potomac and the Shenandoah resembles a single combat between two great warriors.9 Furthermore, his words echo a natural description in Herodotus. Annotating his personal copy of Notes on the State of Virginia, he cited the precise section of Herodotus he had in mind and revealed his debt to the ancient Greek historian in terms of both diction and ideas expressed. By echoing Herodotus, Jefferson paralleled Virginia with ancient Greece and thus imbued the local landscape with classical splendor.
Shortly before reaching Philadelphia, he received word that Congress would relocate to Annapolis but still intended to convene at Princeton. He stayed in Philadelphia for a few days, spending part of his time buying books. Though his memorandum books, as usual, do not record the titles of the books he bought, they do show him making multiple purchases from William Pritchard. The conclusion is obvious: he was buying books from the Byrd library. Several volumes formerly in the possession of William Byrd became a part of Jefferson’s library at Monticello: manuscript collections of laws and early Virginia documents, important legal treatises, and rare editions of Greek classics with learned commentaries.10
For the development of his political thought, the most important book he acquired from the Byrd library was James Harrington’s Commonwealth of Oceana. Casting his political ideas within the framework of a utopia, Harrington had drafted an ideal constitution and elaborated in great detail how it worked within the ideal commonwealth. Harrington provided for two houses of legislation, a senate and a popular assembly. Furthermore, he placed limits on the powers of the executive branch and the term of offices for those serving in governmental posts. He also imagined a magistrate chosen by ballot and devised an elaborate system of checks and balances for the government. Around the time the Declaration of Independence was signed, John Adams had commented that the American government had already surpassed anything dreamt of by Harrington. Jefferson’s purchase of Harrington’s Oceana now, before the U.S. Constitution was drafted, suggests that Americans still had much to learn from Harrington.
In Philadelphia, Jefferson was reunited with his dear friend James Madison. After attending college in Princeton, Madison had returned to his native Virginia, where he was elected to the House of Delegates in 1776. Two years later, he was elected to the Governor’s Council. In 1780, he was chosen a delegate to the Continental Congress. Describing Madison’s progress in a character sketch of his young friend, Jefferson stated, “Trained in these successive schools, he acquired a habit of self-possession which placed at ready command the rich resources of his luminous and discriminating mind, and of his extensive information, and rendered him the first of every assembly afterwards, of which he became a member.”11 The two had met in 1776, and they worked closely together when Jefferson was governor and Madison was serving on the council. Madison had been serving in the Continental Congress almost constantly since 1780, but as the new session of Congress began, his term ended. He was preparing to return to Virginia.
On November 3, Jefferson left Philadelphia for Princeton, arriving the second day of the new Congressional session. At the day’s end, to his great frustration, Congress adjourned and agreed to reconvene in Annapolis on November 26. With little else to do, he returned to Philadelphia, where he used the extra time to get some literary business done. By now he had decided to have a limited edition of Notes on the State of Virginia privately printed. He showed the fair copy of his manuscript of Notes on the State of Virginia to Robert Aitken, who estimated the cost of printing and the amoun
t of time it would take to print it.
While in Philadelphia, Jefferson also had a good look around. Writing to Francis Eppes, he described what he saw and interjected much humor as he conveyed his disapproval of the latest fashions among Philadelphia women. Their elaborate headgear and hairpieces had given way to more low-profile hats, which seemed to change the whole figure in proportion. He observed, “The high head is made as flat as a flounder. Instead of the burthen of lawn, ribbon, false hair etc. the head is covered with a plain chip hat with only a ribbon round the crown. The shoulders are where the chin used to be, and the hips have succeeded to the place of the shoulders. The circumference of the waste is the span of the lady’s own hands in order to preserve due proportion. All the residue of the figure is resigned to the possession of a hoop which at each angle before projects like two bastions of a fort.”12 It is good to hear Jefferson laugh again.
On Saturday, November 22, Jefferson left Philadelphia for Annapolis. Madison, on his way home, accompanied him. Together they reached Annapolis three days later. Madison lingered here a few days longer, but eventually said goodbye to his friend. Though parting with one young Virginia friend, Jefferson rejoined another, James Monroe, who was also currently serving in Congress. Jefferson and Monroe moved into the same rooming house in town and even shared a privy.
Saying hello to Monroe as he said goodbye to Madison, Jefferson would seem to be exchanging one for the other. The two were not exactly interchangeable, however. Madison was more of a scholar. After receiving a good private classical education, he had attended Princeton, graduated, and even stayed an extra year after graduation to study Hebrew. This course of study led some to think he was preparing for the priesthood, but Madison believed far too strongly in religious freedom to wear the collar of an ecclesiastic. Monroe had had a good education, but he was more a man of action than of letters. With the coming of the Revolutionary War, he had left William and Mary before graduating. Now, after having read law under Jefferson, he was trying his hand at being a legislator. Both young men were devoted to both Virginia and the United States, but they differed when it came to the issue of how much power the federal government should wield. The two would remain Jefferson’s lifelong friends.
The Road to Monticello Page 35