The Road to Monticello

by Kevin J. Hayes

  Head upbraids Heart for becoming so attached to the Cosways. Unlike Heart, Head eschews friendship and social intercourse, activities that disturb his equanimity. Once Head blames Heart for developing a fond friendship that made saying good-bye painful, Heart responds by blaming Head for initiating the friendship. In defense of Jefferson’s behavior, Head explains that the visit to the Halle aux Bleds was motivated by public utility. Since a marketplace would be built in Richmond, Jefferson had been seeking architectural examples for inspiration. Similarly, the magnificent design of the Pont de Neuilly could be adapted to span the Schuylkill River, something that would greatly encourage Philadelphia’s economic development. While sightseeing, Head had concentrated on projects of public utility while Heart spent all his time cultivating the Cosways’ friendship. Recalling how Heart became carried away with these new friends, Head accuses him of being unable to control his behavior.

  Heart turns the argument around, thanking Head for reminding him of all the wonderful pleasures they enjoyed with the Cosways that day. Head, in response, blasts Heart for his incorrigibility. Instead of reforming his behavior, Heart seems willing to relive such follies again. Head acknowledges the accomplishments of Maria Cosway, her beauty, modesty, musical abilities, and pleasant disposition. But such charms, he continues, only increased the pain experienced at parting.

  Heart expresses hope of seeing the Cosways in America. Head dismisses the possibility of an American visit on their part as unrealistic, but Heart insists upon its likelihood. Given her talent as a painter, Maria could find few better subjects for landscape painting than the natural scenery of America. Making this point, Heart launches a paean to the American landscape: “Where could they find such objects as in America for the exercise of their enchanting art? especially the lady, who paints landscapes so inimitably. She wants only subjects worthy of immortality to render her pencil immortal. The Falling Spring, the Cascade of Niagara, the Passage of the Potowmac thro the Blue mountains, the Natural bridge. It is worth a voiage across the Atlantic to see these objects; much more to paint, and make them, and thereby ourselves, known to all ages.”

  Heart’s words lead both Head and Heart to digress on the beauty and progress of America, a subject upon which they both agree, but eventually Head terminates the digression and refocuses their argument on the matter at hand.

  Head goes so far as to devise a calculus of pleasure and pain, which must be balanced properly. Do not pursue an acquaintance that promises pleasure until you weigh it against the pain that could result. “The art of life is the art of avoiding pain,” Head continues, and “he is the best pilot who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset.” The best way to avoid emotional pain is to seek pleasures within ourselves, which no one else can take away. Intellectual pleasure, for instance, is always in our power. Enjoying the life of the mind, “we ride serene and sublime above the concerns of this mortal world, contemplating truth and nature, matter and motion, the laws which bind up their existence, and that eternal being who made and bound them up by those laws.”

  Many of the ideas Head suggests Jefferson himself believed, but Head is not content to rest his case here. He continues by recommending against all friendships, voicing an idea that does damage to his argument: “Leave the bustle and tumult of society to those who have not talents to occupy themselves without them. Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?”

  In response, Heart rejects the pleasures of solitude and upholds the value of friendship:

  In a life where we are perpetually exposed to want and accident, yours is a wonderful proposition, to insulate ourselves, to retire from all aid, and to wrap ourselves in the mantle of self-sufficiency! For assuredly nobody will care for him who cares for nobody. But friendship is precious not only in the shade but in the sunshine of life: and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine. I will recur for proof to the days we have lately passed. On these indeed the sun shone brightly! How gay did the face of nature appear! Hills, valleys, chateaux, gardens, rivers, every object wore its liveliest hue! Whence did they borrow it? From the presence of our charming companion. They were pleasing, because she seemed pleased. Alone, the scene would have been dull and insipid: the participation of it with her gave it relish. Let the gloomy Monk, sequestered from the world, seek unsocial pleasures in the bottom of his cell! Let the sublimated philosopher grasp visionary happiness while pursuing phantoms dressed in the garb of truth! Their supreme wisdom is supreme folly: and they mistake for happiness the mere absence of pain. Had they ever felt the solid pleasure of one generous spasm of the heart, they would exchange for it all the frigid speculations of their lives, which you have been vaunting in such elevated terms. Believe me then, my friend, that that is a miserable arithmetic which would estimate friendship at nothing, or at less than nothing.

  Heart is now starting to win the argument. He gains control and puts Head in his place:

  When nature assigned us the same habitation, she gave us over it a divided empire. To you she allotted the field of science, to me that of morals. When the circle is to be squared, or the orbit of a comet to be traced; when the arch of greatest strength, or the solid of least resistance is to be investigated, take you the problem: it is yours: nature has given me no cognisance of it. In like manner in denying to you the feelings of sympathy, of benevolence, of gratitude, of justice, of love, of friendship, she has excluded you from their controul. To these she has adapted the mechanism of the heart. Morals were too essential to the happiness of man to be risked on the incertain combinations of the head. She laid their foundation therefore in sentiment, not in science.

  From this point on, Heart forbids Head from decisions regarding when to make friendships or whom to befriend. Boethius gave Philosophy the last word. In Jefferson’s dialogue, Heart wins the argument and gets in the last word. Upon finishing the dialogue, Jefferson resumed his letter in his own voice to provide a closing frame.

  Apologizing for the length of this letter in his final remarks, Jefferson gave Maria license to write letters as long or even longer to him. In so doing, he cleverly reminded her of one evening they spent together: “If your letters are as long as the bible, they will appear short to me. Only let them be brim full of affection. I shall read them with the dispositions with which Arlequin, in les deux billets spelt the words ‘je t’aime’ and wished that the whole alphabet had entered into their composition.”

  Bringing his letter to a close, Jefferson informed her, “As to myself my health is good, except my wrist which mends slowly, and my mind which mends not at all, but broods constantly over your departure.” Jefferson’s wrist would give him pain off and on through the rest of his life. He and Maria would see each other again and would exchange letters for years to come. But never would they recapture the magic of the summer of ’86.

  CHAPTER 24

  An Inquisitive Journey through France and Italy

  Jefferson’s broken wrist healed very slowly and he considered more drastic treatment. Friends recommended the waters at Aix-en-Provence for their curative properties. Chances are he had little faith in the waters at Aix, but the promised cure gave him a convenient excuse to visit Provence. He had other ways to justify the trip, which would let him visit Italy, a place he had dreamt of seeing for years. Despite what the South of France and the Italian north offered visitors in terms of art and architecture, Jefferson really wanted to observe the agriculture of these regions and the folkways of their people. The story of this European tour has been told before. What has so far gone untold is the story behind the story. Jefferson wrote different versions of his journey for different purposes. How do these various narratives stack up as travel literature?

  Excluding the bare-bones account of expenses in his memorandum books, three different sets of documents detailing the tri
p survive: “Notes of a Tour into the Southern Parts of France etc.,” as his trip journal has been titled; “Hints to Americans Traveling in Europe,” a set of recommendations Jefferson made to John Rutledge, Jr., and Thomas Lee Shippen, two young American men who were embarking on an extensive European tour; and his correspondence with friends during the journey.

  “Notes of a Tour” offers the most detailed account of the trip. Though Jefferson had no intentions of publishing “Notes of a Tour,” it does possess qualities he admired in published travel narratives. Characterizing worthwhile books of travel, he said that they “blend together the geography, natural history, civil history, agriculture, manufactures, commerce, arts, occupations, manners etc. of a country.”1 Omitted from this list of characteristics are personal stories of adventure. For the most part, Jefferson excluded such stories from “Notes of a Tour,” too. These deliberate omissions make “Notes of a Tour” more frustrating than either “Hints” or his travel correspondence.

  “Hints,” more travel advice than travel adventure, resembles Lord Chesterfield’s travel advice in Letters to His Son. Perhaps it should be considered more as didactic literature than as travel writing, but “Hints” does contain much colorful detail excluded from “Notes of a Tour.” Telling Rutledge and Shippen which taverns to patronize and which ones to avoid, Jefferson supplied the kind of local information he omitted from “Notes of a Tour.”

  The letters he wrote during his journey through France and Italy are uneven. Those to William Short and others in Paris contain good information, but his letters to French lady friends embody a sense of fun absent from those he wrote others. The letters to his daughter Martha belong to the category of didactic literature. Mainly, they admonish her to keep studying; infrequently did he reward his older daughter with a glimpse of his travels. Missing from all of these various accounts are the kind of picaresque anecdotes that fill the most beloved eighteenth-century travel writings.

  Though Jefferson wrote “Hints” quickly, he took enough time to detail which cities to visit, whose taverns to patronize, and what things to notice while traveling. His advice goes a long way toward explaining why he wrote up his own journey as he did. “Hints” cautions travelers to avoid generalizations based on the behavior of tavern keepers and their ilk. Though travelers encountered them often, such people scarcely represented their nation. “The people you will naturally see the most of will be tavern keepers, Valets de place, and postillions,” he explained. “These are the hackneyed rascals of every country. Of course they must never be considered when we calculate the national character.”2

  Jefferson’s words show that he approached travel with great seriousness. He was not traveling merely for pleasure. He was traveling to understand the people he encountered, to know them individually but also in the aggregate. He sought to understand the character of the regions and nations he visited. Jefferson’s lofty purpose helps explain why his writings are largely bereft of the specific details of traveling. While looking for the big picture, he neglected the quotidian. The conditions of the roads, the quality of the taverns, the food and drink they served: These commonplace details seldom seemed worth noting to him.

  His advice to Rutledge and Shippen also reveals why “Notes of a Tour” is largely bereft of humorous detail. The eccentric behavior of tipplers and tavern keepers can lend much charm to stories of travel, but Jefferson excluded them as he characterized the regions he visited. As he told another traveler, “To pass once along a public road thro’ a country, and in one direction only, to put up at its taverns, and get into conversation with the idle, drunken individuals who pass their time lounging in these taverns, is not the way to know a country, its inhabitants or manners.”3

  “Hints” also supplies advice regarding how to see what there is to see. Avoid hiring personal guides. Motivated by monetary gain, they assume a direct correlation between how much they say and how much they earn. They spout numerous trivial details, which overload the memory with trifles, fatigue the attention, and waste time. Instead of hiring personal guides, it is better to purchase good guidebooks. “On arriving at a town,” Jefferson suggested, “the first thing is to buy the plan of the town, and the book noting its curiosities.”4

  Jefferson’s preference for printed guides over personal ones was quite forward-thinking. Hiring local guides while traveling through Europe was standard practice for most eighteenth-century travelers. Though Jean François Royez had published a good road book titled L’Itinéraire et Guide des Postes d’Italie, few other travel guidebooks were available. The guidebook publishing industry would not really develop until the early nineteenth century. Jefferson’s advice reinforces the importance of the printed word and anticipates the development of the modern travel guidebook. In terms of their form, his own travel notes looked forward to subsequent developments in guidebook literature. On another journey he would place asterisks designating superior accommodations on a list of place names, a feature that would become an essential aspect of the modern guidebook.

  “Hints” recommends more general books, too. Before visiting Italy, for example, travelers should purchase a copy of Joseph Addison’s Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, a work offering a model journey for the well-read tourist. Having prepared for his Italian excursion by rereading the Latin classics, Addison brought his reading to bear throughout his travels, as Remarks makes clear: “A Man who is in Rome can scarce see an Object that does not call to Mind a Piece of a Latin Poet or Historian.”5 Using Addison’s Remarks as a guidebook, travelers could apply their own classical knowledge on the spot. Recalling classical literature while touring the remnants of the Roman Empire reinforces the memory by letting travelers blend their classical knowledge with their personal experience.

  Jefferson provided much other useful advice in “Hints.” “Walk round the ramparts when there are any,” he advised. “Go to the top of a steeple to have a view of the town and its environs.” Sightseeing involves great powers of discrimination: “When you are doubting whether a thing is worth the trouble of going to see, recollect that you will never again be so near it, that you may repent the not having seen it, but can never repent having seen it. But there is an opposite extreme too. That is, the seeing too much. A judicious selection is to be aimed at, taking care that the indolence of the moment have no influence in the decision.”6 Modern travelers might take such advice to heart.

  Since the two young men who sought his help were from the United States, “Hints” supplies further advice specific to their nationality. Traveling through Europe, Americans should note the following subjects: agriculture, architecture, courts, gardens, heavy machinery, lighter mechanical arts and manufacture, painting and statuary, and politics. Within each of these topics, Jefferson provided more detailed recommendations. Under politics, for example, he recommended observing people in their daily lives: “Take every possible occasion of entering into the houses of the labourers, and especially at the moments of their repast, see what they eat, how they are clothed, whether they are obliged to labour too hard; whether the government or their landlord takes from them an unjust proportion of their labour; on what footing stands the property they call their own, their personal liberty, etc.”7 To understand politics, travelers must examine its folk roots. Only by seeing how people live on a daily basis can travelers understand how well political systems work.

  Wending his way through the South of France, Jefferson took his own advice to heart. Writing Chastellux from Marseilles, he characterized his trip as “a continued feast of new objects and ideas.” Explaining what he meant, he said that he was getting to know the people who best represented the land: “To make the most of the little time I have for so long a circuit, I have been obliged to keep myself rather out of the way of good dinners and good company. Had they been my objects, I should not have quitted Paris. I have courted the society of gardeners, vignerons, coopers, farmers etc. and have devoted every moment of every day almost, to the business of enquiry.”8<
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  Jefferson’s words echo a remark of Laurence Sterne’s from A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. After receiving some seemingly absurd advice from a barber, Sterne’s mouthpiece, the Reverend Mr. Yorick, comments: “I think I can see the precise and distinguishing marks of national characters more in these nonsensical minutiae, than in the most important matters of state; where great men of all nations talk and talk so much alike, that I would not give nine-pence to chuse amongst them.”9 Though Jefferson shared a similar perspective, he was a different kind of traveler from his fictional predecessor. Of all the types of travelers Sterne identifies in A Sentimental Journey—idle travelers, inquisitive travelers, lying travelers, proud travelers, sentimental travelers, splenetic travelers, vain travelers—Jefferson best fits the category of inquisitive traveler. Though his letters sometimes show elements of sentimentality, his quest for new objects and ideas reveals his inquisitive nature. His desire for knowledge overrode his natural shyness: seldom did he hesitate to ask questions when the answers could broaden his knowledge and expand his mind.

  Given his impulse to mingle among farmers and laborers, Jefferson wanted to travel alone and anonymously—much to the disdain of his French friends. Determined to keep his identity secret, he left Paris the last Wednesday in February 1787, traveling alone in his carriage and hiring post horses along the way. Besides keeping him incognito, traveling alone gave him much time for reflection. At Dijon, less than a week into his journey, he hired a manservant named Petit Jean, mainly for the sake of propriety. Petit Jean accompanied him for the remainder of the journey. They reached Sens on Friday, and the journey from there to Vermanton on Saturday, March 3, supplied the subject for the first entry in Jefferson’s “Notes of a Tour.”