wise. His earnest advice to Washington had much to do with those changes in the constitution of the Cincinnati, which rendered harmless what threatened to be the commencement of a hereditary military caste.

CHAPTER LI

LAST DAYS AND DEATH

QUIETLY, usefully, year after year passed with Mr. Jefferson, his only harassing trouble being his debts.

He kept up his correspondence with a very great number of people, his open-door style of entertainment, his interest in books, plants, trees, birds, flowers, his gardens, fields, and pleasure-grounds. He rode horseback several hours every day, spent much time in social converse with relatives and friends, made himself the idol of all the children, and was quite happy when sharing their pleasures, forming their habits, and improving their minds. As a patriarch, venerated and beloved, his tall figure moved through the gathering shadows of Monticello with a majesty, a grave sweet dignity, which few attain.

He had made bitter enemies-especially in Virginia, where he had removed the Capital from historic old Williamsburg to the then straggling village of Richmond; he had cut off the ancient aristocratic church from the public treasury; and he had knocked the props from under the landed aris

tocracy. John Randolph, of Roanoke, probably voiced the sentiment of thousands when he declared that Jefferson's leveling principles had brought upon Virginia financial ruin, lowering at the same time the standard of character.

To these causes for hatred was added another: he did not conform to the religious beliefs of his neighbors. He did not keep his views locked within his own breast, as Washington had more prudently done. That indefatigable pen was, every now and then, giving itself all the license of the free and bold thinker to whom expression is absolutely necessary.

Active causes such as these kept the dogs barking to the last; and we find this way-worn servant of the republic charged with having overdrawn his salary while minister to France. The libel was published in a Richmond paper at a time when the old man already had one leg in the grave. Think of the mortification he must have suffered in being compelled to prove himself an honest man in his home paper and to his home people!

He resigned the presidency of the Philosophical Society, an honorary post which he had held for eighteen years.

Through the kindly offices of Dr. Benjamin Rush a reconciliation was brought about between Mr. Jefferson and John Adams; and the two venerable statesmen resumed their correspondence.

In a fall from the steps of one of the terraces, Mr. Jefferson broke his other arm, and being now disabled in both wrists, writing became doubly painful. Nevertheless, the industrious old man never ceased to write. The last motion of a definite sort which he was to make with his right hand was the motion of writing.

His eyes continued good and he could enjoy reading to the last; his hair turned gray, but remained abundant; his teeth remained perfect; his hearing became somewhat dull.

When young he had been given to fine clothes. In France he wore a garb which his secretary planned, and it included red breeches. When he began to wear these trousers in New York as Secretary of State, there was some commotion in society, and he soon left them off. During his first term as President his raiment is said to have been studiously negligent. The political literature of the time identifies particularly an old pair of corduroy breeches, which had been in the tub and the soapsuds so often that their color had faded to a dingy white. His shabby brown coat also was the source of considerable suffering among the fastidious.

In all this, political spite may have exaggerated the facts. During his second term the complaints about his dress died away, and the reader of current comments notes the advent of the black coat, which the President wears, and the consequent re

turn of composure to his critics. During his later years, while he preserved his scrupulous neatness it seems that his clothing was very plain and oldfashioned.

Frame in your mind the figure of a tall, spare, straight old farmer dressed in common clothes and surrounded by a group of grandchildren who climb on his knees, or recite their lessons to him, or play around him as he strolls slowly about his grounds, and you have a fair likeness of Jefferson in retirement.

The embargo and the War of 1812 played havoc with Virginia, and the losses on Mr. Jefferson's farms were as serious as elsewhere. Crops could find no markets, and the value of money, measured by the produce which had to buy it, was out of all proportion to the cost of production. Finally, the overseer was discharged and one of the grandchildren, the favorite Thomas Jefferson Randolph, took the management of Mr. Jefferson's business into his own hands.

But the expenses were so great, there were so many visitors to feed and serve, the interest-charge on old debts was so heavy, and the bad crop years so frequent, that it was impossible to work the property out of debt. One of the finishing strokes was a security debt of $20,000 for an old friend. There being no market for land at fair prices, Mr. Jefferson applied to the Legislature for leave to