American Adventures Part 13

CHARLOTTESVILLE AND MONTICELLO

When Virginians speak of "the university," they do not mean Harvard, Princeton, Yale, or even Washington and Lee, but always the University of Virginia, which is at Charlottesville.

The city of Charlottesville, in its downtown parts, is no more and no less dingy and dismal than many another town of six or seven thousand inhabitants, be it North or South. It has a long main street, lined with little shops and moving-picture shows, and the theatrical posters which thrill one at first sight with hopes of evening entertainment, prove, on inspection, to have survived long after the "show" they advertise has come and gone, or else to presage the "show" that is coming for one night, week after next.

Nor is this scarcity of theatrical entertainment confined alone to small towns of the South. Not all important stars and important theatrical productions visit even the largest cities, for the South is not regarded by theatrical managers as particularly profitable territory. It would be interesting to know whether anaemia of the theater in the South, as well as the falling off generally of theatergoing in lesser American cities--usually attributed to the popularity and cheapness of the "movies"--is not due in large measure to the folly of managers themselves in sending out inferior companies. Any one who has seen a theatrical entertainment in New York and seen it later "on the road" is likely to be struck by the fact that even the larger American cities do not always get the full New York cast, while smaller cities seldom if ever get any part of it. The South suffers particularly in this respect.

The little "river shows," which arrive now and then in river towns, and which are more or less characteristic of the South, have the excuse of real picturesqueness, however bad the entertainment given, for the players live and have their theater on flatboats, which tie up at the wharf. But the plain fact about the ordinary little southern "road show"

is that it does not deserve to make money.

The life of a poor player touring the South must be very wretched, for generally, excepting in large cities, hotels are poor. Before we had gone far upon our way, my companion and I learned to inquire carefully in advance as to the best hotels, and when we found in any small city one which was not a fire trap, and which was clean, we were surprised, while if the service was fairly good, and the meals were not very bad, we considered it a matter for rejoicing.

We were advised to stop, in Charlottesville, at the New Gleason, and when we alighted at the dingy old brick railroad station--a station quite as unprepossessing as that at New Haven, Connecticut--we began to feel that all was not for the best. A large gray horse hitched to the hack in which we rode to the Gleason evidently felt the same, for at first he balked, and later tried to run away.

The hotel lobby was a perfect example of its kind. There were several drummers writing at the little desks, and several more sitting idly in chairs adjacent to bra.s.s cuspidors. All of them looked despondent with a despondency suggesting pie for breakfast. Behind the desk was a sleepy-looking old clerk who, as we arrived, was very busy over a financial transaction involving change of ownership in a two-cent stamp.

This enterprise concluded, he a.s.signed us rooms.

Never have I wished to win the toss for rooms as I wished it when I saw the two allotted to us, for though the larger one could not by a flight of fancy be termed cheerful, the sight of the lesser chamber filled me with thoughts of madness.

Of course I lost.

Never shall I forget that room. It was too small to accommodate my trunks with any comfort, so I left them downstairs with the porter, descending, now and then, to get such articles as I required. The furniture, what there was of it, was of yellow pine; the top of the dresser was scarred with the marks of many gla.s.ses and many bottles; the lace window curtains were long, hard and of a wiry stiffness, and the wall-paper was of a scrambled pattern all in bilious brown. During the evening I persuaded my companion to walk with me through the town, and once I got him out I kept him going on and on through shadowy streets unknown to us, until, exhausted, he insisted upon returning to our hostelry. I fancy that there are picturesque old houses on the outskirts of the town, but with that wall paper and a terrible nostalgia occupying my mind, I was in no state to judge of what was there.

On reaching the hotel my companion went to bed, but I remained until late in the office, writing letters, doing anything rather than go up to my room. When at last I did ascend I planned to read, but the arrangement of the light was bad, so presently I put it out and lay there sleepless and miserable, thinking of foolish things that I have said and done during a life rich with such items, and having chills and fever over each separate recollection. How I drifted off to sleep at last I do not know; all I remember is waking up next morning, leaping out of bed and dressing in frantic haste to get out of my room. There was but one thing in it which did not utterly offend the eye: that was the steam pipe which ascended from floor to ceiling at one corner, and which, being a simple, honest metal tube, was not objectionable.

As we pa.s.sed through the office on our way to breakfast, the bus man entered, and in a loud, r.e.t.a.r.ded chant proclaimed: "Train for the South!"

The impressive tones in which this announcement was delivered seemed to call for a sudden stir, a rush for bags and coats, a general exodus, but no one in the office moved, and I remember feeling sorry for the bus man as he turned and went out in the midst of a crushing anti-climax.

"I wonder," I said to my companion, "if anybody ever gets up and goes when that man calls out the trains."

"I don't believe so," he replied. "I don't think he calls trains for any such purpose. He only warns people so they will expect to hear the train, and not be frightened when it goes through."

Thomas Jefferson is most widely remembered, I suppose, as the author of the Declaration of Independence, the third President, the purchaser of Louisiana, and the unfortunate individual upon whom the Democratic party casts the blame for its existence, precisely as the Republican party blames itself on Washington and Lincoln--although the lamentable state into which both parties have fallen is actually the fault of living men.

It is significant, however, that of this trio of Jeffersonian items, Jefferson himself selected but one to be included in the inscription which he wrote for his tombstone--a modest obelisk on the grounds at Monticello. The inscription mentions but three of his achievements: the authorship of the Declaration, that of the Virginia statute for religious freedom, and the fact that he was "Father of the University of Virginia."

Regardless of other accomplishments, the man who built the university and the house at Monticello was great. It is more true of these buildings than of any others I have seen that they are the autobiography, in brick and stone, of their architect. To see them, to see some of the exquisitely margined ma.n.u.script in Jefferson's clean handwriting, preserved in the university library, and to read the Declaration, is to gain a grasp of certain sides of Jefferson's nature which can be achieved in no other way.

Monticello stands on a lofty hilltop, with vistas, between trees, of neighboring valleys, hills, and mountains. It is a supremely lovely house, unlike any other, and, while it is too much to say that one would recognize it as the house of the writer of the Declaration, it is not too much to say that, once one does know it, one can trace a clear affinity resulting from a common origin--an affinity much more apparent, by the way, than may be traced between the work of Michelangelo on St.

Peter's at Rome, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and in his "David."

The introductory paragraph to the Declaration ascends into the body of the doc.u.ment as gracefully and as certainly as the wide flights of easy steps ascend to the doors of Monticello; the long and beautifully balanced paragraph which follows, building word upon word and sentence upon sentence into a central statement, has a form as definite and graceful as that of the finely proportioned house; the numbered paragraphs which follow, setting forth separate details, are like rooms within the house, and--I have just come upon the coincidence with a pleasant start such as might be felt by the discoverer of some complex and important cipher--as there are twenty-seven of the numbered paragraphs in the Declaration, so there are twenty-seven rooms in Monticello. Last of all there are two little phrases in the Declaration (the phrases stating that we shall hold our British brethren in future as we hold the rest of mankind--"enemies in war; in peace, friends"), which I would liken to the small twin buildings, one of them Jefferson's office, the other that of the overseer, which stand on either side of the lawn at Monticello, at some distance from the house. These office buildings face, and balance upon each other, and upon the mansion, but they are so much smaller that to put them there required daring, while to make them "compose" (as painters say) with the great house, required the almost superhuman sense of symmetry which Jefferson a.s.suredly possessed.

The present owner of Monticello is Mr. Jefferson Monroe Levy, former United States congressman from New York. Mr. Levy is a Democrat and a bachelor, according to the Congressional Directory, which states further that he inherited Monticello from an uncle, Commodore Uriah P. Levy, U.S.N., and that the latter purchased the place in 1830 "at the suggestion of President Jackson."

Dorothy Dix, writing in "Good Housekeeping," tells a tale which I have heard repeatedly of the acquisition of Monticello by Uriah Levy. Says Miss Dix:

"Monticello was sold to a stranger, and Jefferson's only daughter, Mrs.

Randolph, widowed and with eleven children, was left homeless.... A subscription of three thousand dollars was raised ... to buy back the house ... and this money was intrusted to a young relative of the Jeffersons' to convey to Charlottesville. Traveling in the stagecoach with the young man was Captain Uriah P. Levy, to whom he confided his mission. The young man became intoxicated and dallied, but Captain Levy hastened on to Charlottesville, and purchased Monticello for two thousand five hundred dollars. The next day the repentant and sober young man arrived and besought Captain Levy to take the three thousand dollars ... and let Monticello go back to the Jefferson family. Captain Levy refused to part with his bargain, but at his death he willed Monticello to 'the people of the United States to be held as a memorial of Thomas Jefferson'.... The Levy heirs contested the will, and it was finally decided upon a technicality that 'the people of the United States' was too indefinite a term to make the bequest binding, and the estate pa.s.sed into the hands of the Levys, and so to its present owner...."

In a biographical note upon the latter, the Congressional Directory states that the house is "kept open to the public all the year." My companion and I were admitted to the grounds, but were informed that, though the building was unoccupied, no one was permitted to enter. While we were in the vicinity of the house we were attended by one of the men employed on the place, who told us that when people were allowed to roam about at will, there had been much vandalism; ivy had been pulled from the walls, shrubbery broken, pieces of brick chipped out of the steps, and teeth knocked from the heads of the marble lions which flank them.

Of recent years there has been on foot a movement, launched, I believe, by Mrs. Martin W. Littleton, of New York, to influence the Government to purchase Monticello from its present owner. It is difficult to see precisely how Mr. Levy could be forced to part with his property, if he did not wish to. Nevertheless public sentiment on this subject has become so strong that he has agreed to let the Government have Monticello "at a price"--so, at least, I was informed in Charlottesville.

CHAPTER XV

THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

The opening of the University of Virginia was an event of prime importance for the higher education in the whole country, and really marks a new era.

--CHARLES FORSTER SMITH.

Like Monticello, the buildings of the University of Virginia are those of an intellectual, a cla.s.sicist, a purist, and, like it, they might have been austere but for the warmth of their red brick and the glow of their white-columned porticos. But they are cheerful buildings, which, individually and as a group, attain a geometrical yet soft perfection, a supreme harmony of form and color.

The princ.i.p.al buildings are grouped about a large campus, called the Lawn, which is dominated by the rotunda, suggesting in its outlines the Pantheon at Rome. From the rotunda, at either side, starts a white-columned arcade connecting the various houses which are distributed at graceful intervals along the margins of the rectangular lawn, above which loom the tops of even rows of beautiful old trees.

Flanking the buildings of the lawn, and reached by brick walks which pa.s.s between the famous serpentine walls (walls but one brick thick which support themselves on the snake-fence principle, by progressing in a series of reverse curves), are the "ranges": solid rows of one-story student dormitories built of brick and fronted by colonnades which command other lawns and other trees.

With a single exception, restorations and additions to the university have been made with reverence and taste, and the Brooks Museum, the one architectural horror of the place, fortunately does not stand upon the lawn. Since it is said that beauty could not exist were there not ugliness for contrast, this building may have its uses; certainly, after a glance at it, one looks back with renewed delight at the structures of the central group.

Most superb of all, always there hangs at night, above the buildings and the tree-tops, a glorious full moon. At least I suppose it always hangs there, for though it seemed to us very wonderful, every one else seemed used to it.

Like Venice, the University of Virginia should first be seen by moonlight. There could not have been a finer moonlit night, I thought, than that cold, crisp one upon which my companion stood for two hours beside the rotunda, gazing at the lawn and drawing it, its frosty gra.s.s and trees decked with diamonds, its white columns standing out softly from their shadow backgrounds like phosph.o.r.escent ghosts in the luminous blue darkness. Until I was nearly frozen I stayed there with him. That drawing cost him one of the worst colds he ever had.

The university ought to have, and has, many traditions, and life there ought to be, and is, different from life in any other college. Jefferson brought from Italy the men who carved the capitals of the columns (the descendants of some of these Italian workmen live in Charlottesville to-day), and when the columns were in place he brought from Europe the professors to form the faculty, creating what was practically a small English university in the United States. Never until, a dozen years ago, Dr. E.A. Alderman became president, had there been such an office; before that time the university had a rector, and the duties of president were performed by a chairman of the faculty, elected by the faculty from among its members. This was the first university to adopt the elective system, permitting the students, as Jefferson wrote, "uncontrolled choice in the lectures they shall attend," instead of prescribing one course of reading for all. No less important, the University of Virginia was the first college to introduce (1842) the honor system, and still has the most complete honor system to be found among American colleges. This system is an outgrowth of the Jeffersonian idea of student self-government; under it each student signs, with examination papers, a pledge that he has neither given nor received a.s.sistance. That is found sufficient; students are not watched, nor need they be. With time this system has been extended, so that it now covers not only examinations, but many departments of college life, eliminating professionalism in athletics and plagiarism in literary work, and resulting in a delightful mutual confidence between the student body and the faculty.

Madison and Monroe were active members of the university's first board of visitors; the first college Y.M.C.A. was started there; and among many famous men who have attended the university may be mentioned Edgar Allan Poe, Thomas Nelson Page, and Thomas Woodrow Wilson, whose name appears thus upon the "University Magazine" for 1879-80, as one of its three editors. The ill-starred Poe attended the university for only one year, at the end of which time his adopted father, Mr. Allan, of Richmond, withdrew him because of debts he had contracted while acquiring his education in gambling and drinking champagne. Poe's former room, No. 13 West Range, is now the office of the magazine.

The clean, lovely ma.n.u.script in Jefferson's handwriting, of the first Anglo-Saxon grammar written in the United States, is to be seen in the university library; Jefferson was Vice-President of the United States when he wrote it; he put Anglo-Saxon in the first curriculum of the university, and it has been taught there ever since. In a note which is a part of the ma.n.u.script, he advocates the study of Anglo-Saxon as an introduction to modern English on the ground that though about half the words in our present language are derived from Latin and Greek, these being the scholarly words, the other half, the words we use most often, are Anglo-Saxon.

Before the war it was not uncommon for students at the university to have their negro body servants with them, and it has occasionally happened since that some young sprig of southern aristocracy has come to college thus attended.

Perhaps the most striking and characteristic feature of student life to-day, from the point of view of the stray visitor, is the formal att.i.tude of students toward one another. There is no easy-going casualness between them, no calling back and forth, no "h.e.l.lo," by way of greeting. They pa.s.s each other on the walks either without speaking (men have been punished at the university by being ignored by the entire student body), or if they do greet each other the customary salutation is "How are you, sir?" or "How are you, gentlemen?" First-year men are expected to wear hats, and not to speak to upper cla.s.smen until they have been spoken to; and, though there is no hazing at the university, woe betide them if they do not heed these rules.

In the early days of the university there was an effort to exercise restraint over students, to make them account for their goings and comings, and to prevent their going to taverns or betting upon horse races. Also they were obliged to wear a uniform. The severity was so great that they appealed to Jefferson, who sided with them. He, however, died in the same year, and friction prevailed for perhaps a decade longer, with many student disorders, culminating in the shooting of a professor by a student. In 1840 the students were at last granted full freedom, and two years later the honor system was adopted.

During the university's first years young men from the far South, where dueling was especially prevalent, did not come in large numbers to the University of Virginia, but went, as a rule, to the northern colleges, but about the middle of the century, as feeling between North and South over taxation, States' Rights and slavery became more acute, these men began to flock to the college at Charlottesville. Between 1850 and 1860 the university almost doubled in size, and at about the same time there developed a good deal of dueling between students.

When the War ended many men who had gone into the Confederate army at sixteen or seventeen years of age came to Charlottesville to complete their education. The hard life of the army had made some of these into a wild lot, and there was a great deal of gambling and drinking during their time, and also after it, for several succeeding generations of students looked up to the ex-soldiers as heroes, and carried on the unfortunate traditions left by them at the university. In the nineties, however, a change came, and though there is still some drinking and gambling, it is doubtful whether such vices are now more prevalent at the University of Virginia than at many other colleges. The honor system has never been extended to cover these points.

It is related that, in Poe's time, gambling became such a serious obstacle to discipline and work that the university authorities set the town marshal after a score or so of gambling students, Poe among them, whereupon these students fled to the Ragged Mountains, near by, and remained for two weeks, during which time Poe is said to have mightily entertained them with stories and prophecies, including a forecast of the Civil War, in which, he declared, two of the youths present would fight on opposite sides.

The Poe tradition is kept vigorously alive at the university. Not long ago a member of the Raven Society, one of the rather too numerous student organizations, discovered the burial place of Poe's mother, who was an actress, and who died penniless in Richmond at the age of twenty-four and was buried with the dest.i.tute. By a happy inspiration a fund was raised among the students for the erection of a monument to her--an example of fine and chivalrous sentiment on the part of these young men, which, one feels, is somehow delicately intertwined with the traditions of the honor system.