Threads of Grey and Gold Part 3

"I have not, I own, wrote so often to you as I wished and as I ought.

"But think of my situation, and then ask your heart if I be _without excuse_?

"We are not, my dearest, in circ.u.mstances the most favorable to our happiness; but let us not, I beseech of you, make them worse by indulging suspicions and apprehensions which minds in distress are apt to give way to.

"I never was, as you have often told me, even in my better and more disengaged days, so attentive to the little punctillios of friendship, as it may be, became me; but my heart tells me, there never was a moment in my life, since I first knew you, in which it did not cleave and cling to you with the warmest affection; and it must cease to beat ere it can cease to wish for your happiness, above anything on earth.

"Your faithful and tender husband, G. W."

"'Seventy-six!" The words bring a thrill even now, yet, in the midst of those stirring times, not a fortnight before the Declaration was signed, and after twenty years of marriage, he could write her like this. Even his reproaches are gentle, and filled with great tenderness.

And so it went on, through the Revolution and through the stormy days in which the Republic was born. There were long and inevitable separations, yet a part of the time she was with him, doing her duty as a soldier's wife, and sternly refusing to wear garments which were not woven in American looms.

During the many years they lived at Mount Vernon, they attended divine service at Christ Church, Alexandria, Virginia, one of the quaint little landmarks of the town which is still standing. For a number of years he was a vestryman of the church, and the pew occupied by him is visited yearly by thousands of tourists while sight-seeing in the national Capitol. Indeed all the churches, so far as known, in which he once worshipped, have preserved his pew intact, while there are hundreds of tablets, statues, and monuments throughout the country.

In the magnificent monument at Washington, rising to a height of more than 555 feet, the various States of the Union have placed stone replicas of their State seals, and these, with other symbolic devices, const.i.tute the inscriptions upon one hundred and seventy-nine of these memorial stones. Not only this, but Europe and Asia, China and j.a.pan have honoured themselves by erecting memorials to the great American.

When at last his long years of service for his country were ended, he and his beloved wife returned again to their beautiful home at Mount Vernon, to wait for the night together. The whole world knows how the end came, with her loving ministrations to the very last of the three restful years which they at this time spent together at the old home, and how he looked Death bravely in the face, as became a soldier and a Christian.

The Old and the New

Grandmother sat at her spinning wheel In the dust of the long ago, And listened, with scarlet dyeing her cheeks, For the step she had learned to know.

A courtly lover, was he who came, With frill and ruffle and curl-- They dressed so queerly in the days When grandmother was a girl!

"Knickerbockers" they called them then, When they spoke of the things at all-- Grandfather wore them, buckled and trim, When he sallied forth to call.

Grandmother's eyes were youthful then-- His "guiding stars," he said; While she demurely watched her wheel And spun with a shining thread.

Frill, and ruffle, and curl are gone, But the "knickers" are with us still-- And so is love and the spinning wheel, But we ride it now--if you will!

In grandfather's "knickers" I sit and watch For the gleam of a lamp afar; And my heart still turns, as theirs, methinks, To my wheel and my guiding star.

The Love Story of the "Sage of Monticello"

American history holds no more beautiful love-story than that of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, and author of the Declaration of Independence. It is a tale of single-hearted, unswerving devotion, worthy of this ill.u.s.trious statesman. His love for his wife was not the first outpouring of his nature, but it was the strongest and best--the love, not of the boy, but of the man.

Jefferson was not particularly handsome as a young man, for he was red-haired, awkward, and knew not what to do with his hands, though he played the violin pa.s.sably well. But his friend, Patrick Henry, suave, tactful and popular, exerted himself to improve Jefferson's manners and fit him for general society, attaining at last very pleasing results, although there was a certain roughness in his nature, shown in his correspondence, which no amount of polishing seemed able to overcome.

John Page was Jefferson's closest friend, and to him he wrote very fully concerning the state of his mind and heart, and with a certain quaint, uncouth humour, which to this day is irresistible.

For instance, at Fairfield, Christmas day, 1762, he wrote to his friend as follows:

"DEAR PAGE

"This very day, to others the day of greatest mirth and jolity, sees me overwhelmed with more and greater misfortunes than have befallen a descendant of Adam for these thousand years past, I am sure; and perhaps, after excepting Job, since the creation of the world.

"You must know, Dear Page, that I am now in a house surrounded by enemies, who take counsel together against my soul; and when I lay me down to rest, they say among themselves, 'Come let us destroy him.'

"I am sure if there is such a thing as a Devil in this world, he must have been here last night, and have had some hand in what happened to me. Do you think the cursed rats (at his instigation I suppose) did not eat up my pocket book, which was in my pocket, within an inch of my head? And not contented with plenty for the present, they carried away my gemmy worked silk garters, and half a dozen new minuets I had just got, to serve, I suppose, as provision for the winter.

"You know it rained last night, or if you do not know it, I am sure I do. When I went to bed I laid my watch in the usual place, and going to take her up after I arose this morning, I found her in the same place, it is true, but all afloat in water, let in at a leak in the roof of the house, and as silent, and as still as the rats that had eaten my pocket book.

"Now, you know if chance had anything to do in this matter, there were a thousand other spots where it might have chanced to leak as well as this one which was perpendicularly over my watch. But I'll tell you, it's my opinion that the Devil came and bored the hole over it on purpose.

"Well, as I was saying, my poor watch had lost her speech. I would not have cared much for this, but something worse attended it--the subtle particles of water with which the case was filled had, by their penetration, so overcome the cohesion of the particles of the paper, of which my dear picture, and watch patch paper, were composed, that in attempting to take them out to dry them, my cursed fingers gave them such a rent as I fear I shall never get over.

"... And now, though her picture be defaced, there is so lively an image of her imprinted in my mind, that I shall think of her too often, I fear for my peace of mind; and too often I am sure to get through old c.o.ke this winter, for I have not seen him since I packed him up in my trunk in Williamsburg. Well, Page, I do wish the Devil had old c.o.ke for I am sure I never was so tired of the dull old scoundrel in my life....

"I would fain ask the favor of Miss Bettey Burwell to give me another watch paper of her own cutting, which I should esteem much more though it were a plain round one, than the nicest in the world cut by other hands; however I am afraid she would think this presumption, after my suffering the other to get spoiled. If you think you can excuse me to her for this, I should be glad if you would ask her...."

Page was a little older than Jefferson, and the young man thought much of his advice. Six months later we find Page advising him to go to Miss Rebecca Burwell and "lay siege in form."

There were many objections to this--first, the necessity of keeping the matter secret, and of "treating with a ward before obtaining the consent of her guardian," which at that time was considered dishonourable, and second, Jefferson's own state of suspense and uneasiness, since the lady had given him no grounds for hope.

"If I am to succeed [he wrote], the sooner I know it the less uneasiness I shall have to go through. If I am to meet with disappointment, the sooner I know it, the more of life I shall have to wear it off; and if I do meet with one, I hope and verily believe it will be the last.

"I a.s.sure you that I almost envy you your present freedom and I a.s.sure you that if Belinda will not accept of my heart, it shall never be offered to another."

In his letters he habitually spoke of Miss Burwell as "Belinda,"

presumably on account of the fear which he expresses to Page, that the letters might possibly fall into other hands. In some of his letters he spells "Belinda" backward, and with exaggerated caution, in Greek letters.

Finally, with much fear and trembling, he took his friend's advice, and laid siege to the fair Rebecca in due form. The day afterward--October 7, 1763--he confided in Page:

"In the most melancholy fit that ever a poor soul was, I sit down to write you. Last night, as merry as agreeable company and dancing with Belinda could make me, I never could have thought that the succeeding sun would have seen me so wretched as I now am!

"I was prepared to say a great deal. I had dressed up in my own mind, such thoughts as occurred to me, in as moving language as I knew how, and expected to have performed in a tolerably creditable manner. But ... when I had an opportunity of venting them, a few broken sentences, uttered in great disorder, and interrupted by pauses of uncommon length were the too visible marks of my strange confusion!

"The whole confab I will tell you, word for word if I can when I see you which G.o.d send, may be soon."

After this, he dates his letters at "Devilsburg," instead of Williamsburg, and says in one of them, "I believe I never told you that we had another occasion." This time he behaved more creditably, told "Belinda" that it was necessary for him to go to England, explained the inevitable delays and told how he should conduct himself until his return. He says that he asked no questions which would admit of a categorical answer--there was something of the lawyer in this wooing! He a.s.sured Miss Rebecca that such a question would one day be asked. In this letter she is called "Adinleb" and spoken of as "he."

Miss Burwell did not wait, however, until Jefferson was in a position to seek her hand openly, but was suddenly married to another. The news was a great shock to Jefferson, who refused to believe it until Page confirmed it; but the love-lorn swain gradually recovered from his disappointment.

With youthful ardour they had planned to buy adjoining estates and have a carriage in common, when each married the lady of his love, that they might attend all the dances. A little later, when Page was also crossed in love, both forswore marriage forever.

For five or six years, Jefferson was faithful to his vow--rather an unusual record. He met his fate at last in the person of a charming widow--Martha Skelton.

The death of his sister, his devotion to his books, and his disappointment made him a sadder and a wiser man. His home at Shadwell had been burned, and he removed to Monticello, a house built on the same estate on a spur of the Blue Ridge Mountains, five hundred feet above the common level.

He went often to visit Mrs. Skelton who made her home with her father after her bereavement. Usually he took his violin under his arm, and out of the harmonies which came from the instrument and the lady's spinet came the greater one of love.

They were married in January of 1772. The ceremony took place at "The Forest" in Charles City County. The chronicles describe the bride as a beautiful woman, a little above medium height, finely formed, and with graceful carriage. She was well educated, read a great deal, and played the spinet unusually well.