  Crown 8vo, Illuminated Cloth, Beveled Edges, $250. This volume brings the life of Jefferson in a brief space within the reach of all. While not writing of him as of the great man or statesman, Miss Randolph has given sufficient outline of the contemporary public events, especially of those in which Jefferson was engaged, to make the history of his times sufficiently clear. Her object, however, she says, has been to give a faithful picture of Jefferson as he was in private life, and for this she was particularly well fitted. Her biography is so artless, so frank, and so uncolored, differing so completely from the lives of public men as generally written. * * * This extremely interesting volume.—Richmond Whig. One of the most charming and entertaining of books, and its pages will be a source of continual surprise and pleasure to those who, while admiring the statesman, have had their admiration tempered by the belief that he was a demagogue, a libertine, a gamester, and a scoffer at religion. The age in which Jefferson lived was one in which political rancors and animosities existed with no less bitterness than in our later day, and in which, moreover, mutual abuse and malignant recrimination were indulged in with equal fury and recklessness. Charges were made against Jefferson, by his political opponents, that clung to his good name and sullied it, making it almost a by-word of shame, and its owner a man whose example was to be shunned. The prejudices and calumnies then born have existed down to the present day; but the mists of evil report that have hemmed his life and his memory about are now clearing away, and this sunny book will dispel the last shadow they have cast, and will display the maligned victim of party hate in his true character—as a fond, an amiable, and a simple-hearted father; a firm friend; a truly moral and God-fearing citizen, and one of those few great men who have had the rare fortune to be likewise good men.—Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. The author of this charming book has had access to the best possible sources of information concerning the private character of Mr.Jefferson, embracing both the written testimony of his correspondence and the oral testimony of family tradition. From these materials, guided by a profound reverence for the subject, the writer has constructed a most interesting personal biography. * * * Amost agreeable addition to American literature, and will revive the memory of a patriot who merits the respect and gratitude of his countrymen.—Philadelphia Age. This handsome volume is a valuable acquisition to American history. It brings to the public observation many most interesting incidents in the life of the third President; and the times and men of the republic’s beginnings are here portrayed in a glowing and genial light. The author, in referring to the death-scenes of Jefferson, reports sentiments from his lips which contradict the current opinion that the writer of the Declaration of Independence was an infidel. We are glad to make this record in behalf of truth. Young people would find this book both entertaining and instructive. Its style is fresh and compact. Its pages are full of tender memories. The great man whose career is so charmingly pictured belongs to us all.—Methodist Recorder. There is no more said of public matters in it than is absolutely necessary to make it clear and intelligible; but we have Jefferson, the man and the citizen, the husband, the father, the agriculturist, and the neighbor—the man, in short, as he lived in the eyes of his relatives, his closest friends, and his most intimate associates. He is the Virginian gentleman at the various stages of his marvelous career, and comes home to us as a being of flesh and blood, and so his story gives a series of lively pictures of a manner of existence that has passed away, or that is so passing, for they are more conservative at the South, socially speaking, than are we at the North, though they live so much nearer the sun than we ever can live. * * * We can commend this book to every one who would know the main facts of Mr.Jefferson’s public career, and those of his private life. It is the best work respecting him that has been published, and it is not so large as to repel even indolent or careless readers. It is, too, an ornamental volume, being not only beautifully printed and bound, but well illustrated. * * * Every American should own the volume.—Boston Traveller. A charmingly compiled and written book, and it has to do with one of the very greatest men of our national history. There is scarcely one on the roll of our public men who was possessed of more progressive individuality, or whose character will better repay study, than Thomas Jefferson, and this biography is a great boon.—N.Y. Evening Mail. Both deeply interesting and valuable. The author has displayed great tact and taste in the selection of her materials and its arrangement.—Richmond Dispatch. A charming book.—New Orleans Times. It is a series of delightful home pictures, which present the hero as he was familiarly known to his family and his best friends, in his fields, in his library, at his table, and on the broad verandah at Monticello, where all the sweetest flavors of his social nature were diffused. His descendant does not conceal the fact that she is proud of her great progenitor; but she is ingenious, and leaves his private letters mostly to speak for themselves. It has been thought that “a king is never a hero to his valet,” and the proverb has been considered undeniable; but this volume shows that Jefferson, if not exactly the “hero” to whom a little obscurity is so essential, was at least warmly loved and enthusiastically esteemed and admired by those who knew him best. The letters in this volume are full of interest, for they are chiefly published for the first time now. They show a conscientious gentleman, not at all given to personal indulgences, quick in both anger and forgiveness, the greatest American student of his time, excepting the cold-blooded Hamilton, absolutely without formality, but particular and exacting in the extreme—just the man who carried his wife to the White House on the pillion of his gray mare, and showed a British embassador the door for an offense against good-breeding.—Chicago Evening Post. The reader will recognize the calm and philosophic yet earnest spirit of the thinker, with the tenderness and playful amiability of the father and friend. The letters can not but shed a favorable light on the character of perhaps the best-abused man of his time.—N.Y. Evening Post. No attempt is made in this volume to present its subject as a public man or as a statesman. It is simply sought to picture him as living in the midst of his domestic circle. And this it is which will invest the book with interest for all classes of readers, for all who, whatever their politics, can appreciate the beauty of a pure, loving life. * * * It is written in an easy, agreeable style, by a most loving hand, and, perhaps, better than any other biography extant, makes the reader acquainted with the real character of a man whose public career has furnished material for so much book-making.—Philadelphia Inquirer. The perusal of this interesting volume confirms the impression that whatever criticisms may be brought to bear upon the official career of Mr.Jefferson, or his influence upon the politics of this country, there was a peculiar charm in all the relations of his personal and social life. In spite of the strength of his convictions, which he certainly often expressed with an energy amounting to vehemence, he was a man of rare sunniness of temperament and sweetness of disposition. He had qualities which called forth the love of his friends no less than the hatred of his opponents. His most familiar acquaintance cherished the most ardent admiration of his character. His virtues in the circle of home won the applause even of his public adversaries.—N.Y. Tribune. It lifts up the curtain of his private life, and by numerous letters to his family allows us to catch a glimpse of his real nature and character. Many interesting reminiscences have been collected by the author and are presented to the reader.—Boston Commercial Bulletin. These letters show him to have been a loving husband, a tender father, and a hospitable gentleman.—Presbyterian. Jefferson was not only eloquent in state papers, but he was full of point and clearness amounting to wit in his minor correspondence.—Albany Argus. It is the record of the life of one of the most extraordinary men of any age or country.—Richmond Inquirer. With the public life of Thomas Jefferson the public is familiar, as without it no adequate knowledge is possible of the history of Virginia or of the United States. Its guiding principles and great events, as likewise its smallest details, have long been before the world in the “Jefferson Papers,” and in the laborious history of Randall. But to a full appreciation of the politician, the statesman, the publicist, and the thinker, there was still wanting some complete and correct knowledge of the man and his daily life amidst his family. This want Miss Randolph has endeavored most successfully to supply. As scarcely one of the founders of the republic had warmer friends, or exerted a deeper and a wider influence upon the country, so scarcely one encountered more bitter animosity or had to live down slander more envenomed. Truth conquered in the end, and the foul rumors, engendered in partisan conflicts, against the private life of Jefferson have long shrunk into silence in the light of his fame. Nevertheless, it is well done of his descendant thus to place before the world his life as in his letters and his conversation it appeared from day to day to those nearest and dearest to him. Nor is it a matter of small value to bring to our sight the interior life of our ancestors as it is delineated in the letters of Jefferson, touching incidently on all the subjects of dress, food, manners, amusements, expenditures, occupations—in brief, neglecting nothing of what the men of those days were and thought and did. It is of such materials that consist the pictures of history whose gaunt outlines of battles, sieges, coronations, dethronements, and parliaments are of little worth without the living and breathing details of everyday existence. * * * The author has happily performed her task, never obtruding her own presence upon the reader, careful only to come forward when necessary to explain some doubtful point or to connect the events of different dates. She may be congratulated upon the grace with which she has both written and forborne to write, never being beguiled by the vanity of authorship or that too great care which is the besetting sin of biography.—Petersburg Daily Index. It is a highly interesting book, not only as a portraiture of the domestic life of Jefferson, but as a side view of the parties and politics of the day, witnessed in our country seventy years ago. The correspondence of the public characters at that period will be read with special interest by those who study the early history of our government.—Richmond Christian Observer. In the unrestrained confidence of family correspondence, nature has always full sway, and the revelations presented in this book of Mr.Jefferson’s real temper and opinions, unrestrained or unmodified by the caution called for in public documents, make the work not only valuable but entertaining.—N.Y. World. The author has done her work with a loving hand, and has made a most interesting book.—N.Y. Commercial Advertiser. It gives a picture of his private life, which it presents in a most favorable light, calculated to redeem Jefferson’s character from many, if not all, the aspersions and slanders which, in common with most public characters, he had to endure while living.—New Bedford Standard. The letters of Jefferson are models of epistolary composition—easy, graceful, and simple.—New Bedford Mercury. The book is a very good picture of the social life not only of himself but of the age in which he lived.—Detroit Post. One of the most charming memoirs of the day.—N.Y. Times. |
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