State Journal

MONTICELLO -- MR. JEFFERSON.

A correspondent of the New York Observer, who had just visited Monticello, in a letter dated March 23, 1831, gives the following account of the residence of the late Thomas Jefferson.

The dying bed of Mr. Jefferson, I am credibly informed, remained for months unremoved, and its furniture in all the disorder of one just vacated by the tenant of a night -- his clothes -- and slippers just as he had dropped them when he last lay down -- his table, books, and papers, as he had left them -- and the entire furniture of his apartment undisturbed from the irregular and disordered disposition of his own feeble and dying hand. 'Eccentric mementos of affection indeed! such undoubtedly was the intention: as if becoming reverence forbade the touching of any thing he had last touched. This room, however, (or rooms, there being two, separated by an alcove, in which still is affixed the bedstead, on which Mr. Jefferson expired,) is now principally vacated, and thoroughly exposed through the windows, to vulgar gaze. The Library, an adjoining apartment, and equally exposed, is still strewed in the utmost disorder, with fragments of furniture, philosophical apparatus, papers, and books. There is scarcely an apartment in the house, which does not contain relics of furniture -- some of them quite valuable. But they appear like the spoils of a deserted mansion -- and deserted in haste. -- All is still and cheerless as the vault of the dead. The great time keeper, and time teller, the clock, is there -- but it has ceased to strike. Nothing performs its former offices, but the curious and ingeniously constructed weather vane. 'And that will probably soon cease to obey the inconstant winds -- by the impending disorder of its frame work.

The plan of this edifice, in its tout ensemble of inside and out, is as heterogeneous and as incongruous, as that of the Capitol at Washington. The eye is constantly impressed, and at every turn with an affectation of things rare and things foreign. I question whether there be a material feature in the whole establishment, which is not either the creation of Mr. Jefferson's own fancy, or a copy of something he had seen in Europe. In architecture he was an enthusiast. Indeed he was an enthusiast in every thing. His mind -- his whole temperament was constructed for eminent virtues, or for eminent vices. And fortunately, for his country and for the world, his patriotism and devotion to civil liberty were his dominant passions -- excepting only, that his willingness to have credit for this character was not less strong. His social affections, we understand were kind -- and his manners courteous. To religion his moral temperament seems not to have been especially adapted. And having imbibed some early and strong prejudices against some sect, or sects of Christians -- he seemed disposed to give them full credit for hypocrisy and base design. It is supposed, that he really believed them wicked -- and himself went off into those cold and cheerless regions, which are the direct antipodes of the simple, patient, and ardent virtues of Christianity. His religious sympathies were not sympathies -- but invincible repugnancies to all religion. He thought he had forever shut out religion from his University. And when application was made by the Faculty for his approbation of Christian worship there, he sent them a formal and labored manifesto against it -- and among other reasons he gravely assigned, that it would be a desecration of the premises! But the grass could not grow upon his grave, before Christian worship was established here -- and it is not a week since I had the pleasure on the Sabbath of attending Christian ordinances in that very University, with a congregation of the Faculty, their families, and the students -- as decent and as respectful, as in any other Literary Institution in the land -- and that too without any fear of desecration in any body's mind. Powerful as is the influence of example, it can never have the force to annihilate conscience. And much as Mr. Jefferson has been honored for his public virtues, it would have been a bitter agony of his life, could he have been convinced, how transient and fading is such respect, compared with the homage done by every heart to unfeigned piety -- and how greatly the want of piety detracts from the sweet remembrances of the dead.

As I have intimated, Monticello is rapidly fulfilling its destiny, as a naked, forgotten desolation. No probable, I might say no possible, human motive is likely to arrest its course. And the grave yard too. I would, that family pride, or filial affection, or some pious reverence for the distinguished dead might redeem at least, the grave of Thomas Jefferson from its present unmarked obscurity -- and set up an enclosure to rescue it from the tread of the prowling and senseless brute.