Εἰ δὲ θανόντων περ καταλήθοντ’ εἰν Αἵδαο,
Αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ κακεῖθι ϕίλου μεμνήσομ’ ἑταίρου.[87]
If in the house of Hades men forget their dead
Yet will I even there remember my dear companion.
Whether, as Tucker thought, Jefferson selected a Greek quotation so as not to make any display of his feelings to the casual passer-by, or whether Greek had so really become his own habit of thought that he could not think of any better way to express his grief, is a matter of conjecture. He was not the man to speak of himself and his sorrows, even to his closest friends. But it was probably at this time that he wrote these lines found after his death in his pocketbook: "There is a time in human suffering when exceeding sorrows are but like snow falling on an iceberg", and in Latin, "Heu quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse."
At thirty-nine he was left a widower with a house full of children. Martha, born in 1772, Mary born in 1778, Lucy Elizabeth, the baby just born, who was to die two years later, and in addition the children of his friend and brother-in-law Carr, whom he had adopted at the death of their father. As soon as he had recovered from the first shock, Jefferson went with the children to the house of Colonel Archibald Cary, at Ampthill, in Chesterfield County, where he had them inoculated for the smallpox. "While engaged as their chief nurse on the occasion, he received notice of his appointment by Congress as Plenipotentiary to Europe, to be associated with Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams in negotiating peace (November 13,1782)."[88]
He was just emerging from the stupor of mind which had rendered him "as dead to the world as she whose loss occasioned it."[89] It appeared to him that "public interest and the state of his mind concurred in recommending the change of scene proposed; and he accepted the appointment."[90]
The next three months were spent in preparing for the journey. He made arrangements for his children and wrote a very touching letter to Washington, evincing once more that reluctance to express affectionate feeling so often found in Americans, a result of early education and training as much as of the national temperament: "Were I to indulge myself in those warm effusions which this subject forever prompts, they would wear an appearance of adulation very foreign to my nature; for such is the prostitution of language, that sincerity has no longer distinct terms in which to express her own truths."[91]
The ship that was to carry him to France was caught in the ice at the entrance of the Chesapeake, with no prospect of sailing before the beginning of March. When news came early in February that the negotiations were making satisfactory progress, he felt some doubts about the desirability of a voyage which entailed so much expense, and placed the matter in the hands of Congress. It was not until April 1, however, that he was informed that the object of his appointment was "so far advanced as to render [it] unnecessary for him to pursue his voyage." He left for Virginia a few days afterwards. For the third time his plans for visiting Europe had been thwarted, but he does not seem to have resented it so deeply as previously.
The wounds inflicted to his amour-propre by the Virginia Assembly were healing. He had renewed his contact with public affairs, and when, on June 6, he was chosen as delegate to Congress, with Samuel Hardy, John F. Mercer, Arthur Lee, and James Monroe, he accepted without hesitation. The two years which were to elapse between June, 1782, and July 5, 1784, the date of his final departure from France on the Ceres, are not the most eventful or the most picturesque of Jefferson's career. In many respects, however, they are the fullest and the most important for a true understanding of his mind and character. In the absence of Franklin and Adams he stood out in Congress, head and shoulders above his colleagues; he was placed on most of the important committees, he completed his acquaintance with the internal and foreign policies of the United States, he reported on measures of vital importance and crystallized his opinion on fundamental problems.
Before being chosen as a delegate to Congress, Jefferson had already decided "to lend a hand to the laboring oar" and to participate in the affairs of his State, if not as a legislator at least as an adviser and counsellor. From the conversation he had held in Richmond with "as many members" of the Assembly "as he could",[92] he had concluded that Virginia was ready to call a convention to revise the Constitution of 1776. On June 17 he wrote again to Madison, inclosing his ideas on the "amendments necessary." No convention was called at that time, but Jefferson's memorandum was printed in pamphlet form later in Paris, and he added it to his "Notes on Virginia." First of all he reassured that the Constitution of 1776 had no legal permanent value, being simply the result of the deliberation of a General Assembly, in no way different from the succeeding Assemblies. A power superior to that of the ordinary legislature could alone have authority to decide on a constitution. This could only be done by recommending "the good people of the State" to choose delegates "with powers to form a constitution of government for them, and to declare those fundamentals to which all our laws present and future shall be subordinate." Many of the provisions of the proposed constitution were not original and, as indicated by Jefferson himself in his letter to Madison, had been tried in other States. The document, however, may serve to illustrate the progress accomplished by Jefferson in the science of government since he had written his first State paper, and to show how far he still remained from his reputed views on democracy.
Although still a free State, Virginia was no longer completely independent, since she had entered a society of States, and it was acknowledged that: "The confederation is made a part of this constitution, subject to such future alterations as shall be agreed to by the legislature of this State, and by all the other confederating States."