On January 24, 1800, it was reported to Jefferson that, at a banquet in New York, Alexander Hamilton made no remark when the health of the President was proposed, but that he asked for three cheers when the health of George III was suggested.
On March 27, 1800, the Anas record: "Dr. Rush tells me that within a few days he has heard a member of Congress lament our separation from Great Britain, and express his sincere wishes that we were again dependent on her."
On December 13, 1803, Jefferson told of the coming to President Adams of a minister from New England who planned to solicit funds in New England for a college in Green County, Tennessee. He wished to have the President's endorsement of the project. But "Mr. Adams . . . said he saw no possibility of continuing the union of the States; that their dissolution must take place; that he therefore saw no propriety in recommending to New England men to promote a literary institution in the South; that it was in fact giving strength to those who were to be their enemies, and, therefore, he would have nothing to do with it."
One who reads bits like these from Jefferson's private papers appreciates more fully some of the grave difficulties that confronted the country's early leaders; he rejoices more than ever before that the United States emerged so triumphantly from troubled waters until, little more than a century after those days of dire foreboding, it was showing other nations the way to democracy; he takes courage in days of present doubt and uncertainty, assured that the country which has already weathered so many storms will continue to solve its grave problems, and will be more than ever a beacon light to the world.
IV
COMPANIONSHIP WITH NATURE
"Look at the World," is the advice David Grayson gives to those who follow him in his delightful essays on Great Possessions—possessions that cannot be measured with a yardstick or entered in the bank book. This is his cure for all the trials and vexations that come in the course of a busy life. For how can a man remain unsettled and morose and distressed when he is gazing at the broad expanse of the sky, studying the beauty of the trees, or listening to the mellow voices of the birds? How can the wanderer in field and forest forget that God is love?
Some people think that to drink in the glories of nature they must go to the mountains, or seek some other far-away spot. Mistake! The place to enjoy God's world is just where one is, and the time is that very moment. This was the lesson taught so impressively by Alice Freeman Palmer, when she described the little dweller in the tenements who resolved to see something beautiful each day, and who, one day, when confined to the house, found her something in watching a rain-soaked sparrow drinking from the gutter on the tin roof. And this was the thought in the mind of Mr. Grayson when he said:
"I love a sprig of white cedar, especially the spicy, sweet inside bark, or a pine needle, or the tender, sweet, juicy end of a spike of timothy grass drawn slowly from its sheath, or a twig of the birch that tastes like wintergreen."
Hamlin Garland, in "A Son of the Middle Border," has told the story of his boyhood on an Iowa farm. He knew how to enjoy the sights to which so many are blind:
"I am reliving days when the warm sun, falling on radiant slopes of grass, lit the meadow phlox and tall tiger lilies to flaming torches of color. I think of blackberry thickets and odorous grapevines, and cherry-trees and the delicious nuts which grew in profusion throughout the forest to the north. The forest, which seemed endless and was of enchanted solemnity, served as our wilderness. We explored it at every opportunity. We loved every day for the color it brought, each season for the wealth of its experiences, and we welcomed the thought of spending all our years in this beautiful home where the wood and the prairie of our song did actually meet and mingle. . . . I studied the clouds. I gnawed the beautiful red skin from the seed vessels which hung upon the wild rose bushes, and I counted the prairie chickens as they began to come together in winter flocks, running through the stubble in search of food. I stopped now and again to examine the lizards unhoused by the shares, . . . and I measured the little granaries of wheat which the mice and gophers had deposited deep under the ground, storehouses which the plow had violated. My eyes dwelt enviously on the sailing hawk and on the passing of ducks. . . . Often of a warm day I heard the sovereign cry of the sand-hill crane falling from the azure throne, so high, so far, his form could not be seen, so close to the sun that my eyes could not detect his solitary, majestic, circling sweep. . . . His brazen, reverberating call will forever remain associated in my mind with mellow, pulsating earth, spring grass and cloudless glorious May-time skies."