At the age of sixty-five years, Jefferson retired to Monticello, "with a reputation and popularity," says Mr. Morse, "hardly inferior to that of Washington." He had had the wisdom never to assume the bearing of a leader. He had been careful to avoid disputes. Once, when riding, he met a stranger, with whom engaging in conversation, he found him bitterly opposed to the President. Upon being asked if he knew Mr. Jefferson personally, he replied, "No, nor do I wish to."
"But do you think it fair to repeat such stories about a man, and condemn one whom you do not dare to face?"
"I shall never shrink from meeting him if he ever comes in my way."
"Will you, then, go to his house to-morrow, and be introduced to him, if I promise to meet you there?"
"Yes, I will."
The stranger came, to his astonishment found that the man he had talked with was the President himself, dined with him, and became his firm friend and supporter ever afterward.
For the next seventeen years, Jefferson lived at Monticello, honored and visited by celebrities from all the world. Sometimes as many as fifty persons stayed at his home over night. One family of six came from abroad, and remained with him for ten months. His daughter Martha, married to Thomas Mann Randolph, presided over his hospitable home, and with her eleven children made the place a delight, for she had "the Jefferson temperament—all music and sunshine." The beautiful Mary, who married her cousin, John W. Eppes, had died at twenty-six, leaving two small children, who, like all the rest, found a home with Jefferson.
In the midst of this loving company, the great man led a busy life, carrying on an immense correspondence, by means of which he exerted a commanding influence on the questions of the day as well as on all social matters. To a child named for him, he wrote a letter which the boy might read after the statesman's death. In it are these helpful words: "Adore God. Reverence and cherish your parents. Love your neighbor as yourself. Be just. Be true. Murmur not at the ways of Providence."
To his daughter Mary he wrote these lines, which well might be hung up in every household:—
"Harmony in the married state is the very first object to be aimed at. Nothing can preserve affections uninterrupted but a firm resolution never to differ in will, and a determination in each to consider the love of the other as of more value than any object whatever on which a wish had been fixed. How light, in fact, is the sacrifice of any other wish when weighed against the affections of one with whom we are to pass our whole life. And though opposition in a single instance will hardly of itself produce alienation, yet every one has his pouch into which all these little oppositions are put. While that is filling, the alienation is insensibly going on, and when filled it is complete. It would puzzle either to say why, because no one difference of opinion has been marked enough to produce a serious effect by itself. But he finds his affections wearied out by a constant stream of little checks and obstacles.