"I rose with the sun, and, while breakfast was preparing, took a walk around the house. The birds were heard on every side, but my attention was chiefly attracted by a very agreeable song, which appeared to proceed from a neighboring tree. I approached softly, and perceived it to be a mocking-bird, saluting the rising sun. At first I was afraid of frightening it, but my presence, on the contrary, gave it pleasure; for, apparently delighted at having an auditor, it sang better than before, and its emulation seemed to increase when it saw a couple of dogs, which followed me, draw near to the tree on which it was perched. It kept hopping incessantly from branch to branch, still continuing its song; for this extraordinary bird is not less remarkable for its agility than its charming notes. It keeps perpetually rising and sinking, so as to appear not less the favorite of Terpsichore than Polyhymnia. This bird cannot certainly be reproached with fatiguing its auditors, for nothing can be more varied than its song, of which it is impossible to give an imitation, or even to furnish any adequate idea. As it had every reason to be satisfied with my attention, it concealed from me none of its talents; and one would have thought that, after having delighted me with a concert, it was desirous of entertaining me with a comedy. It began to counterfeit different birds; those which it imitated the most naturally, at least to a stranger, were the jay, the raven, the cardinal, and the lapwing. It appeared desirous of detaining me near it; for, after I had listened for a quarter of an hour, it followed me on my return to the house, flying from tree to tree, always singing, sometimes its natural song, at others those which it had learned in Virginia and in its travels; for this bird is one of those which change climate, although it sometimes appears here during the winter."
Continuing his journey, the traveller visited Jefferson at his country-home, situated deep in the wilderness, on the skirts of the Blue Ridge. This visit gives him opportunity for a new historical portrait:
"It was Jefferson himself who built his house and chose the situation. He calls it Monticello ['little mountain'], a modest title, for it is built upon a very high mountain; but the name indicates the owner's attachment to the language of Italy, and above all to the fine arts, of which that country was the cradle. He is a man not yet forty, of tall stature and a mild and pleasant countenance; but his mind and understanding are ample substitutes for every external grace. [{192}] An American who, without having ever quitted his own country, is skilled in music and drawing; a geometrician, an astronomer, a natural philosopher, a jurist and a statesman; a senator who sat for two years in the congress which brought about the revolution, and which is never mentioned without respect, though unhappily not without regret; [Footnote 48] a governor of Virginia, who filled this difficult station during the invasions of Arnold, of Phillips, and of Cornwallis; in fine, a philosopher in voluntary retirement from the world and public affairs, because he only loves the world so long as he can flatter himself with the conviction that he is of some use to mankind. A mild and amiable wife, charming children, of whose education he himself takes charge, a house to embellish, great possessions to improve, and the arts and sciences to cultivate—these are what remain to Mr. Jefferson after having played a distinguished part on the theatre of the New World. Before I had been two hours in his company, we were as ultimate as if we had passed our whole lives together. Walking, books, but above all a conversation always varied and interesting, sustained by that sweet satisfaction experienced by two persons whose sentiments are always in unison, and who understand each other at the first hint, made four days seem to me only so many minutes. No object had escaped Mr. Jefferson's attention; and it seemed as if from his youth he had placed his mind, as he has done his house, on an elevation from which he might contemplate the universe."
[Footnote 48: The United States were then passing through a crisis of anarchy, which lasted until the adoption of the Federal Constitution in 1788, and the elevation of Washington to the presidency.]
At the period of this visit, Mr. Jefferson thought only of retirement; but when M. de Chastellux's Voyages en Amérique appeared, three years afterward, he was minister-plenipotentiary of the United States in Paris. The death of his wife had determined him to return to public life. He formed a solid friendship for M. de Chastellux, of which his correspondence contains abundant proof. The brilliant French soldier introduced the solitary of Monticello, the "American wild-man of the mountains," to the salons of Paris; and the republican statesman, with the manners of an aristocrat, entered, nothing loath, into the society of the gay and polished capital, where he received the same welcome and honors that were accorded to Franklin.
This portion of the Journal closes with some general remarks upon Virginia, which possess a new interest now that the people of that state reappear upon the scene in the same bellicose and indomitable character which they bore of old.
"The Virginians differ essentially from the people of the North, not only in the nature of their climate, soil, and agriculture, but in that indelible character which is imprinted on every nation at the moment of its origin, and which, by perpetuating itself from generation to generation, justifies the great principle that 'everything which is partakes of that which has been.' The settlement of Virginia took place at the commencement of the seventeenth century. The republican and democratic spirit was not then common in England; that of commerce and navigation was scarcely in its infancy. The long wars with France and Spain had perpetuated the military spirit, and the first colonists of Virginia were composed in great part of gentlemen who had no other profession than that of arms. It was natural, therefore, for these colonists, who were filled with military principles and the prejudices of nobility, to carry them even into the midst of the savages whose lands they came to occupy. Another cause which operated in forming their character was the institution of slavery. It may be asked how these prejudices have been brought to coincide with a revolution founded on such different principles? I answer [{193}] that they have perhaps contributed to produce it. While the insurrection in New England was the result of reason and calculation, Virginia revolted through pride."
The third and last journey of M. de Chastellux led him through New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and northern Pennsylvania. This was during the months of November and December, 1782, on the eve of his return to France. He started from Hartford, the capital of Connecticut, and, after visiting several other places, went to Boston, for he could not leave America without seeing this city, the cradle of the revolution. He found at this port the French fleet, under command of M. de Vaudreuil, which was to carry back the expeditionary corps to France. He closes his Journal with an interesting account of the university at Cambridge, which Ampère, who was, like him, a member of the French Academy, visited and described seventy years afterward. In the appendix to his book he gives a letter written by himself on board the frigate l'Émeraude, just before sailing, to Mr. Madison, professor of philosophy in William and Mary College. It is upon a subject which has not yet lost its appropriateness—the future of the arts and sciences in America. A democratic and commercial society, always in a ferment, seemed to him hardly compatible with scientific, and still less with artistic, progress. But, in his solicitude for the welfare of the country he had been defending, he would not allow that the difficulty was insuperable. Some of his remarks upon this subject are extremely delicate and ingenious.
The question which troubled him is not yet fully answered, but it is in a fair way of being settled. The United States have really made but little progress in the arts, though they have produced a few pictures and statues which have elicited admiration even in Europe at recent industrial exhibitions. They are beginning, however, to have a literature. Even in the days of the revolution they could boast of the writings of Franklin, which combined the-most charming originality with refinement and solid good sense. Now they can show, among novelists, Fenimore Cooper and the celebrated Mrs. Beecher Stowe, whose book gave the signal for another revolution; among story-tellers, Washington Irving and Hawthorne; among critics, Ticknor; among historians, Prescott and Bancroft; among economists, Carey; among political writers, Everett; among moralists, Emerson and Channing; among poets, Bryant and Longfellow. In science they have done still more. They have adopted and naturalized one of the first of modern geologists, Agassiz; and the hydrographical labors of Maury, [late] director of the Washington Observatory, are the admiration of the whole world. Their immense development in industrial pursuits implies a corresponding progress in practical science. It was Fulton, an American, who invented the steamboat, and carried out in his own country the idea which he could not persuade Europe to listen to; and only lately the reaping-machine has come to us from the shores of the great lakes and the vast prairies of the Far West.
When the Voyages en Amérique appeared, the revolutionary party in France were still more dissatisfied with the book than they had been with the Félicité publique. They were angry at the wise and unprejudiced judgments which the author passed upon men and things in the New World; they were angry that he found some things not quite perfect in republican society, that his praises of democracy were not louder, his denunciations of the past not more sweeping. Brissot de Warville, whose caustic pen was already in full exercise, published a bitter review of the book. Some of the hostile criticisms found their way to the United States, and M. de Chastellux, in sending a copy of his work to General Washington, took occasion to [{194}] defend himself. He received from the general a long and affectionate reply, written at Mount Vernon, in April, 1786.