re in sports, in drinking, and in
absolute idleness. "In spite of the Virginians' love for dissipation,"
wrote a famous French traveler, "the taste for reading is commoner among
men of the first rank than in any other part of America; but the populace
is perhaps more ignorant there than elsewhere." "The Virginia virtues,"
says Mr. Henry Adams, "were those of the field and farm--the simple and
straightforward mind, the notions of courage and truth, the absence of
mercantile sharpness and quickness, the rusticity and open-handed
hospitality." Virginians of the upper class were remarkable for their
high-bred courtesy,--a trait so inherent that it rarely disappeared even in
the bitterness of political disputes and divisions. This, too, was the
natural product of a society based not on trade or commerce, but on land.
"I blush for my own people," wrote Dr. Channing, from Virginia, in 1791,
"when I compare the selfish prudence of a Yankee with the generous
confidence of a Virginian. Here I find great vices, but greater virtues
than I left behind me." There was a largeness of temper and of feeling in
the Virginia aristocracy, which seems to be inseparable from people living
in a new country, upon the outskirts of civilization. They had the pride
of birth, but they recognized other claims to consideration, and were as
far as possible from estimating a man according to the amount of his
wealth.

Slavery itself was probably a factor for good in the character of such a
man as Jefferson,--it afforded a daily exercise in the virtues of
benevolence and self-control. How he treated the blacks may be gathered
from a story, told by his superintendent, of a slave named Jim who had
been caught stealing nails from the nail-factory: "When Mr. Jefferson
came, I sent for Jim, and I never saw any person, white or black, feel as
badly as he did when he saw his master. The tears streamed down his face,
and he begged for pardon over and over again. I felt very badly myself.
Mr. Jefferson turned to me and said, 'Ah, sir, we can't punish him. He has
suffered enough already.' He then talked to him, gave him a heap of good
advice, and sent him to the shop.... Jim said: 'Well I'se been a-seeking
religion a long time, but I never heard anything before that sounded so,
or made me feel so, as I did when Master said, "Go, and don't do so any
more," and now I'se determined to seek religion till I find it;' and sure
enough he afterwards came to me for a permi