immediately upon a large and
lucrative practice. He remained at the bar only seven years, but during
most of this time his professional income averaged more than L2500 a year;
and he increased his paternal estate from 1900 acres to 5000 acres. He
argued with force and fluency, but his voice was not suitable for public
speaking, and soon became husky. Moreover, Jefferson had an intense
repugnance to the arena. He shrank with a kind of nervous horror from a
personal contest, and hated to be drawn into a discussion. The turmoil and
confusion of a public body were hideous to him;--it was as a writer, not as
a speaker, that he won fame, first in the Virginia Assembly, and afterward
in the Continental Congress.

In October, 1768, Jefferson was chosen to represent Albemarle County in
the House of Burgesses of Virginia; and thus began his long political
career of forty years. A resolution which he formed at the outset is
stated in the following letter written in 1792 to a friend who had offered
him a share in an undertaking which promised to be profitable:--

"When I first entered on the stage of public life (now twenty-four years
ago) I came to a resolution never to engage, while in public office, in
any kind of enterprise for the improvement of my fortune, nor to wear any
other character than that of a farmer. I have never departed from it in a
single instance; and I have in multiplied instances found myself happy in
being able to decide and to act as a public servant, clear of all
interest, in the multiform questions that have arisen, wherein I have seen
others embarrassed and biased by having got themselves in a more
interested situation."

During the next few years there was a lull in political affairs,--a sullen
calm before the storm of the Revolution; but they were important years in
Mr. Jefferson's life. In February, 1770, the house at Shadwell, where he
lived with his mother and sisters, was burned to the ground, while the
family were away. "Were none of my books saved?" Jefferson asked of the
negro who came to him, breathless, with news of the disaster. "No,
master," was the reply, "but we saved the fiddle."

In giving his friend Page an account of the fire, Jefferson wrote: "On a
reasonable estimate, I calculate the cost of the books burned to have been
L200. Would to God it had been the money,--then had it never cost me a
sigh!" Beside the books, Jefferson lost most of his notes and papers; but
no mishap, not cau