Page:How to Get Strong (1899).pdf/344



"Jefferson was a stripling of seventeen, tall, rawboned, freckled, and sandy-haired, when in 1760 he came to Williamsburg from the far west of Virginia to enter the College of William and Mary. With his large feet and hands, his thick wrists, and prominent cheek-bones and chin, he could not have been accounted handsome or graceful. He is described, however, as a fresh, bright, healthy-looking youth, as straight as a gun-barrel, sinewy and strong, with that alertness of movement which comes with early familiarity with saddle and gun and canoe and minuet and contra-dance—that sure, elastic tread and ease of bearing which we still observe in country-bred lads, who have been exempt from the ruder toils of agriculture while enjoying in full measure the freedom and the sports of the country.