Page:Life And Letters Of Thomas Jefferson -- Hirst (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.89541).pdf/16

 that no one―not even a Peel, a Cobden, or a Gladstone—did more to graft these fruitful aims and golden rules of administration upon a new Democracy.

It were unprofitable and ungracious to weigh Jefferson's services to mankind and to America against those of Washington or Lincoln. Nor can their characters and talents be compared, though each owes his renown in large measure to a happy union of Patience, Perseverance and Fortitude. To the student of political philosophy Jefferson is the most interesting of all American statesmen, because he combined with a marvellous insight into the springs of human nature, and into the motives that sway individuals or masses, an extensive knowledge of political science and history. He was a theorist, a doctrinaire, an idealist, but always at school with experience. If the charge that he was too ambitious be true―and without a spice of ambition how few men of genius would be found to climb the slippery ladder of politics?―then nothing in his career is more astonishing than his constant loyalty to causes, which at times seemed lost, and to a form of religion which exposed him to the fury and intolerant fanaticism of orthodoxy at moments when political prudence would have counselled, if not conformity with received opinion, at least a quiet and unobtrusive reticence. But his convictions on moral and religious questions were so deeply entrenched, and were supported by a moral courage so proud and indomitable, that he preferred obloquy to compromise. His tenacity was equally marked in private and public life. It was observed of him that he never abandoned a plan, a principle or a friend. Of his extraordinary versatility―his scientific attainments, his wide scholarship and learning, his skill in mechanics and architecture, his almost universal curiosity―we shall find many