Alright so you are going to look at this and (if you are anything like me, who doesns't read a blog post that is more than a few words at most) think there is no way I am going to read that. And you'll look for a picture and leave.
So for most of you this is where we say good bye for the day.... Bye. See you when I put more pictures on here.
For the rest of you... this is a something that Thomas Jefferson said about Patrick Henry.
You are going to need to know a few things very quickly if you are going to find this intersting and even a little funny. (Like I did.)
1. Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry where very strong political rivals.
2. Thomas Jefferson liked books, knowledge gained from books, high society and other things running along those lines.
3. Patrick Henry grew up in the country, loving the outdoors and found it hard to read when he could be doing other things.
4. Both where amazing men who were loved by their country.
And
5. I like Patrick Henry a LOT more than I like Thomas Jefferson.
Now you can read this. Pay attention to the part I underlined because I think it is funny.
"Patrick Henry was originally a bar-keeper. He was married very young, & going into some business on his own account, was a bankrupt before the year was out.…
He was well suited to the times as any man ever was, & it is not now easy to say, what we should have done without Patrick Henry. He was far before all, in maintaining the spirit of the Revolution. His influence was most extensive, with the Members from the Upper Counties, & his boldness their votes overawed controlled the more cool, of the more timid Aristocratic gentlemen of the lower part of the State.
"His eloquence was peculiar; if indeed it should be called eloquence, for it was impressive &sublime beyond what can be imagined. Although it was difficult when he had spoken, to tell what he had said, yet while he was speaking, it always seemed directly to the point. When he had spoken in opposition to my opinion, had produced a great effect, & I myself been highly delighted & moved, I have asked myself when he ceased, "What the devil has he said," & could never answer the enquiry.
'His person was of full size, & his manner & voice free & manly. His utterance neither very fast nor very slow. His speeches generally short from a quarter to an half hour. His pronunciation, was vulgar& vicious, but it was forgotten while he was speaking.
He was a man of very little knowledge of any sort, he read nothing & had no books. Returning one November from Albemarle Court, he borrowed of me Hume's Essays, in two vols. saying he should have leisure in the winter for reading. In the spring he returned the, & declared he had not been able to go farther than twenty or thirty pages, in the first volume. He wrote almost nothing, he could not write. The resolutions of '75 which have been ascribed to him, have by many, been supposed to have been written by. Mr [Thomas] Johnson, who acted as his second, on that occasion. But if they were written by Henry himself, they are not such as to prove any power of composition. Neither in politicks nor in his profession was he a man of business, he was a man for debate only. His biographer [William Wirt] says, that he read Plutarch every year,- I doubt whether he ever read a volume of it in his life. His temper was excellent, & he generally observed decorum in debate.
"On one or two occasions I have seen him angry- and his anger was terrible. Those who witnessed it, were not disposed to rouse it again. In his opinions he was yielding & practicable, & not disposed to differ from his friends. In private conversation he was agreeable, facetious while in genteel society appeared to understand all the decencies & proprieties of it; but in his heart, he preferred low society, & sought it as often as possible. He would hunt in the pine woods of Fluvannah, with overseers, & people of that description, living in a camp for a fortnight at the time without a change of raiment. I have often been astonished at his command of proper language; how he obtained the knowledge of it, I never could find out, as he read so little & conversed little with educated men.
After all, it must be allowed that he was our leader, in the measures of the Revolution, in Virginia. In the respect more it due to HIM then to any other person. If we had not had him, we probably have got on pretty well, as you did by a number of men of nearly equal talents, but he left us all far behind."
~Thomas Jefferson, Conversation with Daniel Webster 1824~
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