statue (Galt's), enclosed by a high iron railing, whose rectangular pedestal bore the inscription: Father of the University of Virginia. I also encountered the librarian, Mr. Wertenbaker, then apparently a very old man, who recognizing in me a new student, volunteered the names of the several portraits suspended against the columns-Joseph C. Cabell, Gessner Harrison, Charles Bonnycastle, Thomas Hewett Key, Robley Dunglison, Edward H. Courtenay, John P. Emmet, Socrates Maupin, Robert E. Lee, etc.—along with numerous historic facts, including that he had seen Mr. Jefferson many times in the flesh and from him had received, nearly fifty years before, the appointment to his present position. Seeing I was interested, he absented himself, but in a moment returned with a small dark frame held carefully in his hands. This, he remarked, is the evidence of what I have just said; I prize it most highly, but you may read it if you will be cautious in the handling. Upon inspection it proved to be the original well-preserved letter of notification from Mr. Jefferson, in his own handwriting, and is self-explanatory: To Mr. Wm. Wertenbaker: SIR,-The office of librarian to the University of Virginia having become vacant by the resignation of Mr. Kean, and the authority of ultimate appointment being in the Board of Visitors, it becomes necessary, in the meantime, to place the library under the temporary care of some one; you are, therefore, hereby appointed to take charge thereof until the Visitors shall make their final appointment. You will be entitled to a compensation at the rate of one hundred and fifty dollars a year, to be paid by the Proctor from the funds of the University. An important part of your charge will be to keep the books in a state of sound preservation, undefaced, and free from injury by moisture or other accident, and in their stated arrangement on the shelves according to the method and order of their catalogue. Your other general duties and rules of conduct are prescribed in the printed collection of the enactments of the Board of Visitors. Of these rules the Board will expect the strictest observance on your part, and that you use the utmost care and vigilance that they be strictly observed by others. Given under my hand this 30th day of January, 1826. TH. JEFFERSON. To me that certainly was a most profitable hour, as it not only gave rise to a positive determination to accept the advantages of the library along with the required duties, but also to a close friendship with the librarian-that enjoyed by few students-which continued ever cordial throughout my course. Some days thereafter I repeated my visit, and while there chanced to observe on one of the tables a moderate-sized volume with a fresh, attractive green cloth binding, titled "The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson." This was by his gifted great granddaughter, Sarah N. Randolph, who resided with her father and sister on the old homestead, Edgehill, some five miles distant, where they conducted in the pretentious brick mansion a private boarding school for young ladies, which then enjoyed a substantial reputation in many parts of the South. The book had only appeared the year before (1871), and had just been returned by one of the professors, so I concluded this my opportunity for learning more of Mr. Jefferson. Upon the asking, Mr. Wertenbaker cheerfully granted its loan-recording its title, date, my name and room number. In due time I followed this with other livesTucker, Randall, Schmucker-which, with the Jeffersonian atmosphere pervading the community, soon sufficed to create intelligently in me an ardent admiration for the man and his principles. Ever afterwards the library somehow possessed for me a peculiar fascination—whether due to its classic architecture, its contained literature, its vivid souvenirs and reminders of the quiet as well as turbulent past, or to Mr. Wertenbaker's personality, or to these collectively, need not be affirmed, but the fact remained that I was allured into spending frequently hours there that might have possibly been devoted elsewhere to greater advantage. It was, however, far from idle pastime to sit facing that senile personage, never garrulous, and quietly imbibe his ruminations of bygones-such as at times, when the spirit moved, he willingly communicated to the patient and interested. His birth, youth, manhood and old age had followed each other in and around Charlottesville, where he remembered the enactment of most important events since that day in 1809 on which Mr. Jefferson returned from the occupancy of the White House. He was filled with pleasant recollections, not only of Mr. Jefferson and the creation of the University, but he had seen time and again-even enjoyed their conversation-such worthy celebrities as Madison, Monroe, Lafayette, Cabell, Gilmer, Poe, Long, Bonnycastle, Emmet, Blaetterman, Key, Dunglison, Courtenay, Bledsoe and countless others, and better yet, still retained to a remarkable extent, accurate impressions of their respective personalities. How he delighted to defend his poet classmate, Edgar Allan Poe, students together at the University during its second session, when they enjoyed each other's friendship and confidence to a felicitous degree. It was as though an oracle sat recounting mysterious experiences with that scintillating and lugubrious genius-so gifted then in many languages as to excel his associates, and even in Italian, at Professor Blaetterman's assigning the rendition into English verse parts of Tasso and other authors, to be usually the only one of the class living up to the requirement. It, however, was no dream, nor the fiction of The Raven, when he recalled a certain cold night in December, 1826, on which, after spending together its early hours at a private house socially, they wended their way to Poe's room, 13 West Range, to find the fire in "dying embers," but soon to be rekindled by that gifted hand with some candle-ends and the wreck of a table, in order to recount in comfort before the blaze real as well as imaginary grievances against man and the world. It was an open confession-a sad story-as Poe referred with regret to money wasted and debt contracted, forsooth, of an ungovernable thirst for card-playing-not for drinking, as that to him was then almost an unknown vice. That reminiscence possesses a charm tinctured with pathos never to be forgotten-immutable in the mind as are many of our earlier lessons. Indeed after a talk with Mr. Wertenbaker it seemed no imaginative effort to realize Mr. Jefferson on horseback riding through West Range to the rear of the original library— fourth pavilion from the Rotunda, West Lawn, occupied at my period, first by Professor Leopold J. Boeck, and later by Professor Noah K. Davis-dismounting, hitching his horse and hastening within to assist the librarian, Kean or Wertenbaker, in properly classifying various books; or perchance Monticello, Western or Rear Approach (From Watson's Life and Times of Thomas Jefferson," by courtesy of D. Appleton & Co.) |