in the inscription
which he wrote for his tombstone--a modest obelisk on the grounds at
Monticello. The inscription mentions but three of his achievements: the
authorship of the Declaration, that of the Virginia statute for
religious freedom, and the fact that he was "Father of the University of
Virginia."

Regardless of other accomplishments, the man who built the university
and the house at Monticello was great. It is more true of these
buildings than of any others I have seen that they are the
autobiography, in brick and stone, of their architect. To see them, to
see some of the exquisitely margined manuscript in Jefferson's clean
handwriting, preserved in the university library, and to read the
Declaration, is to gain a grasp of certain sides of Jefferson's nature
which can be achieved in no other way.

Monticello stands on a lofty hilltop, with vistas, between trees, of
neighboring valleys, hills, and mountains. It is a supremely lovely
house, unlike any other, and, while it is too much to say that one would
recognize it as the house of the writer of the Declaration, it is not
too much to say that, once one does know it, one can trace a clear
affinity resulting from a common origin--an affinity much more apparent,
by the way, than may be traced between the work of Michelangelo on St.
Peter's at Rome, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and in his
"David."

The introductory paragraph to the Declaration ascends into the body of
the document as gracefully and as certainly as the wide flights of easy
steps ascend to the doors of Monticello; the long and beautifully
balanced paragraph which follows, building word upon word and sentence
upon sentence into a central statement, has a form as definite and
graceful as that of the finely proportioned house; the numbered
paragraphs which follow, setting forth separate details, are like rooms
within the house, and--I have just come upon the coincidence with a
pleasant start such as might be felt by the discoverer of some complex
and important cipher--as there are twenty-seven of the numbered
paragraphs in the Declaration, so there are twenty-seven rooms in
Monticello. Last of all there are two little phrases in the Declaration
(the phrases stating that we shall hold our British brethren in future
as we hold the rest of mankind--"enemies in war; in peace, friends"),
which I would liken to the small twin buildings, one of them Jefferson's
office, the other that of the overs