lived in the easy and profuse style of
Virginia planters,--giving few grand dinners, but dispensing a generous
hospitality to French visitors as well as to all Americans who called on
him. The letters he wrote were innumerable. No public man ever left to
posterity more of the results of his observations and thought.
Interesting himself in everything and everybody, and freely
communicating his ideas in correspondence, he had a wide influence while
living, and his ideas have been suggestive and fruitful to thoughtful
students of the public interest ever since.

After five years' residence in France, he returned home, a much more
intelligent and cultivated man than when he arrived in Paris, which
never lost its charm for him, in spite of its political convulsions, its
irreligion, and its social inequality. He came back to Monticello as on
a visit only, expecting to return to his post. But another destiny
awaited him. Washington required his services in the first Cabinet as
Secretary of State for foreign affairs,--a part for which his diplomatic
career had admirably qualified him, as well as his general abilities.

The seat of government was then at New York, and Jefferson occupied a
house in Maiden Lane, while Hamilton, as Secretary of the Treasury,
lived in Pine street. Jefferson's salary was $3,500 a year, five hundred
more than Hamilton received; but it is not to be supposed that either
lived on his official income. The population of the city was then but
thirty-five thousand, and only a few families--at the head of which were
the Schuylers, the Livingstons, the Van Rensselaers, and the
Morrises--constituted what is called "Society," which was much more
ceremonious than at the present day, and more exclusive. All the great
officers of the new government were aristocratic and stately, even
inaccessible, except Jefferson; and many of the fashions, titles, and
ceremonies of European courts were kept up. The factotum of the
President signed himself as "Steward of the Household," while Washington
himself rode to church in a coach and six, attended by outriders. Great
functionaries were called "Most Honorable," and their wives were
addressed as "Lady" So-and-So. The most confidential ministers dared
not assume any familiarity with the President. He was not addressed as
"Mr. President," but as "Your Excellency," and even that title was too
democratic for the taste of John Adams, who thought it lowered the
president to the lev