CHARLOTTESVILLE AND MONTICELLO
When Virginians speak of "the university," they do not mean Harvard,
Princeton, Yale, or even Washington and Lee, but always the University
of Virginia, which is at Charlottesville.
The city of Charlottesville, in its downtown parts, is no more and no
less dingy and dismal than many another town of six or seven thousand
inhabitants, be it North or South. It has a long main street, lined with
little shops and moving-picture shows, and the theatrical posters which
thrill one at first sight with hopes of evening entertainment, prove, on
inspection, to have survived long after the "show" they advertise has
come and gone, or else to presage the "show" that is coming for one
night, week after next.
Nor is this scarcity of theatrical entertainment confined alone to small
towns of the South. Not all important stars and important theatrical
productions visit even the largest cities, for the South is not regarded
by theatrical managers as particularly profitable territory. It would be
interesting to know whether anæmia of the theater in the South, as well
as the falling off generally of theatergoing in lesser American
cities--usually attributed to the popularity and cheapness of the
"movies"--is not due in large measure to the folly of managers
themselves in sending out inferior companies. Any one who has seen a
theatrical entertainment in New York and seen it later "on the road" is
likely to be struck by the fact that even the larger American cities do
not always get the full New York cast, while smaller cities seldom if
ever get any part of it. The South suffers particularly in this respect.
The little "river shows," which arrive now and then in river towns, and
which are more or less characteristic of the South, have the excuse of
real picturesqueness, however bad the entertainment given, for the
players live and have their theater on flatboats, which tie up at the
wharf. But the plain fact about the ordinary little southern "road show"
is that it does not deserve to make money.
The life of a poor player touring the South must be very wretched, for
generally, excepting in large cities, hotels are poor. Before we had
gone far upon our way, my companion and I learned to inquire carefully
in advance as to the best hotels, and when we found in any small city
one which was not a fire trap, and which was clean, we were surprised,
while if the service was fairly good, and the meals were not very bad,
we considered it a matter for rejoicing.
We were advised to stop, in Charlottesville, at the New Gleason, and
when we alighted at the dingy old brick railroad station--a station
quite as unprepossessing as that at New Haven, Connecticut--we began to
feel that all was not for the best. A large gray horse hitched to the
hack in which we rode to the Gleason evidently felt the same, for at
first he balked, and later tried to run away.
The hotel lobby was a perfect example of its kind. There were several
drummers writing at the little desks, and several more sitting idly in
chairs adjacent to brass cuspidors. All of them looked despondent with a
despondency suggesting pie for breakfast. Behind the desk was a
sleepy-looking old clerk who, as we arrived, was very busy over a
financial transaction involving change of ownership in a two-cent stamp.
This enterprise concluded, he assigned us rooms.
Never have I wished to win the toss for rooms as I wished it when I saw
the two allotted to us, for though the larger one could not by a flight
of fancy be termed cheerful, the sight of the lesser chamber filled me
with thoughts of madness.
Of course I lost.
Never shall I forget that room. It was too small to accommodate my
trunks with any comfort, so I left them downstairs with the porter,
descending, now and then, to get such articles as I required. The
furniture, what there was of it, was of yellow pine; the top of the
dresser was scarred with the marks of many glasses and many bottles; the
lace window curtains were long, hard and of a wiry stiffness, and the
wall-paper was of a scrambled pattern all in bilious brown. During the
evening I persuaded my companion to walk with me through the town, and
once I got him out I kept him going on and on through shadowy streets
unknown to us, until, exhausted, he insisted upon returning to our
hostelry. I fancy that there are picturesque old houses on the outskirts
of the town, but with that wall paper and a terrible nostalgia occupying
my mind, I was in no state to judge of what was there.
On reaching the hotel my companion went to bed, but I remained until
late in the office, writing letters, doing anything rather than go up to
my room. When at last I did ascend I planned to read, but the
arrangement of the light was bad, so presently I put it out and lay
there sleepless and miserable, thinking of foolish things that I have
said and done during a life rich with such items, and having chills and
fever over each separate recollection. How I drifted off to sleep at
last I do not know; all I remember is waking up next morning, leaping
out of bed and dressing in frantic haste to get out of my room. There
was but one thing in it which did not utterly offend the eye: that was
the steam pipe which ascended from floor to ceiling at one corner, and
which, being a simple, honest metal tube, was not objectionable.
As we passed through the office on our way to breakfast, the bus man
entered, and in a loud, retarded chant proclaimed: "Train for the
South!"
The impressive tones in which this announcement was delivered seemed to
call for a sudden stir, a rush for bags and coats, a general exodus,
but no one in the office moved, and I remember feeling sorry for the bus
man as he turned and went out in the midst of a crushing anti-climax.
"I wonder," I said to my companion, "if anybody ever gets up and goes
when that man calls out the trains."
"I don't believe so," he replied. "I don't think he calls trains for any
such purpose. He only warns people so they will expect to hear the
train, and not be frightened when it goes through."
* * * * *
Thomas Jefferson is most widely remembered, I suppose, as the author of
the Declaration of Independence, the third President, the purchaser of
Louisiana, and the unfortunate individual upon whom the Democratic party
casts the blame for its existence, precisely as the Republican party
blames itself on Washington and Lincoln--although the lamentable state
into which both parties have fallen is actually the fault of living men.
It is significant, however, that of this trio of Jeffersonian items,
Jefferson himself selected but one to be included 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 overseer, which stand on either side of
the lawn at Monticello, at some distance from the house. These office
buildings face, and balance upon each other, and upon the mansion, but
they are so much smaller that to put them there required daring, while
to make them "compose" (as painters say) with the great house, required
the almost superhuman sense of symmetry which Jefferson assuredly
possessed.
The present owner of Monticello is Mr. Jefferson Monroe Levy, former
United States congressman from New York. Mr. Levy is a Democrat and a
bachelor, according to the Congressional Directory, which states further
that he inherited Monticello from an uncle, Commodore Uriah P. Levy,
U.S.N., and that the latter purchased the place in 1830 "at the
suggestion of President Jackson."
Dorothy Dix, writing in "Good Housekeeping," tells a tale which I have
heard repeatedly of the acquisition of Monticello by Uriah Levy. Says
Miss Dix:
"Monticello was sold to a stranger, and Jefferson's only daughter, Mrs.
Randolph, widowed and with eleven children, was left homeless.... A
subscription of three thousand dollars was raised ... to buy back the
house ... and this money was intrusted to a young relative of the
Jeffersons' to convey to Charlottesville. Traveling in the stagecoach
with the young man was Captain Uriah P. Levy, to whom he confided his
mission. The young man became intoxicated and dallied, but Captain Levy
hastened on to Charlottesville, and purchased Monticello for two
thousand five hundred dollars. The next day the repentant and sober
young man arrived and besought Captain Levy to take the three thousand
dollars ... and let Monticello go back to the Jefferson family. Captain
Levy refused to part with his bargain, but at his death he willed
Monticello to 'the people of the United States to be held as a memorial
of Thomas Jefferson'.... The Levy heirs contested the will, and it was
finally decided upon a technicality that 'the people of the United
States' was too indefinite a term to make the bequest binding, and the
estate passed into the hands of the Levys, and so to its present
owner...."
In a biographical note upon the latter, the Congressional Directory
states that the house is "kept open to the public all the year." My
companion and I were admitted to the grounds, but were informed that,
though the building was unoccupied, no one was permitted to enter. While
we were in the vicinity of the house we were attended by one of the men
employed on the place, who told us that when people were allowed to
roam about at will, there had been much vandalism; ivy had been pulled
from the walls, shrubbery broken, pieces of brick chipped out of the
steps, and teeth knocked from the heads of the marble lions which flank
them.
Of recent years there has been on foot a movement, launched, I believe,
by Mrs. Martin W. Littleton, of New York, to influence the Government to
purchase Monticello from its present owner. It is difficult to see
precisely how Mr. Levy could be forced to part with his property, if he
did not wish to. Nevertheless public sentiment on this subject has
become so strong that he has agreed to let the Government have
Monticello "at a price"--so, at least, I was informed in
Charlottesville.