Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 21

A definitive new volume of the retirement papers of Thomas JeffersonThe 533 documents in this volume include revealing material on Jefferson's health. He is limited to a liquid diet for weeks due to an abscess under his jaw. Although daily horseback rides take him ';3. or 4. to 8. or 10. miles without fatigue,' he cannot walk ';further than my garden.' He has lost only one tooth due to age and is glad not to need ';teeth of porcelain.'Due to debility, Jefferson's only serious occupation is the effort to open the University of Virginia. Francis W. Gilmer travels to Great Britain to recruit professors and buy ';a library and apparatus.' Jefferson is determined to hire only faculty of ';the first grade of science.' The Rotunda is still unfinished but fit for use ';until funds may occur to compleat it.'Jefferson predicts that a plan to send freed African Americans to Africa will fail. He observes that ';barbarism' is in decline and ';will in time I trust disappear from the earth.' To another correspondent he defends ';the principles which have guided my public life,' but adds that, when altered circumstances make changes of principle beneficial, ';then let such changes take place, and the means yield to the end.'