Jefferson's Demons: Portrait of a Restless MindSimon and Schuster, 2010/05/11 - 288 ページ "I have often wondered for what good end the sensations of Grief could be intended." -- Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson suffered during his life from periodic bouts of dejection and despair, shadowed intervals during which he was full of "gloomy forebodings" about what lay ahead. Not long before he composed the Declaration of Independence, the young Jefferson lay for six weeks in idleness and ill health at Monticello, paralyzed by a mysterious "malady." Similar lapses were to recur during anxious periods in his life, often accompanied by violent headaches. In Jefferson's Demons, Michael Knox Beran illuminates an optimistic man's darker side -- Jefferson as we have rarely seen him before. The worst of these moments came after his wife died in 1782. But two years later, after being dispatched to Europe, Jefferson recovered nerve and spirit in the salons of Paris, where he fell in love with a beautiful young artist, Maria Cosway. When their affair ended, Jefferson's health again broke down. He set out for the palms and temples of southern Europe, and though he did not know where the therapeutic journey would take him or where it would end, his encounter with the old civilizations of the Mediterranean was transformative. The Greeks and Romans taught him that a man could make productive use of his demons. Jefferson's immersion in the mystic truths of the Old World gave him insights into mysteries of life and art that Enlightenment philosophy had failed to supply. Beran skillfully shows how Jefferson drew on the esoteric lore he encountered to transform anxiety into action. On his return to America, Jefferson entered the most productive period of his life: He created a new political party, was elected president, and doubled the size of the country. His private labors were no less momentous...among them, the artistry of Monticello and the University of Virginia. Jefferson's Demons is an elegantly composed account of the strangeness and originality of one Founder's genius. Michael Knox Beran uncovers the maps Jefferson used to find his way out of dejection and to forge a new democratic culture for America. Here is a Jefferson who, with all his failings, remains one of his country's greatest teachers and prophets. |
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... categories of religious dissent; the Triennial Act (1694) reformed the Parliament; and the decision to allow the Licensing Act to expire (1695) emancipated the press. Prologue “I am burning the candle of life,” he told.
... categories of religious dissent; the Triennial Act (1694) reformed the Parliament; and the decision to allow the Licensing Act to expire (1695) emancipated the press. Prologue “I am burning the candle of life,” he told.
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... told a friend, “without present pleasure, or future object.” “A dozen or twenty years ago this scene would have amused me,” he said. “But I am past the age for changing habits.” Under the perpetual dullness of the winter sky, Jefferson ...
... told a friend, “without present pleasure, or future object.” “A dozen or twenty years ago this scene would have amused me,” he said. “But I am past the age for changing habits.” Under the perpetual dullness of the winter sky, Jefferson ...
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... told his daughter Martha, or “Patsy”— given up to “snaggletoothed laziness”—one's “being becomes a burthen, and every object about us loathsome.” Idleness, Jefferson warned, “begets ennui,” and “ennui the hypochondria.” (The word ...
... told his daughter Martha, or “Patsy”— given up to “snaggletoothed laziness”—one's “being becomes a burthen, and every object about us loathsome.” Idleness, Jefferson warned, “begets ennui,” and “ennui the hypochondria.” (The word ...
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... told Ezra Stiles in the decade before he died. Just now we are between Jeffersons. Older editions of the man have been put aside. No new volume has yet been issued to take its place. “All honor to Jefferson,” Abraham Lincoln said, to ...
... told Ezra Stiles in the decade before he died. Just now we are between Jeffersons. Older editions of the man have been put aside. No new volume has yet been issued to take its place. “All honor to Jefferson,” Abraham Lincoln said, to ...
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... told a friend. “I thank on my knees him who directed my early education, for having put into my possession this rich source of delight.” He loved books, especially old ones, and more especially classical ones. Yet he was not bookish. He ...
... told a friend. “I thank on my knees him who directed my early education, for having put into my possession this rich source of delight.” He loved books, especially old ones, and more especially classical ones. Yet he was not bookish. He ...
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