Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VI IN CONGRESS AGAIN It soon became evident that the ex-governor had experienced a wound far too deep to be healed by the gentle palliatives which had been considerately, but not enthusiastically, given to him. In an extremely bitter and resentful frame of mind, he moodily secluded himself at home, and reiterated upon every opportunity his resolve never again to be drawn forth into public life. He busied himself with his plantations, the education of his children, and the care of his invalid wife. In the winter months, early in 1782, he put the finishing touches to a labor which he had begun in the preceding spring, his well-known and useful
Notes on Virginia. In the spring of the same year he obstinately refused to attend the session of the legislature, though he was still a member. His enemies severely criticised this conduct, which his friends could not easily defend; Madison privately deplored such a display of irreconcilable temper, and Monroe more openly wrote him a plain letter of rebuke. But he was not to be moved; his only reply was a reiteration of his rankling sense of injury, and his obstinate purpose to have done forever with the public service. Yet it is probable that a more amiable incentive for such, conduct mingled with his anger, though he was too proud and too hurt to name it. For his wife was in very ill health. In May, 1782, she lay in with her sixth child, and thereafter there could be no real hope of her recovery. Jefferson was tender and assiduous in his care of her as it was possible for man to be, and when at last, in September, the final day came, the scene was a terrible one. For three weeks after she died he did not leave his room; afterward he had recourse to long wanderings in the solitary wood-paths of the mountain. His oldest d…