Thomas Jefferson took all fields of knowledge as his province; he is perhaps the only American president who without quibbling or hedging can truly be labeled as an intellectual; and there is validity in Ezra Pound's contention that he was "perhaps the last American official to have any general sense of civilization." At the same time, he was a very practical man with an infinite capacity for taking pains, along with a statistician's passion for accumulating facts; I suspect that were he living today one of his favorite books would be the Guinness Book of World Records.

During his long and active life, Mr. Jefferson spent a great deal of money (which, incidentally, seems to have infuriated one of his more recent biographers). He loved what used to be called the good things of life, and he spared neither time, talent, nor expense in satisfying his desires—indeed, his passion—for them. As the thousands of annual visitors to Monticello know, he created a plantation which was simultaneously beautiful, luxurious, and practical; he kept fine horses in his stables and fine wines in his cellars; when he was minister to France he lived sumptuously; he collected or supervised the collection of three libraries including the truly magnificent—and expensive—one which he sold to Congress in 1815 (which became the nucleus of the Library of Congress) at a fraction of its original cost.

But Mr. Jefferson's appetite for these and similar good things never conflicted with his keen, unwinking practicality. For approximately 60 years he kept a series of minutely-detailed