* * *
What a feast for the mind may we not expect from the
published letters of these excellent men! They were both masters in this way,
though somewhat contrasted. Mr. Adams, plain, nervous, and emphatic, the
thought couched in the fewest and strongest words, and striking with a kind of
epigrammatic force. Mr. Jefferson,
flowing with easy and careless melody, the language at the same time pruned of
every redundant word, and giving the thought with the happiest precision, the
aptest words dropping unbidden and unsought into their places, as if they had
fallen from the skies; and so beautiful, so felicitous, as to fill the mind
with a succession of delightful surprises, while the judgement is, at the same
time, made captive by the closely compacted energy of the argument. Mr. Jefferson's style is so easy and
harmonious, as to have led the superficial readers to remark, that he was
deficient in strength: as if ruggedness and abruptness were essential to
strength. Mr. Jefferson's strength was
inherent in the thoughts and conceptions, though hidden by the light and
graceful vestments which he threw over them.
