panther and could walk or ride or run six days and nights together. He
could lift from the floor a thousand pounds.

When twenty-four, he hung out his lawyer's sign under that of George Wythe
at Williamsburg. And clients came that way with retainers, and rich
planters sent him business, and wealthy widows advised with him--and still
he could not make a speech without stuttering. Many men can harangue a
jury, and every village has its orator; but where is the wise and silent
man who will advise you in a way that will keep you out of difficulty,
protect your threatened interests, and conduct the affairs you may leave
in his hands so as to return your ten talents with other talents added!
And I hazard the statement, without heat or prejudice, that if the
experiment should be made with a thousand lawyers in any one of our larger
cities, four-fifths of them would be found so deficient, either mentally,
morally or both, that if ten talents were placed in their hands, they
would not at the close of a year be able to account for the principal, to
say nothing of the interest. And the bar of today is made up of a better
class than it was in Jefferson's time, even if it has not the intellectual
fiber that it had forty years ago.

But at the early age of twenty-five, Jefferson was a wise and skilful man
in the world's affairs (and a man who is wise is also honest), and men of
this stamp do not remain hidden in obscurity. The world needs just such
individuals and needs them badly. Jefferson had the quiet, methodical
industry that works without undue expenditure of nervous force; that
intuitive talent which enables the possessor to read a whole page at a
glance and drop at once upon the vital point; and then he had the ability
to get his whole case on paper, marshaling his facts in a brief, pointed
way that served to convince better than eloquence. These are the
characteristics that make for success in practise before our Courts of