send to his friend Philip Mazzei, with directions for planting;
or even wrote a letter full of reflections upon bigotry in
politics and religion to Dr. Joseph Priestley, whom he hoped soon
to have as his guest in the President's House.

Toward noon Mr. Jefferson stepped out of the house and walked
over to the Capitol--a tall, rather loose-jointed figure, with
swinging stride, symbolizing, one is tempted to think, the
angularity of the American character. "A tall, large-boned
farmer," an unfriendly English observer called him. His
complexion was that of a man constantly exposed to the sun--sandy
or freckled, contemporaries called it--but his features were
clean-cut and strong and his expression was always kindly and
benignant.

Aside from salvos of artillery at the hour of twelve, the
inauguration of Mr. Jefferson as President of the United States
was marked by extreme simplicity. In the Senate chamber of the
unfinished Capitol, he was met by Aaron Burr, who had already
been installed as presiding officer, and conducted to the
Vice-President's chair, while that debonair man of the world took
a seat on his right with easy grace. On Mr. Jefferson's left sat
Chief Justice John Marshall, a "tall, lax, lounging Virginian,"
with black eyes peering out from his swarthy countenance. There
is a dramatic quality in this scene of the President-to-be seated
between two men who are to cause him more vexation of spirit than
any others in public life. Burr, brilliant, gifted, ambitious,
and profligate; Marshall, temperamentally and by conviction
opposed to the principles which seemed to have triumphed in the
election of this radical Virginian, to whom indeed he had a