According to his own statements it was a source of amazement even to
himself that he ever escaped to be worth anything to the world. He
realized in later years what a dangerous risk he had run.




READ LITTLE FICTION.

While he was an extensive reader in his early days, going into almost
every field of literature, including poetry, he read very little
fiction.

In fact, there was comparatively but little fiction then worth the name.
Not from any sentiment of duty or moral impropriety, but from simple
aversion he let it alone.




NEITHER ORATOR NOR GOOD TALKER.

Jefferson was neither an orator nor a good talker. He could not make a
speech. His voice would sink downwards instead of rising upwards out of
his throat.

But as regards legal learning he was in the front rank. No one was more
ready than he in ably written opinions and defenses.

It was in what John Adams termed "the divine science of politics" that