Although in the circle of his friends, where he might be unreserved with
safety, he took a free share in conversation, his colloquial talents
were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas, nor
fluency of words. In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he was
unready, short, and embarrassed. Yet he wrote readily, rather diffusely,
in an easy and correct style. This he had acquired by conversation with
the world, for his education was merely reading, writing, and common
arithmetic, to which he added surveying at a later day. His time was
employed in action chiefly, reading little, and that only in agriculture
and English history. His correspondence became necessarily extensive,
and with journalizing his agricultural proceedings, occupied most of his
leisure hours within doors. On the whole, his character was in its mass,
perfect; in nothing, bad; in few points indifferent; and it may truly be
said that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a
man great.
* * * * *
From the "Notes on Virginia."
=_63._= GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITS OF THE ELEPHANT AND THE MAMMOTH. 1781.
From the thirtieth degree of south latitude to the thirtieth of north
are nearly the limits which nature has fixed for the existence
and multiplication of the elephant known to us.
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