The introductory paragraph to the Declaration ascends into the body of the document as gracefully and as certainly as the wide flights of easy steps ascend to the doors of Monticello; the long and beautifully balanced paragraph which follows, building word upon word and sentence upon sentence into a central statement, has a form as definite and graceful as that of the finely proportioned house; the numbered paragraphs which follow, setting forth separate details, are like rooms within the house, and—­I have just come upon the coincidence with a pleasant start such as might be felt by the discoverer of some complex and important cipher—­as there are twenty-seven of the numbered paragraphs in the Declaration, so there are twenty-seven rooms in Monticello.  Last of all there are two little phrases in the Declaration (the phrases stating that we shall hold our British brethren in future as we hold the rest of mankind—­“enemies in war; in peace, friends"), which I would liken to the small twin buildings, one of them Jefferson’s office, the other that of the overseer, which stand on either side of the lawn at Monticello, at some distance from the house.  These office buildings face, and balance upon each other, and upon the mansion, but they are so much smaller that to put them there required daring, while to make them “compose” (as painters say) with the great house, required the almost superhuman sense of symmetry which Jefferson assuredly possessed.

The present owner of Monticello is Mr. Jefferson Monroe Levy, former United States congressman from New York.  Mr. Levy is a Democrat and a bachelor, according to the Congressional Directory, which states further that he inherited Monticello from an uncle, Commodore Uriah P. Levy, U.S.N., and that the latter purchased the place in 1830 “at the suggestion of President Jackson.”

Dorothy Dix, writing in “Good Housekeeping,” tells a tale which I have heard repeatedly of the acquisition of Monticello by Uriah Levy.  Says Miss Dix: 

“Monticello was sold to a stranger, and Jefferson’s only daughter, Mrs. Randolph, widowed and with eleven children, was left homeless....  A subscription of three thousand dollars was raised ... to buy back the house ... and this money was intrusted to a young relative of the Jeffersons’ to convey to Charlottesville.  Traveling in the stagecoach with the young man was Captain Uriah P. Levy, to whom he confided his mission.  The young man became intoxicated and dallied, but Captain Levy hastened on to Charlottesville, and purchased Monticello for two thousand five hundred dollars.  The next day the repentant and sober young man arrived and besought Captain Levy to take the three thousand dollars ... and let Monticello go back to the Jefferson family.  Captain Levy refused to part with his bargain, but at his death he willed Monticello to ’the people of the United States to be held as a memorial of Thomas Jefferson’....  The Levy heirs contested the will, and it was finally decided upon a technicality that ’the people of the United States’ was too indefinite a term to make the bequest binding, and the estate passed into the hands of the Levys, and so to its present owner....”