“Mr. Jefferson tells large stories,” wrote John Quincy Adams, commenting on Thomas Jefferson’s boast that he learned Spanish in nineteen days. Adams, who was a splendid linguist in his own right, commented, with a touch of ambiguity, “You can never be an hour in this man’s company without something of the marvelous.” By all accounts, Jefferson was a gifted raconteur, and dinner at his table was, in the words of Benjamin Latrobe, “an elegant mental treat.” It is said that he was a poor orator, who kept his silence in public debates, but he was pleasing and persuasive in conversation, and he knew how to tell a story to his advantage.1

In early childhood he displayed the qualities of a Tom Sawyer, according to his own family’s tradition. His grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, reports that he once tried to pull a fast one on his father, who sent him into the forest with a gun to practice self-reliance.