An Embarrassment of Riches. James Howard Kunstler

where we sat, I could see only two officers speaking to a concealed third figure behind the doorjamb. Both officers were tall and youthful, in their twenties. The first was a dark-haired, olive-complexioned captain with a distinctly sad countenance. His companion was fair, with a face full of sunshine. Their arms pumped a concealed hand, then both turned to depart. The next moment, Diablo himself stepped into view.

      “My dear William!” he cried and took Uncle in his embrace. The score of other waiting gentlemen (et al.) froze like statues at the Chief Magistrate’s presence. I stood behind Uncle, nervously fingering the brim of my hat. The devil was a big fellow, all right. He peered at me over Uncle’s shoulder and, to my horror, winked as if to a cohort. “And you, sir, are young Samuel,” the archfiend said to me, releasing Uncle.

      “Samuel Walker, Excellency,” I affirmed and bowed.

      “Excellency, ho!” Beelzebub declared delightedly.

      “Thee must call him Mr. President, Sammy,” Uncle explained aside.

      “While it is excellence we strive toward, you’ll find no Excellencies here, young man. This is a democratic republic now.”

      “My nephew is a worshipper of Publius,” Uncle said to my chagrin.

      “Ho, indeed!” Satan relished the thought and rubbed his hands together. My knees knocked. I was furious with Uncle for betraying me. “Well now, should we boil him in oil? Douse him with molasses and bind him to an anthill? How shall we correct his philosophy?”

      “How about the pit?” Uncle suggested.

      “The pit …? Ah, yes, the pit!” Mephisto played along. “But I cannot send off an erring calf on an empty stomach. If the two of you will join me at table, perhaps we can stay the … philosophy lesson.”

      Uncle glanced at me, his eyes moist with merriment. Jefferson awaited our reply.

      “Lead the way, Thomas,” Uncle said. “Why, I’m as hungry as Ursus americanus! I could eat an horse.”

      With that, the three of us entered the President’s private chamber, myself tripping on the doorsill, to the mirth of those scheming politicos without.

      What I recall most vividly about Jefferson after all these years was the placidity, the calmness, the near-beatitude of his manner, his voice in particular. In this respect I believe he was as skilled as any actor who ever trod the boards. His part: the Democrat Zeus.

      In appearance he was a tall, raw-boned farmer. His brown coat, like Uncle’s gardening frock, was old and threadbare. He wore a soot-colored, hairy-textured waistcoat with a scarlet underwaistcoat lapped beneath it. His green velvet breeches with pearl buttons at the calf looked like a fairly recent acquisition, but his stockings were coarse, gray, and riddled with holes, while his slippers were decidedly down at the heels. It has become public knowledge since that time that Mr. Jefferson lived constantly under the Damoclean sword of debt. His wine bills alone, during the years of his presidency, were staggering. Yet it is characteristic of him that a man who could import fifty cases of the best claret on credit would not order a few suits of clothes to go with it. The threadbare raiment, of course, was the actor’s costume.

      He led us from the door to a table set with implements of ringingly undemocratic silver. Servants appeared bearing silver trays.

      “While in Europe, I often amused myself with contemplating the characters of the then-reigning sovereigns of the continent,” Jefferson spoke as we began a luncheon of venison chops, risotto, Virginia asparagus, and a bottle of his excellent Meursault. “Louis the Sixteenth was a fool of my own knowledge. The King of Naples was a fool, and the King of Spain. The King of Sardinia was an imbecile. All these were Bourbons. The Queen of Portugal, a Braganza, was an idiot by nature, and so was the King of Denmark. The King of Prussia, successor to the great Frederick, was a mere hog, in body as well as in mind. Joseph of Austria and Gustavus of Sweden were really crazy. And George of England, you know, was in a strait waistcoat.”

      The President lifted a spear of asparagus to his mouth, displayed momentarily a mischievous smile, then ate the pale green shoot. Uncle guffawed and dabbed his chin with his napkin. I tried to show a smile of appreciation, but it was a timid, cracked, pitiful thing.

      “Reports sometimes reach my desk alleging that the seventeenth Louis, the lost Dauphin of France, is at large here in America. I say he is welcome, but let us hope, gentlemen, for the sake of the national intellect, that he does not reproduce,” our host added in postscript.

      All these calumnies by Jefferson on the monarchs of Europe were delivered in a tone of voice as soft as lambskin, in that Virginia dialect at once tuneful and lulling. His mouth, even in repose, had a slight upturn at the corners that conveyed perpetual delight in its own ingenuity. This was, in fact, the most appealing element of that pale, freckled face. For the hazel eyes, though sparkling with wit, never rested on an object or a person more than a moment. Like the eyes of a great wary bird of prey, they shifted continuously, ever alert to danger. What a contrast to his lulling voice. I admit, its seductive power had already begun to scale the redoubt of my obdurate Hamiltonianism.

      “You see, Samuel,” he turned to me, eyes flitting everywhere about the room, “society simply divides itself between sheep and wolves. Officials of whatever stripe, monarchs or otherwise, tend to become the wolves, so that government, like the wolf pack, becomes an engine perfectly suited for the devouring of sheep. Is it not, therefore, our duty to make a government too weak to aid the wolves in their depredations, and yet strong enough to protect the sheep?”

      “O, absolutely,” I agreed without hesitation. Picturing the soft-fleshed visage of my hero, Alexander Hamilton, sprouting fangs and coarse wolf’s hair, I shuddered.

      “This is why we must keep the ship of state on the Republican tack,” Jefferson concluded the lesson with a flourish. He had finished his asparagus, sampled his risotto, and disdained his meat altogether. “Hector!” he called musically. A servant reappeared, swept all three of our plates into his grasp, like an osprey snatching herrings off the surface of the Sound, and vanished into the pantry. I had barely addressed my meal. Though he was renowned as a gourmet, the President suffered a poor digestion and his interest in cuisine was largely theoretical. “Now,” he resumed, leaning forward over the cleared napery, “what I am about to tell you must be held in the strictest confidence.” He glanced my way, that wry smile upon his lips, eyes darting everywhere. “Do you understand, my boy?”

      I could only wince in reply.

      “Good,” Jefferson said, that single word so drawn out and melodic. He rose from the table, seized a thick volume from his desk, and returned. “You are familiar with Buffon?” he said, more a statement than a question. His referent here was George Louis LeClerc, Comte de Buffon, esteemed philosophe and autocrat of the infant science of zoology. The President did not wait for us to affirm, but went straight to the point: “The opinion advanced by the Comte de Buffon is that (1) the animals common both to the Old and New Worlds are smaller in the latter, (2) that those peculiar to the New are on a smaller scale, (3) that those that have been domesticated in both the Old and New show signs of having degenerated in America, and (4) that on the whole we exhibit fewer species.”

      “Rot!” Uncle said.

      Jefferson opened the heavy volume to a dog-eared page.

      “Listen to this,” he said and proceeded to read aloud. “‘In thinly inhabited regions’—America, he means—‘nature is always rude and sometimes deformed. The air and the earth are overloaded with humid and noxious vapors, unable to purify themselves or profit by the influence of the sun, who darts in vain his most enlivening rays upon this frigid mass.’”

      The President glanced up at us.

      Uncle crossed his arms and pursed his lips. “Twaddle!” he pronounced.

      “A libel!” I affirmed loyally.

      “Ah, there is more. Much more,” our host said with a gleeful smile. “‘All that America can produce are reptiles and insects. The place affords nourishment only for