Petra

“There he gained a reputation among his classmates as an obsessive student, sometimes spending fifteen hours with his books, three hours practicing his violin and the remaining six hours eating and sleeping. He was an extremely serious young man.”
― Joseph J. Ellis, American Sphinx (National Book Award Winner): The Character of Thomas Jefferson

“He sang whenever he was walking or riding, sometimes when he was reading. His former slave Isaac reported that one could “hardly see him anywhar outdoors, but that he was a-singin’.” Bacon confirmed that “when he was not talking he was nearly always humming some tune, or singing in a low voice to himself.”
― Joseph J. Ellis, American Sphinx (National Book Award Winner): The Character of Thomas Jefferson

“The explanation lies buried in the inner folds of Jefferson’s personality, beyond the reach of traditional historical methods and canons of evidence. What we can discern is a reclusive pattern of behavior with distinctive psychological implications. The youthful Jefferson had already shown himself to be an extremely private temperament. Monticello offers the most graphic illustration of Jefferson’s need to withdraw from the rest of the world, filled as it was with human conflicts and coercions, and create a refuge where the perfect Palladian architecture established the ideal environment for his vision of domestic harmony.”
― Joseph J. Ellis, American Sphinx (National Book Award Winner): The Character of Thomas Jefferson

“He also showed himself extremely sensitive to any criticism of his prose.”
― Joseph J. Ellis, American Sphinx (National Book Award Winner): The Character of Thomas Jefferson