personality of Thomas Jefferson— which could be shown as a constant thing, or in the process of change, or contrasted with the personality of “Jeffersonianism.”
But, though Mr. Dos Passos, in his familiarity with the period, shows us a considerable amount of Jefferson, as well as giving us some good views of his contemporaries, the soft-pedaling of his faults that I find so evident in the handling of the Burr controversy is to me a measure of the author’s disinclination to show the full Jefferson, which disinclination bars him from any of these three approaches to unity. It is a harsh thing to quarrel with a man for not writing a book that he had no intention of writing, and harsher still when one has enjoyed reading what he did write. It is harsh also to quarrel with a novelist for writing a novel (perhaps I ought to use the words elegist and elegy), and doubly harsh to object to what I would give much to hear as table talk or fireside conversation. But this book is not about three Jeffersonian decades; it does not particularly seem to be about the shackles of power; however, for those who relish good stories, and who are proof against (or do not care about) a rather cavalier treatment of controversial matters, the book can be cheerfully recommended.
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