While
we were in the vicinity of the house we were attended by one of the men
employed on the place, who told us that when people were allowed to
roam about at will, there had been much vandalism; ivy had been pulled
from the walls, shrubbery broken, pieces of brick chipped out of the
steps, and teeth knocked from the heads of the marble lions which flank
them.
Of recent years there has been on foot a movement, launched, I believe,
by Mrs. Martin W. Littleton, of New York, to influence the Government to
purchase Monticello from its present owner. It is difficult to see
precisely how Mr. Levy could be forced to part with his property, if he
did not wish to. Nevertheless public sentiment on this subject has
become so strong that he has agreed to let the Government have
Monticello "at a price"--so, at least, I was informed in
Charlottesville.
CHAPTER XV
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
The opening of the University of Virginia was an event of prime
importance for the higher education in the whole country, and
really marks a new era.
--CHARLES FORSTER SMITH.
Like Monticello, the buildings of the University of Virginia are those
of an intellectual, a classicist, a purist, and, like it, they might
have been austere but for the warmth of their red brick and the glow of
their white-columned porticos.
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