There are several different Thomas Jeffersons—the Latinate lawyer, the flowery wooer of other men’s wives, the slave owner looking to increase his profits, the direct and powerful stylist of the Declaration. He is often a bit pompous, maintaining his distance both socially and emotionally. With Abigail Adams and some other married women he found attractively intelligent, he is tenderly seductive. But with Madison, he is conversational and lucid. It is in his letters to Madison that we probably come as close as we ever can to glimpsing the real Jefferson, or at least the least guarded one.
