From time to time this same mood recurred:
I am burning the candle of life without present pleasure or future object--he wrote to Mrs. Trist in 1786.--A dozen or twenty years ago this scene would have amused me; but I am past the age for changing habits. I take all the fault on myself, as it is impossible to be among a people who wish more to make one happy--a people of the very best character it is possible for one to have. We have no idea in America of the real French character.[110]
Not foreign to this despondency was the bad news that came from America. His youngest daughter Lucy died in the fall of 1784 and he was not satisfied until he had his remaining daughter near him in Paris, and Mary, familiarly called Polly, had joined her sister in the best convent of the French capital.
Between social duties and pleasures, dinners at the house of Lafayette, meetings of the Committees of Commerce, interviews with Vergennes, preparation of long letters to be sent home to keep his Government informed of the situation in Europe, correction of the proofs of the "Notes on Virginia", interviews with former French volunteers clamoring for their back pay, visits to shops and factories, Jefferson was a very busy man indeed. But exacting as his occupations were, he found time to escape from Paris on three different occasions to see something of France and Europe. In 1786 he journeyed to England, traveled in France and Italy in the spring of the following year, and visited Holland and the Rhine shortly before leaving for home. The diaries he kept during these trips are both revealing and disappointing. They demonstrate how little of European culture had penetrated his American mind, how carefully he preserved himself from the contamination of European manners and ways of thinking. In some respects it must be confessed that Jefferson remained very narrow and provincial, and almost a Philistine in his outlook.
The most damning document is the outline he made for Rutledge and Shippen on June 3, 1788, though in some respects it shows good judgment, as when Jefferson recommends "not to judge of the manners of the people from the people you will naturally see the most of: tavern keepers, _valets de place_, and postillions."--"These are the hackneyed rascals of every country. Of course they must never be considered when we calculate the national character." He manifested the same good sense in recommending always to ask for the _vin du pays_ when traveling. But the worst comes in his enumeration of the "Objects of Attention for an American." It has to be read to be believed and should be transcribed here almost in full: