"Poor in Love Mr. Short"

Abstract

WT TILLIAM Short, a graduate of College of William and A Mary in 1779, one of founding fathers of now illustrious Phi Beta Kappa Society, was generally looked upon by his countrymen as one of most promising Virginians of his generation. He was one of those younger men in whose future Thomas Jefferson took special interest, and his career is known today largely in terms of this friendship. Short's life nevertheless deserves attention for its own sake. He resided continuously in Europe for a period of some eighteen years, from I784 to i802, serving as Jefferson's secretary at American Legation in Paris, as charge d'affaires there during first years of French Revolution, as Minister to The Hague and envoy to Spain. Upon his return to United States, after a period of residence in France as a private citizen, he settled in Philadelphia, subsequently revisited Paris in i8o8-io when on an abortive mission which was to have taken him to Russia, then came back again to Philadelphia, where he led life of a man of means and of leisure until his death there in i849. Those who have examined Short's public career have discovered in it a succession of frustrations, and have wondered at his failure to attain high station that he himself once hoped for and that others envisaged for him. His personal life presents equally interesting problems, as a case history in the American experience of Europe, with all fascination of a pre-Henry James novel on international theme. This American's sentimental life, as French say, was closely intertwined with his European experience, and seems to have been marked, as was his public career, by a series of disappointments. Short's love affair with Duchesse de La Rochefoucauld, commemorated in a series of remarkable and moving letters, is best known episode of