- Adams, actually, he's
only eight years older,
but he thought of
Jefferson as a younger man,
almost like his son.
And Jefferson, of
course, deferred to Adams
which is why Adams liked him so much.
(audience laughing)
And they brought him into their family.
And Jefferson was
fascinated by this family.
He's fascinated by Abigail
because he had never,
never met a woman like her
who managed the household,
was all of that,
had all those skills, but at the same time
was intellectually the
equal of the two of them.
She could command quotations from Milton
or from other poets, Shakespeare.
And she could talk to
them as an intellectual.
Jefferson, I don't think had
ever met a woman like her
until he met Maria Cosway.
So I think he took to this family,
and he became a member of the family.
They would take John
Quincy, who was with them,
the young boy, and they would
go to a concert together or to a symphony.
And so he became part of their family.
That's when the real bonding
took place, in the 1780s.
And then, of course,
when they were separated,
Abigail and Mr. Jefferson
exchanged letters and gifts.
And he flirted with her, mild flirtation.
He said to her at one point,
"I was going to buy a
little statue of Venus
for your dining room, but then I thought,
two Venuses in the same
room would be a mistake."
(audience laughing)
That little kind of--
but she said, "He is a choice one."
She really admired him.
And he admired her.
The two of them were really quite close.
- [Moderator] And they shopped,
they were shopping buddies.
They loved to shop.
- They shopped together, that's right.
He bought things for her, and
she bought things for him.
Especially after they got separated
because John and Abigail
went on to London,
as ministers to London.
And Jefferson remained in Paris
as the minister to France.
So they had an extraordinarily
close relationship.
