Well, people (men, at least) did swim for health in the 18th/early 19th
century--remember those stories about J.Q. Adams swimming nude in the
Potomac every morning?--but I agree that stylistically this quotation
feels all wrong for TJ.

The Internet has severely inflamed the use of bogus quotations, it
seems.  I've gotten fascinated by the subject and have plans (currently
at a *very* early stage!) for a Web site identifying them:
http://www.theyneversaidthat.info.    Spurious quotations on religion
seem to be particularly epidemic when it comes to the Founders.   If
anyone has solid evidence (an interesting problem in itself, of course)
for a quotation *not* being by the person to whom it's commonly
attributed, I'd welcome your information, and your source, for my
site--with appropriate credit to you, of course!   Thanks.

--Jurretta J. Heckscher


On Nov 16, 2005, at 1:41 AM, Henry Wiencek wrote:

> I wonder if "swim with the current" would have been used as a metaphor
> in
> TJ's time at all.  Unless I'm wrong, people didn't swim for fun in
> those
> days and the expression would have struck folks as weird.
>
> Henry Wiencek
>

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