ILLUSTRATIONS PORTRAIT OF WASHINGTON BY SAVAGE, 1789-1790, Frontispiece SOME OF THE MORE INTERESTING PASSAGES FROM WASH- GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1772 PAGE 16 Facing page 108 From the painting by C. W. Peale, at Washington and GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1795 Facing page 208 From a portrait by Rembrandt Peale in the possession of A PAGE FROM MONROE'S "SHORT VIEW," SHOWING ANNO- 338 386 GEORGE WASHINGTON CHAPTER I BOYHOOD of parents also born upon it "Born upon our soil never for a moment having had sight of the old world — instructed according to the modes of his time, only in the spare, plain, but wholesome elementary knowledge which our institutions provide for the children of the people — growing up beneath and penetrated by the genuine influences of American society-living from infancy to manhood and age amidst our expanding, but not luxurious civilization — partaking in our great destiny of labor, our long contest with unreclaimed nature and uncivilized man-our agony of glory, the war of Independence our great victory of peace, the formation of the Union, and the establishment of the Constitution, — he is all - all our own! Washington is ours." - DANIEL Webster. THE foremost man in our history showed his greatness not in the even current of life, but in his manner of meeting important events. The more reality is felt to be above romance, the higher will he stand. Goodness is universal rather than peculiar, and the greatness of Washington had its base in the power to be largely and impressively right. His eye received none of those phantoms whose unreal but inspiring beauty makes the heritage of the poet. Born to lead some of the most difficult movements of history, he saw only the things which were, and his life illustrates the sublimity that truth and strength may reach without beauty or imagination. Of how little import is genius, compared with justice; charm, compared with humanity; the hues of fancy, compared with the price of bread; how far dearer to the race is Washington than many a genius whose visions have been the joy of millions! The mind into which has once entered an interest in human welfare feels less need of fiction. Washington's appeal has been great to the masses, because he was a hero; not less strong to the first minds of all nations, also because he was a hero; but different from the rest. It is to the merely clever that he must frequently seem dull. Those to whom Washington seems good but uninteresting perhaps need an argument that goodness and interest are inseparable; that large rightness is, maturely seen, the foremost human trait. With this moral justness in Washington. went courage. When the hidden savages yelled in the forest and Braddock's ranks wavered; when the Colonies were in upheaval; when soldiers mutinied, officers intrigued, and Congress haggled; when all was darkness, -in such times the silent powers emerged, rising always, greater at the end of the war than at the beginning, greatest when he stood, the centre of the evolving nation, select ing and controlling the men who moulded her, — quelling faction and avoiding danger, retiring at last with the country launched on her strange experiment. The childhood of more salient personalities is often picturesque. Lincoln the boy, with the axe in his hand and a book in his heart; black Dan Webster's large eyes watching for images to make thought gorgeous; Franklin trudging through poverty toward knowledge; to our backward gaze, these children shine with omens of the future. Not so George Washington. Futile alike are the most industrious inventors of myths and the most sentimental interpreters of facts; not until the time for deeds does any touch of distinction appear in his history. Cherry trees and miracles were invented for a hungry public. This poverty might be ascribed to chance and to barren witnesses were it not that, for many years after Washington became conspicuous in action, the accessible expressions of his personality were so bare that their interest depends wholly on his importance. He was born at Wakefield, Westmoreland County, Virginia, February 22d, 1732, lived from 1735 to 1739 at what is now Mount Vernon, and when he was seven years old was taken to an estate on the Rappahannock, almost opposite Fredericksburg. The father was one of the prosperous planters of Virginia, able to give his children what |