Gerty Washington

“ It soon grew to be nothing singular to see well-to-do men go every year to England upon some errand of profit or pleasure.
It was with such a region and such stirring neighbors that the young Washingtons identified themselves while they were yet youths in their twenties; and there they prospered shrewdly with the rest. Prudent men and men of character readily accumulated estates in the untouched glades and forests of Westmoreland. The season of their coming, moreover, sadly as things seemed to go in 1656, turned out propitious. ”

“ Jack has a rifle that shoots peas or beans, and it takes a load of care from my mind, for I know he can’t injure anything with a dried pea. And boys will have some form of gun, you know, especially if they are forever playing George Washington, in the days of Indian wars and revolutions,” said Mrs. Davis.
“I’ll ask father and we’ll see what he thinks,” replied Mrs. Parke.
“One won’t be enough! Martha and Jim each need one, and John will have to get one, too,” reminded George anxiously. ”

“ Miss Jemima threw up her hands in astonishment, and the Major, who was on a favorite theme, proceeded:
“Why, madam, the very coat on my back belongs to that rascal George Washington, and I do not know when he may take a fancy to order me out of it. My soul is not my own. He drinks my whiskey, steals my tobacco, and takes my clothes before my face. As likely as not he will have on this very waistcoat before the week is out.”
The Major stroked his well-filled velvet vest caressingly, as if he already felt the pangs of the approaching separation. ”

“ I know the very woman for you—she’ll make you walk chalk!”
For thirty years this had been his threat, so George was no more alarmed than he was at the promise of being sold, or turned loose upon the world as a free man. He therefore inquired solemnly,
“Marse Nat, le’ me ax you one thing—you ain’ thinkin’ ‘bout givin’ me that ole one for a mistis is you?”
“What old one, fool?” The Major stopped panting. George Washington denoted the side of his head where Miss Jemima’s thin curls nestled. ”

“ From this aristocracy came Marshall, and Mason, and Madison, the Lees, the Randolphs, the Harrisons, and the rest. From it came also Thomas Jefferson, the hero of American democracy; and to it was added Patrick Henry, not by lineage or slave-holding, but by virtue of his brilliant abilities, and because he, too, was an aristocrat by the immutable division of race. It was this aristocracy into which Washington was born, and amid which he was brought up. To say that it colored his feelings and habits is simply to say that he was human ”

“ The crops are also those of the earlier century. The monument itself stands in the midst of a waving wheat field, and acres of Indian corn rustle green and rich as they must have rustled in the first hot summer of George Washington’s infancy.
The reality of it all is increased by the bodily presence of Washington’s own kin, men and women bearing his name, the descendants of his collateral relatives. A little boat rocking at anchor off the wharf at Wakefield is the fishing dory of Lawrence Washington, commonly called “Lal” Washington by his neighbors. He is a man of substance and dignity. ”

“ Planters and legislators donned caps of liberty and danced themselves so crazy over the rights of abstract man that they had no enthusiasm left for such concrete instances as Loyalists, Englishmen, and their own plantation slaves. Then Genet made his next step in the new diplomacy by fitting out French privateers in American harbours and seizing British vessels in American waters. This brought Washington down on him at once. Then he lost his head completely, abused everybody, including Jefferson, and retired from public life as an American citizen, being afraid to go home. ”

“ The character of Washington is one of simple and substantial greatness. His passions were vehement but concentrated, and thoroughly under control. An irresistible strength of will was combined with a singularly well-balanced mind, with much sagacity, much benevolence, much love of justice. Without possessing what may be called genius, Washington was endowed with a rare quickness of perception and soundness of judgment, and an eager desire of knowledge. His extremely methodical habits enabled him to find time for everything, and were linked with a talent for organization. ”

“ That, in turning the attention of the race to manual and industrial training, Washington performed a great work is not to be denied. That, in influencing many of his people to follow him in such a program, he has raised the ambition of not a few to a much higher plane than the race had shown itself heretofore capable of, must be admitted, and these are great achievements. But it is an error to imagine that Washington ever made for himself or his race any renunciation of the aspiration for social equality. ”

“ It is hardly likely that the world, a hundred years later, could have known that there ever was such a person as George Washington, if his mother had not changed her mind and kept him from the boisterous turmoil of the uncertain sea. However that may be, he was sent to school instead of making a cruise in the West Indies. His study was mathematics and military tactics, the very thing most needed in the sublime undertaking that was to make his name immortal. ”

“ Each became the leader in his country’s [Pg 181] interests at a period of almost unspeakable dissention and of indescribable peril to freedom as the condition of social civilization. In the midst of that terrible turmoil, through every form of abuse, intrigue and obstruction, they kept clear the way that America should go, and upheld the America that all freeborn men believed to be the ideal and opportunity of humanity and mankind.
Washington is often declared to have been so much of his life an Englishman that he cannot be regarded as a real born American. ”

“ Another was that he had a strong will without being a mule. Some people cannot distinguish between being firm and being a big blue jackass.
Another reason why Washington is loved and honored to-day, is that he died before we had a chance to get tired of him. This is greatly superior to the method adopted by many modern statesmen, who wait till their constituency weary of them and then reluctantly and tardily die.
The Board of Trade.
I went into the Chicago Board of Trade awhile ago to see about buying some seed wheat for sowing on my farm next spring. ”

“ He remained at Mount Vernon a fortnight, an interpreter having been provided from Alexandria for the occasion. The antique costume with which the artist and the model had been threatened at one time was discarded; Washington was represented, not as a Greek, which he was not, but as an American general, which he was, the size being "precisely that of life." Any one who wants to see with his eyes George Washington, to live in his atmosphere, to receive the moral benefit of a great man's presence, has only to go to Richmond. ”

“ And so manly is his character, and so decided his attainments, that when he is but [39] nineteen years of age, in addition to his office of public surveyor, he is made the commissioned head of the militia of his district to guard it against the depredations of the Indians. And he is yet devoted to his mother, and ready to obey her in all that she commands. Washington the man is like Washington the boy, the dutiful and obedient son. He loves his mother tenderly and devotedly, and his mother, in return, loves him with all the ardor of a mother’s deep and abiding affection. ”

“ Washington was laying siege to Madame Esmond's heart, which idea was anything but agreeable to George's jealous disposition.
"I beg you to keep this quiet, Mountain," said George, with great dignity. "Or you and I shall quarrel, too. Never to any one must you mention such an absurd suspicion."
"Absurd! Why absurd? Mr. Washington is constantly with the widow. She never tires of pointing out his virtues as an example to her sons. She consults him on every question respecting her estate and its management. There is a room at Castlewood regularly called Mr. Washington's room. ”

“ For, with all their boast, they never could induce above thirty fighting men to join the camp, and not more than half of those rendered any service.
As to the half-king, he expressed himself perfectly disgusted with the white man's mode of warfare. The French, he said, were cowards; the English, fools. Washington was a good man, but wanted experience: he would not take advice of the Indians and was always driving them to fight according to his own notions. ”

“ It is difficult to reconcile one's self to the idea of the cool and sedate Washington, the great champion of American liberty, a woe-worn lover in his youthful days, "sighing like furnace," and inditing plaintive verses about the groves of Mount Vernon. We are glad of an opportunity, however, of penetrating to his native feelings, and finding that under his studied decorum and reserve he had a heart of flesh throbbing with the warm impulses of human nature.
Being a favorite of Sir William Fairfax, he was now an occasional inmate of Belvoir. ”

“ Washington hardly seems an American, as most of his biographers depict him. He is too colorless, too cold, too prudent. He seems more like a wise and dispassionate Mr. Alworthy, advising a nation as he would a parish, than like a man building states and marshaling a nation in a wilderness. But the real Washington was as thoroughly an American as Jackson or Lincoln. What we take202 for lack of passion in him was but the reserve and self-mastery natural to a man of his class and breeding in Virginia. ”

“ Until he was nineteen, George spent his time at his work, or at home with his mother or at Mount Vernon with Lawrence. The society of his home and friends kept him from being spoiled by the roughness of the wilderness. He was now six feet, two inches in height, with a fresh, out-door complexion, blue eyes and brown hair. He had attractive manners, he was careful about his dress, and presented a pleasing appearance. Through all his life, George Washington was a true gentleman. ”

“ We are only in the spring-time of our national life, and yet we have realized all that Washington could possibly have anticipated from the creation of the present Government. What more could be desired in a system of government than is secured in the existing organizations of the General and State governments with their respective powers so admirably adjusted and distributed as to draw from Gladstone the remark that the American Constitution was "the most wonderful work ever struck off at one time by the brain and purpose of man"? ”

“ Washington seems to have been little of a reader except of books on agriculture, which he bought, read, and even made careful abstracts of many, and on this subject alone did he ever seem to write from pleasure. As a lad, he notes in his journal that he is reading The Spectator and a history of England, but after those two brief entries there is no further mention of books or reading in his daily memorandum of “where and how my time is spent.” In his ledger, too, almost the least common expenditure entered is one for books. ”

“ We are told that the Arab of the desert talks of Washington in his tent, and that his name is familiar to the wandering Scythian. He seems, indeed, to be the delight of humankind, as their beau-ideal of human nature. No American, in any part of the world, but has found the regard for himself increased by his connection with Washington, as his fellow-countryman; and who has not felt a pride, and has occasion to exult, in the fortunate connection?
A century and more has now passed away since he came upon the stage, and his fame first broke upon the world ”

“ Like his master, he had a natural antipathy to “old women,” and as the Major’s threat for years had varied between “setting him free next morning” and giving him “a mistress to make him walk straight,” George Washington felt that prudence demanded some vigilance on his part.
One day, under cover of the hilarity incident to the presence at dinner of Jeff and of his guest, Mr. Lawrence, Miss Jemima had pushed her inquisition even further than usual. ”

“ There is no individual whose life is more closely identified with the history of his country than George Washington. You all know the story of his life by heart. To-day, on the anniversary of his birth, it is proper and fitting for Americans to dwell upon the virtues of this great man. Washington's character was magnanimous. He was kind to the aged, and sympathetic toward his fellow men. Thomas Jefferson may have had Washington in mind when he wrote, in the Declaration of Independence, the words "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." ”

“ Barnabas and the lad exchanged startled glances, but they quickly discovered that they had no cause for alarm. The next instant half a dozen soldiers in the uniform of Washington's bodyguard surged into the room, and with them, muffled in a heavy cloak, was General Washington himself.
"Gentlemen, we appear to have come too late," remarked the commander-in-chief. "I think that is the spy yonder." Then he asked for explanations, and Nathan briefly and clearly told the whole story.
"You have done well," said Washington. [88] "Search that man at once," he added, pointing to the prisoner. ”