Harper's Round Table, June 16, 1896

Copyright, 1896, by Harper & Brothers. All Rights Reserved.

Nature made Washington great; but he made himself virtuous.
he sun shines not upon a lovelier land than midland Virginia. Great rivers roll seaward through rich woodlands and laughing corn-fields and fair meadow-lands. Afar off the misty lines of blue hills shine faintly against the deeper blue of the sky. The atmosphere is singularly clear, and the air wholesome and refreshing.
Never was it more beautiful than on an afternoon in late October of 1746. The Indian-summer was at hand—that golden time when Nature utters a solemn Hush! to the season, and calls back the summer-time for a little while. The scene was full of peace—the broad and placid Rappahannock shimmering in the sun, its bosom unvexed except by the sails of an occasional grain-laden vessel making its way quietly and slowly down the blue river. The quiet homesteads lay basking in the fervid sun, while woods and streams and fields were full of those soft harmonious country sounds which make a kind of musical silence.
A mile or two back from the river ran the King's highway—a good road for those days, and showing signs of much travel. It passed at one point through a natural clearing, on the top of which grew a few melancholy pines. The road came out of the dense woods on one side of this open space, and disappeared in the woods on the other side.
On this October afternoon, about three o'clock, a boy with a gun on his shoulder and a dog at his heels came noiselessly out of the woods and walked to the top of the knoll. The day was peculiarly still, but only the quickest ear could have detected the faint sound the boy made, as with a quick and graceful step he marched up the hill—for George Washington was a natural woodsman from his young boyhood, and he had early learned how to make his way through forest and field without so much as alarming the partridge on her nest. No art or craft of the woods, whether of white man or Indian, was unknown to him; and he understood Nature, the mighty mother, in all her civilized and uncivilized moods.