When the man and his wife were once more in the carriage, ready to drive on, they invited the two strangers to go on with them to Alexandria and have something to drink in appreciation of their timely service, but both declined, and the chaise started afresh upon its journey.
Bernard says, “My companion, after an exclamation at the heat, offered very courteously to dust my coat, a favor the return of which enabled me to take a deliberate survey of his person. He was a tall, erect, well-made man, evidently advanced in years, but who appeared to have retained all the vigor and elasticity resulting from a life of temperance and exercise. His dress was a blue coat buttoned to his chin and buckskin breeches. Though the instant he took off his hat I could not avoid the recognition of familiar lineaments, which, indeed, I was in the habit of seeing on every sign-post and over every fireplace, still I failed to identify him, and to my surprise I found that I was an object of equal speculation in his eyes.
“‘Mr. Bernard, I believe’ he said after a moment’s pause, and then spoke of having seen me play in Philadelphia, following at once with an invitation to spend a couple of hours in rest and refreshment at his house, which he pointed out in the distance.”
It then came clear to the actor who was his distinguished-looking companion.
Mr. Bernard thus continues his description of this experience, “‘Mount Vernon,’ I exclaimed; and then, drawing back with a stare of wonder, ‘Have I the honor of addressing General Washington?’
“With a smile whose expression of benevolence I have rarely seen equalled, he offered his hand and replied: ‘An odd sort of introduction, Mr. Bernard; but I am pleased to find you can play so active a part in private without a prompter.’”
In the conversation that ensued over the refreshments at Mount Vernon, Mr. Bernard studied his distinguished host with deep earnestness, and has left us a vivid picture in description as the actor saw him.
He says that in the conversation Washington’s face did not present much variety of expression. It wore always a look of profound thoughtfulness. Neither was there much change in the tones of his voice, but its intonations were rich with the depths of expression.
The keynote of his talk seemed to be summed up, as the actor believed, in one of the sentences of this conversation: “I am a man, and interested in all that concerns humanity.” This is in truth the keynote of any mind that ever achieves anything worth while. One does for self or party or nation only as it is for humanity. Any other deed or thought is not patriotism but partisanship. America is that manhood interested with all its available means in the humanity of the world.
Mr. Bernard, with what seems to be the deep insight that a great actor must have into character and human nature, says, “He spoke like a man who had felt as much as he had reflected, and reflected more than he had spoken; like one who had looked upon society rather in the mass than in detail, and who regarded the happiness of America but as the first link in a series of universal victories.” This vision, opened up to America in the devastations of the Great European War for “a place in the sun,” was enlarged by American patriots, not for any closed-in nation, but for the rights of humanity.