A noble face! just the frontispiece to a great History, the preface to an Encyclopædia of Moral Philosophy and Political Rights, the trunk of a large genealogical tree, the grandfather of a large, proud family.
Stories we have of his boyhood; but they do not strike or stick to us as accounts of a boy. Even when cutting down the cherry-tree, and then scorning the boy’s ordinary deception in regard to the author of the deed; when mastering the blooded horse, at the expense of the animal’s life, and then hastening to avow to his stern but just mother his exclusive agency in the fatal conquest,—he seems the same calm, staid, mature impersonation of heroic Truth, as when he stalks with longer strides through a nation’s history.
Some naturalists tell us that the trunk of the tree does not lose its bulk as it grows upward; but that, if we measure the tapering trunk and its outspreading branches, we shall find that together they form the same size and weight throughout. So Washington, if viewed in sections, appears of equal size, dimensions, and compacted force in each. As a boy wise, grave, and truthful; large in frame, of unusual strength, but gentle in its use; from books learning little, from men much, from out-door life its large, fresh, wholesome, healthy activity, and wide breadths of suggestion. As a young man unweariedly industrious, unmistakably honest, impressing all with his oak-like qualities; carefully and perfectly accomplishing whatever he undertook, whether engaged in surveying a farm, keeping a journal, or supplying by study and observation deficiencies in education which his own good, well-balanced sense had discovered; loving honestly, and honestly describing in verse his heart affection for his “lowland beauty.” As an officer, at twenty-three, self-reliant because consciously well disciplined, vigilant, careful, yet as personally brave as the impulsive and unrestrained; confided with missions to the hostile French settlements on the Ohio, and saving, by his knowledge of savage life and habits, by his sagacity, self-command, and tact, the remnants of Braddock’s army.
As a statesman well rounded in intelligence, well poised in judgment, who so well comprehended, weighed, and settled the new questions of colonial rights as to draw from Patrick Henry the eulogy “that for solid information and sound judgment he was the greatest man on the floor” of the Continental Congress, and from that Congress itself its emphatic practical indorsement by his election as commander-in-chief.
As a general, managing small resources and means so as to secure the best results and completest ends; sparing of the lives of his soldiers as of the members of his family, yet venturing his own when an emergency made his great figure in front the pledge of success; refusing all pay and emoluments; keeping a minute and conscientious account of his expenses, and hastening at the close of the war to place his regimentals at the opening door of Peace. As a President marching abreast of new duties and obligations, thoroughly comprehending, and, by a wise forbearance and clear-hearted charity, mastering the struggling, passionate forces of new-born and grand ambitions, State rivalries, and material competitions, and so calming, adjusting, regulating, yet re-enforcing them by healthy elements,—not by compromise of principle, but by high conscientious impartiality, and just, equiposed authority,—as to receive the converging approval and accordant praise of good men of all shades of opinion.
Dear, good old grandfather! no wonder that the eighteenth century hastened to follow thee; no wonder that, wedded to thee so long and lovingly, it cared not to survive the separation, and within a fortnight gathered itself into the same tomb, more loved for the presence than life divided from thee.
On the next page of our album is our great-great-grand and good mother Mrs. Martha Washington. We love so much to look at her sweet, handsome face, full of a large, generous, grandmotherly nature as a wide and deep bowl heaped with ripe strawberries laughing through unstinted masses of rich yellow, unwatered cream. We feel at once that there is amply enough to go round the largest old-fashioned family, and no fear, if visitors come in, of its not holding out, or of a scarcity for the kitchen. She was called Lady Washington, because they could not help it; for she was a lady.
Of course our grandmother was proud; not vain, nor boastful, but with pride of character, the pride that stiffens virtue into well-doing, makes life gracious, and fences in goodness from stray gossips, and self-constituted censors who stray from their own disordered homes into their neighbor’s well-regulated households.
Never were higher, truer, more valuable qualities, principles, and habits corseted in a female bosom than lived in hers.
The next page is thumb-worn and greased by frequent handling; for Uncle Benjamin Franklin is a deserved favorite with the family. We should have liked to live with him, or if the house, as was natural, was too full for that, to have made long visits at his mansion. His is a right royal, good face, is it not? He looks as if he was always in love with a whole school of well-behaved, sweet-mannered children, and was about to take out from his capacious pockets, with a sly, benevolent surprise, a large assorted lot of presents. His face beams with a broad, heavenly tranced-ness, as if it had taken toll from his sky-tapping kite, and had become charged with positive celestial electricity. He looks as if he might have been chosen the executor of all the estates in the Union; and as if half the pangs of death were abstracted from those who were to leave their children and property to his honest, wise, and efficient care. He seems like a born trustee for schools, an hereditary director of charities,—one nominated in every village and town to every responsible place, and elected unanimously.