Bonaparte.
THE FIDELITY OF WASHINGTON.
The following letter from George Washington to his wife is a beautiful example of love that was as fresh after twenty years as at the first, and illustrates perfectly the sane balance of his great mind:
My Dearest Life and Love: You have hurt me, I know not how much, by the insinuation in your last that my letters to you have been less frequent because I have felt less concern for you. The suspicion is most unkind. Have we lived almost a score of years in the closest and dearest conjugal intimacy to so little purpose that on the appearance only of inattention to you, and which you might have accounted for in a thousand ways more natural and more probable, you should pitch upon that single motive which alone is injurious to me?
I have not, I own, wrote so often to you as I wished and as I ought, but think of my situation and then ask your heart if I be without excuse. We are not, my dearest, in circumstances most favorable to our happiness; but let us not, I beseech you, idly make them worse by indulging in suspicions and apprehensions which minds in distress are but too apt to give way to. Your most faithful and tender husband,
G.W.
BRIEF BUT SINCERE "OLD NOLL."
Oliver Cromwell seemed to have similar difficulties when he wrote:
My Dearest: I have not leisure to write much; but I could chide thee that, in many of thy letters, thou writest to me that I should not be unmindful of thee and thy little ones. Truly, if I love you not too well, I think I err not on the other hand much. Thou art dearer to me than any creature; let that suffice. I rest thine
Oliver Cromwell.