CHARACTER OF GEORGE  WASHINGTON 

Washington was destitute of the poetic sentiment. He

saw a great end with wonderful distinctness, and the path

to that end, and in the prosecution of this gigantic task

December and May were both one. He may have been

thankful for flowers, but he did not complain about

thorns. His heart was not easily broken. When his

troops were hungry and in rags he spoke to them only

the more kindly. When too feeble to fight he could re-

treat. He could wait as long as any general living.

When the roads were good he advanced more easily; but

when mud and snow were deep he still advanced. When

the great Benedict Arnold, one of his most trusted

friends, betrayed a most valuable garrison Washington

closed up the open gate in a few hours. When Congress

was without sense and without skill, Washington was on

hand with both, at all hours, with a wisdom that never

left him for a moment in seven years. Never before had

the world seen such a clear grasp of the value of human

liberty and such a uniform realization of means to an

end. His mind did not flash like a cannon or like a me-

teor. It poured out constantly, like the sun. The

calmness which he possessed was not that of insensibil-

ity, but it was that of an unchanging power. He lived

in a group of years in which each day was great. In a

time when a little republic was lying under the wheels of

old iron chariots, how could any small hours come? The

age not only lifted Washington up to a high level, but it

compelled him to remain there until he was taken down

for burial. Even when he retired to Mount Vernon to

find years of peace, the Nation followed him and made

him act as chief of the army, and of an army the most

illustrious of any that had ever carried spear or gun. His

heart failed but once, and that was when he sunk in

death, saying: ‘‘You can do nothing for me. Let me die in peace.”