WASHINGTON A MODEL
IN HIS
LIBRARY AND LIFE

BY

REV. ELIPHALET NOTT POTTER

D.D., L.H.D., LL.D., D.C.L.
PRESIDENT OF HOBART COLLEGE AND LECTURER ON CIVICS.
GENEVA, N.Y.

NEW YORK
1895

TO THE FOUNDER
OF THE
HOFFMAN LIBRARY LECTURE COURSE
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR THIS WORK
BASED ON
WASHINGTON’s WORDS

“I conceive that a knowledge of books is the basis on which all other knowledge rests.”

PRESIDENT POTTER, THIRD HOFFMAN LECTURER. (Inserted by request of the Founder of the Lecture Course.)

PREFACE

IN the valley of the Hudson, at St. Stephen’s College, above the noble river closely associated with the career of General Washington, the Vice-Chancellor of Hobart College, Rev. Doctor Charles Frederick Hoffman, has erected a library worthily designed and named. The Hoffman Library Lecture Course is on the same foundation. As the first lecture, his own, related to the Divine element in books and libraries; and the second, by Doctor James Grant Wilson, was entitled: “The World’s Largest Libraries;” it has been deemed appropriate that the theme of the third should be Washington, a Model in His Library and Life. The first lecture was enlarged to form a volume; the second was so extended as to be delivered but in part; and here the unbroken precedent, as to length, is followed.

On the twelfth of May, more than a century ago, Washington, as instructed by Congress, took the oath as commander-in-chief of the army already under his command. The coincidence was recalled when before representatives, among others, of patriotic societies, on May 12, 1895, the following lecture was delivered in outline at All Angels’ Church, New York. For the Rector of that church having founded the lecture course, appointed the date and place as above, entitling this lecture “A New Leaf in History.” It is needless to add that the Liturgical service, there chorally and splendidly rendered, was that in which, in the necessarily primitive rendering of his day, Washington was accustomed to participate in public worship.

The influence of books upon the character of Washington was there illustrated from his use of the Bible and Prayer Book, and his possession of the Christian graces, Faith and Hope; and also from the fact that the worthily wore their crown, “[Greek word]” not being cold-hearted or a formalist, though often so conceived. Under the four divisions followed here, illustrations of his relation to secular literature were given but briefly, as less appropriate to that time and place. Books and their influence in moulding character are attracting an ever-increasing attention. The swords of Washington have been traced. Mr. Evarts introduced a bill into the National Senate for the payment by the United States of twenty thousand dollars for one of Washington’s swords. But Washington’s pen is mightier; and his remarkable relation to books has been strangely overlooked; since his letters and literary achievements are evidently destined to become for many minds his most notable distinction.

Having incidentally stated my conviction that Washington’s relation to books was most remarkable, I was asked to make Washington and his relation to books my subject in this lecture, and to extend it beyond the limits of the lecture’s delivery. Since to secure and present the evidence I have been confined to the few intervening weeks and in the busiest part of my college year, and since confirmatory matter continues to increase, I postpone more extended excerpts and references to sources of information.

In so far as we find Washington’s Library essentially American and closely related to the Nation’s origin and evolution, is it not typical of Washington? In his Library, not only do the titles of his books, together with his marginal notes and related circumstances, suggest this, but his writings as well as his words and deeds show, in regards in which no one has or can surpass him, the true American spirit. A colonial English youth, the evolution which made him a true American of the best type was superinduced upon the best of an English gentleman. But, nevertheless, and contrary to assertions lately reiterated, he was to the core American; no less essentially and completely American than the “most American” of the leaders who has [have] followed him. What point of importance is there in the whole range of our history, what essential of public policy or national welfare on which his eye has not rested with the result of prophetic counsel, as valuable to-day as when with heart throbbing with patriotism he uttered it? His Americanism came, among other causes, from his being trained in this country instead of abroad, from his reading, and from his being country and not simply town bred. It is proved by facts such as his devotion to the cause of abolition, of internal development, and of external neutrality; as well as by his unswerving fidelity to the establishment and maintenance of the Constitution and the Union, the importance of which he was prompt to perceive and enforce. The General Convention of our Church and other religious and civil organizations may concur, as some already have concurred in the suggestion herein made, that there should be a centennial commemoration of the death of Washington, on or about December 14, 1899. As the people prepare to “ring out the old and ring in the new,” efforts are due to stamp heart-deep on coming times the character of this ideal American. For Washington both adequately represents the United States, and sets forth the nation’s best aspirations and possibilities. The backwoodsman, the rough and unsymmetrical type of a passing phase of our civilization, is not an all-around American, however justly admired and followed may be some such splendid leader of the people. In our formative and transitional age one destitute of the best heredity and culture may be deservedly first in his generation. Washington was first in his; but he was more; as the consummate flower of the past, including the best elements of the future, he became pre-eminently the American. In many regards self-made, yet with good breeding from the first; a man of the people, yet cultured and refined; a toiler and farmer, but not ashamed of honorable ancestry; honest and frank, but possessing fine manners and dignified reserve, he was no infidel vulgarian, no ruthless plutocrat—nor is such the ideal American type. He looked at practical politics from the exalted plane of patriotism. He used wealth as not abusing it: his Christian profession implied the performance of a citizen’s duty. Is he not, in his ideals and in his acts, the model of civic virtue needed to-day and for the twentieth and succeeding centuries?

God give us men. A time like this demands
Great hearts, strong minds, true faith, and willing hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
For while the rabble with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions, and their little deeds,
Wrangle in selfish strife—lo, Freedom weeps,
Wrong rules the land, and waiting justice sleeps.

E.N.P.

HOBART COLLEGE, July 4, 1895.

CONTENTS

Part First

WASHINGTON AND THE LIGHT AND LEADING OF HIS LIBRARY.

Part Second

WASHINGTON: FAVORITE BOOKS AND PRESENTATION COPIES: A GIFTED WRITER AND READER, HAD HE GENIUS?

Part Third

THE FATHER OF OUR COUNTRY AND THE BOOK OF BOOKS; HIS MANLY AND CHRISTIAN CHARACER.

Part Fourth

WASHINGTON AT THE LAST, IN HIS LIBRARY AT MOUNT VERNON; AN EXEMPLAR: HIS RELATION TO LOCAL AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT.

Appendix

WASHINGTON’S LIBRARY; THE APPRAISER’S LIST; BOOKS ONCE WASHINGTON’S NOW IN OTHER COLLECTIONS.

Part First.
WASHINGTON AND THE LIGHT AND LEADING OF HIS LIBRARY

THE heart of the home, the intellectual life-centre of the house, such in the literary conception of Plato, and in the usage of the Father of our Country, was the Library. In Washington’s lifetime, this room in the cherished homestead once his, now entrusted to the Nation’s guardianship, was, we are assured, “by far the most attractive at Mount Vernon.” Its light and leading were potent in his life. Its literary material and his use of it were so much more important than has been generally understood, and the list of books, pamphlets, and related matter is so long, that, compared with the book-rooms of colonial mansions and considering its associations, students of the subject may concur in calling it “the great Mount Vernon Library.” Will not the dispersion of heirlooms so closely connected with Washington more and more be seen to be a national misfortune? With devout gratitude we discern that many of its treasures and lessons, like the lessons of his life, are still within our reach.

“My Library of books and pamphlets of every kind,” is his description in his will of this precious part of his property. The list of his books made after his deceased, by his appraisers, is inaccurate on the face of it, if not seriously incomplete. In another legal document books and “cases” of them are also spoken of as in another room at Mount Vernon. But whatever the number, he diligently accumulated books, pamphlets, opinions, and information in various forms fitting him for his duties public and private. To the number of thousands of manuscript pages, his notes, comments, studies, surveys, plans, codifications, as well as his autograph journals and letters, his outlines—often improved and enlarged in his own handwriting—as drafts for communications to be written out and despatched by his secretaries—to whom he dictated at length, retaining hand or press copies—entire documents or ample extracts from books relating to matters of moment which he copied, that the needed information might be readily recalled, or more firmly fixed in his own mind: much of this may still be seen.

His care in reviewing and revising important documents is attested by manuscripts and printed proofs, such as the manuscript proof with his own corrections of the farewell address. As documentary evidence we have, then, an immense and invaluable mass of manuscripts which, coupled with the catalogue of his books and the habits of his life, indicate clearly the reader he was in his library, the writer he was in camp as well, and the cultured and complete man he consequently became. If not fully recognized as such in the nineteenth century, yet in his writings as well as in his deeds he still lives, and the work he did in his study or book-room, the pages he there or elsewhere dictated to his assistants, communicated to correspondents, subordinates or friends, or penned at the head of the army or in his Executive office, together with proclamations, messages, speeches, and formal addresses, reveal his rounded character to succeeding ages as the model citizen, fit also, both as a reader and a writer, to be the American exemplar.

The literary recognition due to Washington, unlike the fame awarded him so promptly in other regards, though late in coming, will, we believe, in proportion as his relation to his library and literary work is made know, come at last, like the interesting gift said to have been designed (but in vain) to reach him in his lifetime. Discovered afterward, this gift was recovered only in 1890, and placed in the library at Mount Vernon. The work of Provost [Prévost] (Histoire Générale de Voyage [des Voyages]), in twenty volumes, it is finely bound in leather and stamped in gold on the covers with the initials G.W. surmounted by a crown. There is written within, in an unknown handwriting, the following clue to its mysterious travels and late arrival: “Was intended for General Washington by the Marquis Rochambeau, but a British cruiser saved it for ME. London, a.d.” Many tributes to Washington, however, reached him in his library at Mount Vernon, and among them valued acquisitions to his growing collection of books. but he would have welcomed most cordially anything from a Rochambeau, having been associated with both father and son. Indeed, in 1781 Washington writes the Count de Rochambeau, “The flattering distinction paid to the anniversary of my birth is an honor for which I dare not attempt to express my gratitude.” Said to be the first public recognition of his birthday, it was, because Washington’s custom of keeping the Lord’s Day was well known, postponed from Sunday to Monday, when Rochambeau at Newport, R.I., paraded the French troops, fired a salute, and suspended the labors of the day. At Providence, Count Dumas states that the people called Washington “Father,” but the title “Father of his Country” appears earlier in the German Almanac printed at Lancaster, Pa. Rochambeau, like Lafayette, was devoted to Washington from first to last. When the war closed, conspicuous at the head of the French at Yorktown was Count Rochambeau. Washington’s letters during this period, as throughout his public career, illustrate the manner in which before the day of great journals he reached other influential men and groups, and by guiding leading minds moulded opinion. This is further shown in other instances. But the influence of his letters reflecting the light of books, was not confined to people of his own walk in life; he wrote not for his correspondents alone, but to enlighten and lead the most illiterate as well as the most learned patriots of the land.

The fact that Washington added the library wing to his mansion is emphasized here because what one adds to one’s house indicates tastes, interests, pursuits. Further, that he felt the historical importance of the literary materials he was to leave behind him, is evident from his plans for an additional building for their safe-keeping, and from his utterances, especially in his will and last words. But that his heirs hardly felt as he did, is inferred from the sales or gifts of books or papers, which soon deprived Mount Vernon of almost all of them.

Later on it is proposed to give further and fuller information to date concerning the books of his library, their subjects, the number of pamphlets, maps, manuscripts and journals, and collections of Washingtoniana, including my own, which was catalogued in part in 1889, at the New York “Centennial Celebration of the Inauguration of Washington as president.” He was, it seems, the first in this country to use a lead-pencil, and to employ in connection with his correspondence a letter-press. Among those of his letter-press copies lately purchased by the Lenox Library, I find reference to the forged letters which he denounced. Collectors may well be reminded that, as Washington had in his day to expose as false letters attributed to him, so now forgery is apparent as well as the marvellous tendency of desired relics to increase and multiply. Happy discoveries and recoveries have prevented the utter loss or alienation from this country of the contents of his library and other Washingtoniana. Much has been secured by the purchases provided for by the Congress of the United States and by collections from gifts or otherwise, existing in several of the States; and also by individual collectors, and public institutions such as libraries, bringing the priceless treasures into safe custody, and within reach of the student’s research and the patriot’s reverent observation.

Far more than a thousand titles from the library once owned by Washington are counted in one collection from it. Herewith it is proposed to publish for the first time, separately and with important related information, the complete list of the books of Washington, indicating the titles in the large collection so happily rescued by Daniel Webster, Jared Sparks, and others from transportation abroad, and preserved in the Boston Athenæum. On that ancient site whence might have been witnessed, among other scenes associated with Washington, that evacuation of the city which he caused from Dorchester Heights, it is fitting that there should be books of his related to his career as General and Statesman. When it came into his possession, the purchaser of this part of Washington’s library claimed that what he bought amounted to thousands not only of titles but of volumes. In his statement he writes, “I bought Washington’s Library of three thousand volumes for three thousand dollars, to secure eight hundred autographs for Mr. Lenox; and tracts and miscellaneous books for the British Museum.” This “was a bargain” as prices rule now, and especially when compared with prices in the appraiser’s list also, and the sum paid by the Lenox Library for those press copies of Washington’s letters to which I have just referred; many passages in which I found illegible.

Here it may be noted that Mr. H. Stevens’s statements have been controverted. As he incorrectly called the collection he purchased “Washington’s Library,” it has been so called since. A competent and accomplished authority, one of its custodians, writes: “The collection only embraces a part of Washington’s library, and on the whole I should judge it not the most important part. It contains, I believe, three hundred and eighty-four volumes.” In round numbers, Washington’s library at Mount Vernon in his day may be estimated at a thousand volumes. The official appraisal would have shown a larger number, had important pamphlets been bound and had books loaned or lost been restored; for the list of eight hundred and sixty-three books appraised, excluding pamphlets and magazines, states that some works were found incomplete because of missing volumes. The list of the library of the neighboring mansion of Belvoir includes a book of Washington’s. There, if anywhere, one would expect a considerable collection of books; they numbered, in his day and at the time of the sale then, but a few dozen, to be named before we conclude. Compared even with Greenway Court, and other Southern mansions, Washington’s library was a remarkable collection then and for that neighborhood. All things considered, it may well be called a “great” library, even for such a mansion as Washington inherited and enlarged.

The library wing or south extension of Mount Vernon, added by Washington in 1774, was also planned by him. The design of the wainscoting is not such as to attract attention, for openings were concealed there (seventeen have already been found by those inspecting it) leading to small apartments or compartments, some, one within the other, where valuables such as private papers and official records, and the iron safe containing the gold medal awarded by Congress, could be placed. These precautions were the more necessary because of the enforced absences of one who loved his home, but never failed to leave it at his country’s call.

Prized as was his library both as his study and as preserving mementoes; precious as was Mount Vernon and its associations to his loving heart; that the cause of his country was far more dear, was seen in many a critical and cruel test. For instance, during his absence in the Revolutionary War his overseer found adversaries threatening to despoil and destroy Mount Vernon. To save it he gave aid and comfort to the enemy. His own estate was not far off, and this may have influenced his course. Even before Lafayette wrote Washington of the report, he had heard of it and reproved his agent. However well meant, Washington sternly rebuked him for going on board the enemy’s vessel with refreshments, and, he indignantly adds, “to commune with a parcel of scoundrels.” His agent, though no a near relative, bore the name of Washington. In this unpatriotic course a subordinate might be regarded as Washington’s representative. The Commander-in-Chief of the American armies felt all this keenly, and also that the example was most dangerous. His consequent letter may still be seen and its conclusion in the patriotic words: “It would have been less painful to me . . . had they burnt my house and laid my plantation in ruins.”

For us and for coming times, the lesson of Washington and his library is the USE he made of it; the aid, education, and Christian culture he derived from it. His was not a library distinguished principally for its furnishings, for brilliant titles representing authors conspicuous by their absence, or for wooden blocks colored and lettered to imitate volumes; in fine it was not a library of show-cases rather than book-cases. Shelves of books, however rare or sumptuously bound, seldom used and never loaned, do not make a working library. Washington’s use of his shows him as he was to coming times. He shared what he had with others. For himself the library became his literary workshop. There he wrote and dictated to his secretaries. His books formed his intellectual armory. Even the early discourtesy of Lord Howe, he was able to check with firmness and rebuke with dignity, because of his better knowledge of military usage and the lawful amenities of warfare. Later on, from his reading, study, and even writing out of constitutions of republics and other civic records, and from like knowledge of the charters of the Colonies and of the resources of the several States, he was enabled in the supreme hour when the articles of confederation failed, to lay the foundations for the Constitution of the United States.

For Leibnitz’s library, a small shelf sufficed, and so with many another intellectual light. As it was the USE which Washington made of his library which renders it increasingly dear to him, so in boyhood it was the use he made of books which is noticeable; whether books for journals, or books of lessons, forms for business, maxims for manners, or models of literary style; it was this right use of books which led him on from crude attempts to a justly distinguished style. Do not his records, invoices, and accounts, exact and clear, show this? His voluminous correspondence too, ever growing, includes many of the greatest questions of the ages, and appreciated by the most important personages of that day, its value has continued undiminished to this hour. The wealth of this information thus indicated confirms our theory as to the Mount Vernon Library and his use of it. Thus, his pen became mightier than his sword. His literary activity and at the same time his accuracy, are the more amazing as emanating from the ever-busy head and hand of the enlightened cultivator of Mount Vernon, the helpful neighbor, the hospitable host, the incorruptible legislator, the commander-in-chief, the guide of a just democracy, the founder of our republican institutions, a master-builder of our Constitution, the fame peace-maker, our first President, for two arduous and eventual [eventful] terms, the conscientious and successful Executive of the United States.

The old saying which bids us fear the man of few books, is not inspired by contempt for large collections of books, but by a just appreciation of the power which concentration in the use of books gives to their possessor. Is not this the point of the classic suggestion, that the mind is formed not by the quantity but by the quality of its reading? To master one book, if it be great and good, is better than to skim all books. Reading for a purpose, too, makes the retentive reader. It tends to gain for him, not only practical ends, but by these very means intellectual and literary growth. This is seen in the purposeful career of Washington; as boy or youth or man he used books, not as a slave, but as a master. Meeting every emergency effectively, his literary style became such that those familiar with his papers have ranked him high among the felicitous writers of the ages.

In reviewing the list of hundreds of works once comprised in his library, a glance groups them in subjects; indeed they seem to have been arranged there to some extent on that principle. The preponderance is noticeable of works relating to matters historical, political, military, educational, agricultural, nautical. In economics there is Smith’s “Wealth of Nations,” and in history the classic work of Gibbon; but detail of this character we shall consider further on. As you would expect, many volumes of his library relate to his life at Mount Vernon, including road-making, building, horticulture, farming, cattle, shrubs, and flowers, forestry, and farm implements of which he was an inventor. He provided for the recreation, housing, and help of those who worked for him, as well as for accidents and for old age; but he required due return of service. Not only had he literature relating to horses and horsemanship, but to the care of human beings also. He was an athlete and a sportsman for health and recreation; but he knew how to work with his own hands; and in camp, to share the privations of his soldiers. His ready sympathy in view of their sufferings caused tears to flow which he could not restrain, but he sought to supplement from his own reading the ignorance of raw recruits, and from his own supplies the deficiencies of the commissariat. Through tremendous trials and marches and hardships, his men followed him, in want themselves, but knowing his noble determination to receive no pay for his services and to make every sacrifice necessary for the cause. His men, and then the nation, and ultimately the world, read his simple, straightforward nature as an open book, and understanding him, had faith in him. But it was left for coming ages to discover to how great an extent for what he was and what he achieved, we re indebted to books and his faithful use of them.

The comparative absence of light literature from his library shows us his serious tastes and tasks; yet there are volumes which remind us how well he knew, not only that “sweet are the uses of adversity,” but that helpful are the uses of amusement. His introduction to polite literature, it seems, was at Greenway Court, the seat of Lord Fairfax, his connection by marriage and his patron, who employed him to survey his vast estates. Lord Fairfax had been a student of Oxford University and had written for Addison’s “Spectator.” We find, as was to be expected, that volumes of the “Spectator” and of “History and Literature” were in the library at Mount Vernon. Other connections, and his devoted brother Lawrence, with whom he lived for years and from whom he inherited Mount Vernon, had been liberally educated abroad. Works of the imagination were included in Washington’s library, Shakespeare and some others of the first rank.

His habit was to inform himself by reading and reflection before writing or acting: his absences from his Mount Vernon library increased with his public duties: when there the claims of hospitality and other interruptions prevented his full use and enjoyment of his books and study; but from camp he sent for books to booksellers, and at home, his scheme of daily duty also included a definite time for seclusion with his pen and books, and a definite arrangement for reading. On some occasions he read to others, or listened while others read; as in his vigorous boyhood, his wise and devoted mother read to him. Described when a bride as blonde and beautiful, her admirable influence upon the boy when fatherless is proverbial. Of late there are those who hold that, comparatively, the mother of Washington was uneducated and that members of her family, to say the least, were illiterate. I do not concur in this opinion; and I write these lines in the old Ball mansion, south of Saratoga and Ballston Spa, and nearer Ballston Centre, where was the congregation of the Reverend Eliphalet Ball, the pastor who, a relative of Mary Ball, Washington’s mother, welcomed Washington’s visit to that neighborhood. Reverend Eliphalet Ball’s important place in the community and in the esteem of his parishioners, is indicated by the lines traced upon his tomb in the neighboring God’s Acre “Sic transit gloria mundi.” Possibly the determined spirit of Washington’s mother and that of her son may be traced to the family whence sprang John Ball in the fourteenth century: that follower of Wycliffe, who engrafted on his master’s doctrine, it is said, “some political theories resembling the ‘liberty, equality, fraternity’ of later ages;” so that priest John Ball was consequently hanged a.d. 1381. The Reverend Eliphalet Ball, of Ballston, though a Protestant, called also “priest Ball” to this day, had a gentler life and fate. Distinguished guests were entertained by the family, and as their descendants find, Washington himself when in that part of New York State. Colonel Young bought the Ball mansion and its beautiful furniture.

I left the library room there but a little while ago. The place was called the Rose Garden and noted for its fruits and flowers, and for the open house there kept; the gifted descendant of Colonel Young, by whom I am often entertained, has not only the Chippendale furniture once the Ball’s, but has many traditions from her grandfather, Colonel Young, showing anything but “illiteracy” in the Ballston branch of the Ball family. Judging from Virginia mansions and families of Southern friends, and from what I have learned of Washington’s mother, before I concur in applying to her or hers such a term as illiterate, I require much more than ill-spelt letters, of a date when the spelling of English, if not more unphilosophical than now, was certainly more chaotic. Without entering further on this debated ground, and holding the noble influence of his mother upon his character and life to be beyond dispute, what seems long and strangely overlooked is the pre-eminent educational and literary influence on Washington of Augustine Washington, his father.

The study of Washington’s relation to books and the growth of his literary accomplishments, the classical allusions in his writings, as well as the clear, direct style of the competent man of business, call us to recognize his honored father as the founder of his culture. We must carefully consider, therefore, Washington’s heredity on his father’s side. Avoiding again debated points, and indebted somewhat to sources not generally accessible, we postpone the extended discussion of his arms or book-plate. But in connection with his heredity,it is here noticeable that history and tradition, as well as the arms and letters and records, etc., point to certain prevailing and truly noble characteristics from the thirteenth century and earlier onward. The arms indicate not only purity and self-command, but as we are assured, the agricultural pursuits of a gentleman: knighthood, courage, truth. In 1646, when General Fairfax, besieging Worcester, England, called on its governor, Colonel Henry Washington, to surrender, the reply had a ring of direct courage about it, as though uttered by George Washington himself: “To General Fairfax. Sir: It . . . may be easy to procure his Majesty’s commands for the disposal of this garrison. Till then I shall make good the trust reposed in me. As for the conditions, if I shall be necessitated, I shall make the best I can. The worst I know, and fear not.”

Not only from the navy, but by representatives such as university scholars and teachers, well-placed clergymen and university preachers, modifications are introduced, and the arms indicate further divinity and learning, as well as naval service. The connection of his ancestors with more than one nation—important to one needing to be in touch with others besides those of English descent—is suggested not simply by the name de Wessington and by branches on the continent of Europe as well as in England and America, but by such facts as that, to a correspondent claiming connection through the German branch, one who wished to take service under him, Washington, under date of July 20, 1779, wrote: “There can be little doubt, sir, of our descending from the same stock.” Further, he wrote when President, in reply to an inquiry from the Garter King-at-arms, Sir Isaac Heard: “This is a subject to which, I confess, I have paid very little attention; my time has been so much occupied in the busy activities of life from an early period of it, that but a small portion of it could have been devoted to researches of this nature, even if my inclinations or particular circumstances should have prompted to inquiry.”

The comparatively early death of Washington’s father, and the customary tendency to attribute the greatness of great sons to the mother, has too long thrown into shadow the tender, helpful, and beautiful friendship between the large-hearted boy and his cultured, travelled, and devoted father, Happy in its influence upon Washington’s character and consequently for mankind was this friendship, prophetic of many following. Is there not a worthy field for instructive research in the friendships of Washington? By request, I am preparing the subject for publication. How attractive was the young lad to the ablest men he met? Do not your hearts burn within you, who know the high purpose and possibilities of youth, as you read that Jesus, looking on the young man in the Gospel, loved him? Certainly Washington, a well-formed, high-principled lad, loved and was loved in return, and most warmly by his father. That father was then described as a “noble-looking man of distinguished bearing, tall, athletic, fair, florid, with brown hair and fine gray eyes.”

A writer in 1836 adds: “Between George Washington and his father it would seem that a delightful intercourse always subsisted, it being a matter of regret to the latter that he was obliged to be separated from his child, even during the hours of school.” He noted thankfully “the budding virtues of his son,” who was with him in his last hours in April, 1743, and received the “parting benediction of his beloved parent.” His father having been so attentive to the education of his children, and especially to that of George, thereafter the boy’s seriousness and piety deepened under the weight of this early bereavement. He was obliged to give up school to earn an honest living and relieve his widowed mother, who, able and untiring, was entrusted with an estate yielding comparatively little, however nominally extensive. But the root of literary growth sprung from heredity had been so fostered by his “scholarly” father that its development went right onward, assured by his own fidelity. The story is well authenticated of his sticking to has tasks when others were at play, fond as he was of athletic games with one sex or an occasional romp with the other.

As a half-orphan he was sent for a time to his half-brother’s residence—Wakefield—a “fine establishment” for that day. There, as at Mount Vernon, and with the Fairfaxes at Belvoir, and when at the stone residence erected by Lord Fairfax at Greenway Court overlooking his vast estate, young Washington associated with people of culture; some of whom, like so many of the Washingtons, had been educated at schools and colleges in the mother-country. The foreign connection was kept up by correspondence, some letters being as quaintly characteristic as the following from a fellow-soldier, who writes under date of November 13, 1749, to Captain Lawrence Washington: “I am just become eldest captain; . . . perhaps my dancing days ought to be over, . . . but not yet married; I threaten the Scotch lasses very hard; Bob — is likely dead; did I know where she was I would have a stroke at my old flame, his widow, if she durst venter again after having had so bad a husband; but they all do venter, and a man might venter too, were he sure of having as good luck as you had. . . . Pay my compliments to Fitzhue who I hear has beat up the quarters of a widow—to whom I wish all happiness.”

It was not till some ten years later that Washington, after the early, ardent years of his youth and race, “beat up the quarters” in a way possibly similar, and certainly resulting in his happy marriage January 6, 1759, to Mrs. Martha Custis, who added her fortune and influence to the hospitalities of his cultured home and the progress of his public career, and usually helped him keep his reading hours sacred.

As a surveyor in a wild and dangerous country, as a visitor in the best society of Boston and New York, as an officer in the troubles which continued through the seven years’ war, Washington had not only grown in experience and culture, but had earned the right to the home-life which on his marriage he resumed at Mount Vernon. The hand of Providence will be seen by the devout in that, neither by enlistment in the British navy, nor as a regular in that army, was he separated from the career of a patriotic colonist. His letters during these years of preparation show not only the growth of a great writer, but of a great heart; with a tender pity for the suffering and oppressed, and a strong sense of justice and of the rights of the people. His reading and experience prepared him, together with his influence as a member of the House of Burgesses, to lead in the coming cause of his country.

A devoted husband, he proved a good son. He has been blamed of late by those who, misinformed, declare not that he dissuaded her, but that he declined to have his mother live at Mount Vernon. Not so. We shall find that he advised either her living with one of her sons and adding to her income the rent of her house, where she was alone, or the suitable repair of her residence and her living there, where her firm domestic reign was undisputed. They had both the same habit of command, and she was accustomed to his implicit obedience. His accounts and letters show his devoted filial care for her, and in her advanced age he could but confess that the quiet of his house was disturbed by “crowds coming and going.”

The classic and other books in such a library as his, do not encourage Utopian attempts to accomplish the impossible. Socrates could not study without interruption. Washington’s literary work was hampered by many obstacles and conflicting duties. His wife, weighted with the hospitality of his establishment, was to be considered. Two wills, each working well in its own way, often work jarringly when confined to one and the same sphere. How hardly shall those that have separate homes enter an earthly paradise by joining establishments. The Bible suggesting this difficulty asks, “Can two walk together unless they be agreed?”

Washington, who had the happiness of all at heart, understanding whom he was dealing with, knew, as usual, “what he was about.” A man too weak to say no, or as in Washington’s case, while offering welcome, failing to frankly state the difficulties, will spoil two homes by complicity in an untimely attempt to unite them in one. However “wide” the house, the result may be a “brawling” failure. So frequented was Mount Vernon that a slight family jar there would make a public scandal. Remaining in her own house, was his mother’s decided choice; and Washington looked to her comfort, and she said again and again, “George has always been a good son.”

Incidents like this, and some which follow, are only germain [germane], because back of them we see Washington’s library and the use he made of it by conscientiously avoiding undue interruptions. The increasing demands upon his time required regular hours among his books and papers. A venerable and venerated bishop, whose marvellous memory retains many interesting events in American history, recalls a visit to Mount Vernon, where a lady of the family gave him the following illustration of Washington’s determination to have some time each day undisturbed in his library. An equestrian from the capital, in hot haste to return and “catch the stage” for Philadelphia, dismounted for a passing glimpse of the great Washington. He was in vain assured that Washington in his library, or study, as in the family it was sometimes called, was denied to all when engaged there with his devotional or other books. Insistance finally prevailed and under pressure the honored wife yielded, and they were breaking in upon his study, and the door was being opened, when suddenly the grand face appeared, the deep eyes and voice; and the exclamation, “How dare you!” showed that if Washington was “not at home” to callers, the General was decidedly in evidence, with no intention that his orders should be disobeyed.

In his correspondence Washington laments, with a delicate trace of humor characteristic of him, that other things than rightful claims often keep him from his books, for he could not be inhospitable, and crowds and correspondence increased. When, in 1797, in the midst of repairs and improvements, he writes to the Secretary of War of his resumption of his life at Mount Vernon, he adds, “It may strike you that in this detail no mention is made of any portion of time allotted to reading. The remark would be just, for I have not looked into a book since I came home, nor shall I be able to do it until I shall have discharged my workmen; probably not before the nights grow long, when possibly I may be looking into Doomsday book.”

Does not this reference to his reading habits suggest a modesty also characteristic of his public achievements? Frederick the Great and others ranked high such plans, and campaigns, and sacrifices as his under such difficulties, and the thoughtful saw in them the right use of books as well as of brains. Familiar with the best European military schools and literature, De Kalb, who served so nobly, died so bravely, and the corner-stone of whose monument was laid by Lafayette, lamented “that an excessive modesty led Washington too frequently to act upon the opinion of inferior men, rather than upon his own most excellent judgment. In the army and Congress more than one rival was opposed to him. He had his full share of disaster, the operations which he conducted, if compared with great European wars, were on a very small scale. . . . It may, however, be truly said of him that his military reputation steadily rose through many successive campaigns, and before the end of the struggle he had outlived all rivalry, and almost all envy. He had a thorough knowledge of the technical part of his profession, a good eye for military combinations, an extraordinary gift of military administration. Punctual, methodical, and exact in the highest degree, he excelled in managing those minute details which are so essential to the efficiency of an army, and he possessed to an eminent degree not only the common courage of a soldier, but also that much rarer form of courage which can endure long-continued suspense, bear the weight of great responsibility, and encounter the risks of misrepresentation and unpopularity. In civil as in military life, he was pre-eminent among his contemporaries for the clearness and soundness of his judgment, for his perfect moderation and self-control, for the quiet dignity and the indomitable firmness with which he pursued every path which he had deliberately chosen. Of all the great men in history he was the most invariably judicious, and there is scarcely a rash word, or action, or judgment recorded of him. Those who knew him well noticed that he had keen sensibilities and strong passions; but his power of self-command never failed him, and no act of his public life can be traced to caprice, ambition, or resentment. In the despondency of long-continued failure, in the elevation of sudden success, at times when his soldiers were deserting by hundreds, and when malignant plots were formed against his reputation; amid the constant quarrels, rivalries, and jealousies of his subordinates; in the dark hour of national ingratitude, and in the midst of the most universal and intoxicating flattery, he was always the same calm, wise, just, and single-minded man, pursuing the course which he believed to be right without fear or fanaticism; equally free from the passions that spring from interest, and from the passions that spring from imagination. He never acted on the impulse of an absorbing or uncalculating enthusiasm, and he valued very highly fortune, position, and reputation; but at the command of duty he was ready to risk and sacrifice them all. He was in the highest sense of the word a gentleman and a man of honor, and he carried into public life the severest standards of private morals.”

Marvellously exact, methodical, business-like, to modesty that rendered him speechless in his youth when called to reply in public to formal praise, he joined the impressive dignity of conscious rectitude. Authors who aim to take him from his pedestal and claim that he was “but a man after all,” may do no harm in a day when worship of demi-gods is out of date, and when something human is needed for a human exemplar. But why should not justice at least, and at last, be done him, by a book-making and a book-loving age, in the matter of his memorable Library and his remarkable use of it? The Library at Belvoir must, one would judge as already intimated, have equalled that of any Southern Colonial mansion in Washington’s day, and he was often entertained there as a near neighbor and dear friend. The list handed down names the books in the Belvoir library, and we group them as follows. Later you can compare the showing with Washington’s comparatively great library.

“Coke’s Institutes of the Laws of England” (3 vols.); Gunnall, “Offences in the Realm of England;” “Lex Mercatoria, or Law of Merchants;” Hawkins, “Pleas of the Crown;” Chamberlain’s “State of Great Britain;” “Hobart’s Reports;” “Croope’s Reports;” “Johnson’s Excellency of Monarchical Government;” “England’s Recovery;” “Political Discourses, by Henry, Earl of Monmouth;” “Obreneter, a Political Piece;” “Laws of His Majesty’s Plantations;” “Laws of Virginia;” “Laws of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay;” Jacob’s “Law Dictionary;” Ainsworth’s “Latin and English Dictionary;” Haine’s “Dictionary of Arts and Sciences;[“] “Latin and French Dictionary;” “Spanish and English Dictionary;” “Compleat Clerk and Conveyancer;” Parkinson’s “Herball;” “The Way to Get Wealth;” Hughes’ “Natural History of Barbadoes;” Langley’s “Pomona or Gardening;” “A New Body of Geography;” Heylin’s “Cosmographie,” in four books; “London Magazine,” seven volumes; “History of the Low Country Wars;” “Collections of Voyages and Travels;” “Batavia Illustrated;” Blackmore’s “Prince Arthur;” Locke on “The Human Understanding;” “History of the Twelve Cæsars,” by Suetonius; Knoll’s “History of the Turkish Empire;” “The State of Christendom;” Calvin’s “Institute of Religion;” Fuller’s “Church History from its Rise;” “A Poem on Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell;” “Knox’s Martyrologie;” “Latin Bible.”

Washington bought articles at the Belvoir sale, but “no books,” and no wonder, when the contents of the Belvoir Library are contrasted with the long list of titles comprising the Mount Vernon Library. From Newburg, before the Revolutionary War closed, he sent to New York a comparatively large order, naming more than a dozen books, mostly historical, and adding: “If there is a good bookseller’s shop in the city I would thank you for sending me a catalogue of the books and their prices, that I may choose such as I want.” The word want indicates the hunger he always felt for books as the pabulum of reliable information; and this, in later as in earlier years. Whether founded on French or English works, Washington’s MS. rules for behavior give additional interest to that volume found in our day with the name George Washington, 1742, on the fly-leaf in a boyish hand. In connection with the late civil war, the book was brought to public notice as possibly furnishing materials for his rules for behavior in company, as the old French rules, and also Hale’s “Contemplations,” valued by his mother, may also have done. Young Washington’s valued little book by W. Mather, including legal forms, and information as to surveying, gardening, etc., thus brought to our attention, is called “The Young Man’s Companion.” Comprehensive and suggestive, it is a sound foundation-stone, if but a solitary one, for a boy’s early attempt at forming a working library.

In accounts and letters of Washington, I am informed by those best acquainted with them, are still ampler evidences than can be adduced here, that he was a book-buyer. Before me is a written memorandum of twenty-one guineas received from Washington for one useful publication. Added instances indicate his ever-growing interest in books, and the gradual but steady growth by gift and purchase of the ultimately overflowing contents of his book-room. Instances also of his judicious selection and use of books multiplying beyond our ability to record them now may be codified in some future publication; here we trust are cited enough to indicate his interest in reading and the influence of books upon his contemplative and fore-casting mind.

When the people, over-anxious perhaps, notwithstanding the triumphant close of the Revolution, re-echoed his suggestive, almost despairing assertion, “We are one nation to-day and thirteen to-morrow,” Washington prepared himself, not as a theorist, but as a student of ancient and modern confederations. There is, we are assured, as to the constitutions of republics, ancient and modern, “a paper in his handwriting which contains an abstract of each, in which are noted in methodical order their chief characteristics, the kind of authority they possessed, their modes of operation, and their defects. The confederacies analyzed in this paper are the Lycian, Amphictyonic, Achæan, Helvetic, Belgic, and Germanic. He also read the standard works on general politics, and the science of government, abridging parts of them according to his usual practice, that he might impress the essential points more deeply on his mind.”

Copying this paper at length in his “Writings of Washington” (vol. ix., App.), as showing the “minute inquiry” and “close attention” Washington devoted to momentous questions, Sparks also gives the letter dated October 31, 1786, in which Washington exclaims, “You talk, my good sir, of employing influence to appease the present tumults. I know not where that influence is to be found, or if attainable that it would be the proper remedy for the disorders. Influence is not government.” While Washington’s interest in books is further shown by his letter dated July 9, 1787, acknowledging the receipt of the volumes entitled “Letters of an American Farmer;” that he continued reading with reference to the governmental questions of the hour is evidenced in the following from his letter dated Mount Vernon, November 30, 1787.

“I have seen no publication yet, that ought in my judgment to shake the proposed constitution in mind of an impartial and candid public. In fine, I have hardly seen one, that is not addressed to the passions of the people, and obviously calculated to alarm their fears. Every attempt to amend the constitution at this time is in my opinion idle and vain. If there are characters, who prefer disunion, or separate confederacies, to the general government, which is offered to them, their opposition may, for aught I know, proceed from principle; but as nothing according to my conception of the matter is more to be deprecated than a disunion of these distinct confederacies, as far as my voice can go it shall be offered in favor of the latter. That there are some writers, and others perhaps who may not have written, that wish to see this union divided into several confederacies, is pretty evident. As an antidote to these opinions, and in order to investigate the ground of objections to the constitution which is submitted, the Federalist, under the signature of Publius, is written. The numbers, which have been published, I send you. If there is a printer in Richmond who is really well disposed to support the new constitution, he would do well to give them a place in his paper. They are, I think I may venture to say, written by able men; and before they are finished will, or I am mistaken, place matters in a true point of light. Although I am acquainted with the writers, who have a hand in this work, I am not at liberty to mention names, nor would I have it known, that they are sent by me to you for promulgation.”

The writers to whom Washington here refers are doubtless Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. Washington’s reading, however, including passing events, extended to past history. His library was his stronghold, his arsenal whence he came to Assemblies, Congresses, and the Constitutional Convention well furnished from books he had studied, and with citations he had written out. Thus he aimed to profit by the recorded experience of the past. When Franklin in that convention proposed daily prayers, he said: “We are assured in the sacred writings that except the Lord build the house, their labor is but in vain that build it.” Familiar with the Bible and the Prayer Book, Washington, who presided, perhaps, prompted the motion. When consequently prayers were read by Bishop White, they were in terms so familiar to Washington that they not infrequently reappear in phrases of his published or familiar writings. The chair there used by Washington as the presiding officer may still be seen, and on it the half-sun of which Franklin wittily remarked that he had his doubts whether it was a rising or a setting sun. Upon the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, it was seen “to be a rising sun,” and we may add that many of its brightest beams were reflected from the library at Mount Vernon.

Mount Vernon, by its name, reminded our hero of the great Admiral Vernon, the commanding officer and friend of his brother Lawrence, and of the fact that a midshipman’s commission having been sought for him as early as 1746, he was restrained from entering the navy by his widowed mother’s unwillingness to be parted from her boy. Later, love led him in an opposite course, from land to sea, when he left profitable employment to tend one who loved him. Thus his only seafaring experience was his youthful voyage to and from the West Indies with his dying brother Lawrence. Nevertheless, naval subjects are among those of his library. And as showing his use of the opportunities he had, an able critic has said, of what he esteems the best and most remarkable of recent works on naval subjects, that when it comes down to its principles, new as is the work, the gist of it all is found in a few lines quoted from Washington. As we read correspondence expressing the ardent wish of the family that his mother could be persuaded to let Washington go to sea, we note that the Washingtons and Fairfaxes on opposite sides a century earlier, were by marriage and other ties now united.

Lord Fairfax finally returning to visit his estate, was at the neighboring mansion of Belvoir, and had crossed the water this time to stay. Washington, forced by his sense of filial duty to stay also, turned as a landsman to devour the books within his reach. Lord Fairfax and that cultured circle of Washington’s relatives and connections furthering his literary tastes and pursuits, and no veil obscuring his character and course, we conclude that even at this early period he was in a most real sense a thoughtful and intelligent reader, and one laying sound foundation for a useful and honorable career. There are those who find it, therefore, hard to forgive the novelist who, although writing as if in touch with colonial Virginians and with young Washington himself, yet from inadequate information gives what purports to be a portrait of him, but is rather a misleading sketch or a poor caricature. However, he did full justice to Washington in his maturity. For in closing his lectures on the four Georges, Thackeray contrasts with the last of them, our great George, who, well-meaning as the best of the royal Georges, and pleasing in manners and appearance as the worst of them, and surpassing in firmness the stubbornness of any of them, attained not only an eminence, but a literary style and cultured excellence which is seen happily illustrated in his resignation quoted in the course of the contrast:

The year 1784 was remarkable in the life of our friend, the First Gentleman of Europe. Do you not know that he was twenty-one in that year and opened Carlton House with a grand ball to the nobility and gentry, and doubtless wore that lovely pink coat which we have described? I was eager to read about the ball, and looked to the old magazines for information. The entertainment took place on the tenth of February. In the European Magazine of March, 1784, I came straightway upon it. . . .

In the Gentleman’s Magazine for the very same month and year—March, 1784—is an account of another festival, in which another great gentleman of English extraction is represented as taking a principal share:—

According to order, H.E., the commander-in-chief, was admitted to a public audience of Congress; and, being seated, the President, after a pause, informed him that the United States assembled were ready to receive his communications, whereupon he arose and spoke as follows:

Mr. President—The great events on which my resignation depended having at length taken place, I present myself before Congress to surrender into their hands the trust committed to me, and to claim the indulgence of retiring from the service of my country.

Happy in the confirmation of our independence and sovereignty, I resign the appointment I accepted with diffidence; which, however, was superseded by a confidence in the rectitude of our cause, the support of the supreme power of the nation, and the patronage of Heaven; I close this last act of my official life by commending the interests of our dearest country to the protection of Almighty God, and those who have the superintendence of them to His holy keeping. Having finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of action; and, bidding an affectionate farewell to this august body, under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission and take my leave of the employments of my public life.

To which the President replied:

Sir, having defended the standard of liberty in the New World, having taught a lesson useful to those who inflict and those who feel oppression, you retire with the blessings of your fellow-citizens; though the glory of your virtues will not terminate with your military command, but will descend to remotest ages.

Which was the most splendid spectacle ever witnessed—the opening feast of Prince George in London, or the resignation of Washington? Which is the noble character for after-ages to admire—yon fribble dancing in lace and spangles, or yonder hero who sheathes his sword after a life of spotless honor, a purity unreproached, a courage indomitable, and a consummate victory? Which of these is the true gentleman? What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to have lofty aims, to lead a pure life, to keep your honor virgin, to have the esteem of your fellow-citizens, and the love of your fireside; to bear good fortune meekly; to suffer evil with constancy, and through evil or good to maintain truth always? Show me the happy man whose life exhibits these qualities, and him we will salute as gentleman, whatever his rank may be; show me the prince, the leader who possesses these, and he may be sure of our love and loyalty.

The devout conviction that Washington was providentially prepared for this great leadership and enduring influence arose even in his early career. Marvellous escapes in intercourse with the Indians and French, and from dangers then attending surveying and border life, and his early campaigns, led to expressions such as that of President Davies, of New Jersey College, when a clergyman in Virginia: “As a remarkable instance of this, I may point out to the public that heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has hitherto preserved in so signal a manner for some important services to his country.”

As with Washington’s timely studies, so the surveys and legal papers drawn by him are admirable. You may have noticed that while other topics were represented, such as religion, education, medicine, surveying, and the needs of farm and border life generally, a large proportion of the books of the Belvoir list relate to law and politics or government. These subjects preponderate in the smaller collections owned by most planters, and probably also among books commonly owned at the North. In contact with Indians, with slaves, with adventurers or marauders of various nationalities, a race of rulers was being formed. The books early within reach of Washington were of a governmental and practical character, and we know, as to his acquirements, the school of arduous life in which they were put to the test and further developed. An architect and builder, he has been presented here as an able journalist. Tis is true not only of the period already referred to, when the press, as we have it, not having come into being, Washington’s letters and other writings moulded public opinion; but during his whole career his journalistic ability was shown. He was abroad among the people of his neighborhood and made his presence felt in other places.

Turn to his journals; note especially the year 1774 and the month of September, the period when the people were being prepared to undertake armed resistance against oppression. In his journal for the month of September, under the heading, “Where and how, and with whom my time is spent,” we find him, except Sundays, dining daily with different parties, and accepting other hospitalities in centres of importance, and often with men of influence. Far from being a recluse, he was alert in the midst of exciting questions and anxious efforts, and thoroughly informed himself as does a conscientious journalist before aiming to influence others. He marshalled the people by his pen, for back of his potent presence, books, reading, carefully prepared statements founded on solid information, were the grounds long overlooked of his great influence. This point is often missed in quoting the eloquent Patrick Henry’s declaration as to the first Continental Congress at Philadelphia: “If you speak of solid information and sound judgment, Colonel Washington is unquestionably the greatest man on the floor.”

More important than his practical and arduous military training, and even than his growing familiarity with the resources and possibilities of the country from travel and study, more important even than the statistics and maps which came to crowd his library, relating to the development of districts where railroads, steamers, and other means of inter-communication now crowd the scene; most memorable as a preparation for his predestined duty, was his membership for fifteen years in the Virginia House of Burgesses. Considering the ability of many of its members, and the great subjects they discussed, it remained to the verge of the Revolutionary War, to say the least, an exceptionally fine parliamentary school.

All that he does, says, writes, in these times that try men’s souls, has that true American ring, which sounds in his letter from the first Continental Congress at Philadelphia, to Captain MacKenzie, stationed at Boston, regarding any government or governments “upon this continent separately or collectively.” . . . “This you may rely upon, that none of them will ever submit to the loss of those valuable privileges, which are essential to the inhabitants of every free State; and without which life, liberty, and property are rendered totally insecure.” No leading editorial in a great journal could have been better calculated to affect public opinion than such a letter, from such a man, at such a time, direct from the Continental Congress, to Boston, and patriots there; and thence to vast numbers of links along the chain of the sea-board population. Remarkable as a reader and a writer, he might well as a speaker have been called George the Silent. His own sense that silence is golden, is seen not only in his own usage, but in his letter of counsel to his nephew on becoming a member of the House of Burgesses: “If you have a mind to command the attention of the House, the only advice I will offer is to speak seldom, but on important subjects, and such as particularly relate to your constituents; . . . make yourself perfectly master of the subject.”

The words last quoted are in point, in further showing Washington’s habits in relation to books, and sound sources of information. His weight in the Constitutional Convention, as elsewhere, was not that of a talker, but because he had conscientiously read up and thought out matters of moment; and aimed to act for the best without fear or favor. When later he urged the internal development of the United States, his book-room, as I have just indicated, showed the foundations of his knowledge in maps, charts, and statistical information relating to inter-State communication and commerce. How firm the foundation, on which from his library he looked out upon the future! He stood not as an ignorant prophet of evil, but from a well-furnished mind he pointed out dangers only to suggest sources of relief to be found in related books, both historical and constitutional. In 1789 he wrote, “It is among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished.” In 1797, in a letter which I have read in his own handwriting, he wrote to Lawrence Lewis, “I wish from my soul that the Legislature of this State could see the policy of a gradual abolition of slavery. It might prevent much future mischief.”

Education had been defective or neglected in this country. Not only was it among topics in his library and conspicuous among his subjects of research and conference, but his aid to educational institutionals and to individuals desiring education, was so discriminating and timely as to be a standing incentive to thoughtful liberality. As early as 1769 he wrote to a parent who lacked means for a youth’s collegiate course, “If you have no objections but the expense, depend on me. You must not consider it an obligation nor mention it, for be assured from me it will never be known.” Schools, and colleges, and universities were remembered in his will, also. His writings, like his library, contain important suggestions, culminating in what may well be termed the great educational statesmanship of his proposal for a unifying national university. For such educational conceptions as his (especially in one not a college man) spring from books and reading, they are not the simple offspring of “innate wisdom.” We find marked allusions to them in his letters, as well as in his will.

Regarding his wise bequest for a national university, memorable are such words as these: “Youths from all parts of the United States, instead of learning principles from abroad, unfriendly to republican government and the true liberties of mankind, may be educated in all branches of the arts, sciences, and literature, acquiring principles of politics and good government; and as a matter of infinite importance may form friendships in juvenile years, enabling them to free themselves from those local prejudices and habitual jealousies which are never-failing sources of disquietude and mischievous consequences to the country.” Had his carefully studied and philanthropic and educational purposes been carried out by his successors, slavery would sooner have been abolished, the people might have been spared the fratricidal war, and the Union have triumphed from the first. That is might remain undisturbed for all time was the purpose of Washington’s forecasting policy and of his educational foundation, at the capital of the country, which if built upon as he proposed would ere this have given the people a noble national university.

Lamenting the scattering of his library broadcast from Mount Vernon, we are at last assured that in close touch with much else which was once Washington’s, permanent, fire-proof provision is being made for a national collection, whose steady growth is already reassuring. Together with some of his books, and a valuable mass of cognate literature, including many of his letters and papers, journals and related documents, some of them autographs, some of them press copies, there are being secured there reliable transcriptions aiming to embody, for the student’s use and the guidance of legislators, every line which Washington wrote. Treasures such as these, and others of inestimable value, with means to make the collection one of the most useful as well as one of the greatest in the world—all this is to be perpetuated in the local habitation at last provided at Washington. Not only as bearing his name, but as associated with his services, the place is fitting, and no obelisk could be a nobler monument to Washington than his writings preserved for the people in the National Congressional Library.

Part Second.
WASHINGTON: FAVORITE BOOKS AND PRESENTATION COPIES:
A GIFTED WRITER AND READER, HAD HE GENIUS?

THE literary material once in Washington’s library, as we have learned with regret, cannot be found at Mount Vernon, whence it has been scattered beyond recall. If it were not so, historians entering the library as Washington left it and examining its contents, would find it instructive to take down book after book from the shelves: from marginal notes and other circumstances they might hope to learn more certainly there than elsewhere his taste in books, his principles as a reader, and which were his favorites. The statement herewith recites the works in his library and lays the foundation on which the desired material may be accumulated. But years must be spent in searching his writings, and noting opinions and traditions, before important points such as we consider can be cleared up, to the satisfaction of those who think nothing unimportant which displays his character.

What answer is there to the question in the light we have, “What were Washington’s favorite books?” Evidently those from which he could gain promptly information, for the duty which lay nearest to him. If we ask what book he prized most, of the true answer we have no doubt. Of others it is not difficult to see from the books catalogued in his library and from what we have learned of the use he made of them, that not excluding lighter literature, he was drawn most to such as equipped him for his public and private career. “He was a constant buyer of books treating upon subjects in which he was interested.” My thoroughly informed correspondent adds: “His cash accounts show this, but do not always give the names of the books he bought. I think it may be assumed that the greater part of his library was of his own selection and procurement.” If he did not send abroad for books, or buy rare or costly ones simply because of their scarcity and because of remarkable printing, paper, and binding, we find that the needed economy and demands of state, and practical calls, drew him in other directions. He offered the non-importation resolutions unanimously adopted by the provincial convention of Virginia. They were most aggressive. Naturally, therefore, he found what he needed while encouraging home trade, without resorting during the war to importation or unsuitable outlay.

As friend turns to friend for counsel, and the advocate to the law library for precedents to make out his case, and the statesman to books at his command for principles to support his cause, so was it with Washington. It is not yet known where or at what cost Washington obtained the works in his library relating to Civics; we know that he consulted books on the subject and wrote out the results. The statement already made that his reading regarding such topics was thorough, thoughtful, and for a patriotic purpose is sustained by his letters and biography by Sparks: “His knowledge of the institutions of his own country and of its political forms, both in their general character and minute and affiliated relations, gained by inquiry and long experience, was probably as complete as that of any other man. But he was not satisfied with this alone. He read the history and examined the principles of the ancient and modern confederacies.” While thus prepared for the meeting of the Constitutional Convention, Washington’s respect for law led him, although denouncing the defects of the Articles of Confederation, nevertheless, as they had not been abrogated, to call them in the following paragraph the constitution. “He was apprehensive that the delegates might come together fettered with instructions which would embarrass and retard, if not defeat the salutary end proposed: ‘My wish is,’ said he, ‘that the convention may adopt no temporizing expedients, but probe the defects of the constitution to the bottom and provide a radical cure.†. . . Conduct of this kind will stamp wisdom and dignity on their proceedings, and hold up a light which sooner or later will have its influence.’“

If subjects as far apart as nation-building and bees are found in his library, he could draw honey from each, not only lessons for his farm and merchandise, but for character-building, and for hiving, housing, and sustaining a busy people; and also for framing the structure of an enduring nation. There are those interested in learning how it was that such dissimilar material came to have place in his library. Those who regard it as an odd topic for that day ask how Jeffries’s “AÎrial Voyages,” named in the appraiser’s list, came to be among his books. As he became more and more famous, presentation copies, often with complimentary inscriptions, were repeatedly sent to him. Will not persons who can conveniently do so obligingly forward to me information not contained herein, and pertinent to questions such as the above, or stating the whereabouts of books claimed to have been Washington’s, and furnish any related facts of interest? In the appraiser’s list, among books which Washington could not but prize, since they relate to military matters, is a volume whose fate indicates not only that the contents of the library have been scattered but that search for the places where volumes may be found is by no means hopeless. The work referred to may be seen at the Library of the State of New York at Albany, and is called “Uniform of the Forces of Great Britain in 1742, Executed by John Pine,” the engraver, and presented by his son to Washington. Said to be very rare, its interest centres in the illustrations representing the dress of the British army.

It is principally, then, from the examination of volumes once Washington’s that he placed upon books; related information may be had from other sources. Among his favorite topics were history and its modern correlative, economics. “Smith’s Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776, the authority on economics then, and holding since a foremost place, we found in his library. From the appraiser’s list we cited also “Gibbon’s Rome, 6 vols.,” the last page and line of which was written in 1787. Additions to his library were acquired in the years immediately preceding his death. Were there booksellers instructed to send him new publications of importance, or were the above and works such as “History of Spain, 2 vols., 8vo,” and “Don Quixote, 4 vols.,” and his other copy of “Don Quixote,” presentation copies? The books which came to Washington by inheritance, if not numerous, were useful. In the “Complete View of the British Customs,” his father, Augustine Washington, not only wrote his name and address several times, but the reader finds written therein also: “His book, bought ye 4th. of May 1739 of ye book-seller under ye Royal Exchange for 7 pence.” Some “Dryasdust” may yet inform us which of his books came by inheritance, which by purchase, and which by presentation. We know that in some are his autograph, in others his book-plate, while some enjoy the distinction of having both. In his library were not only foreign but American publications, some of an early date, some political and statistical, and some with his marginal notes. In the private collection in New York of the founder of the Avery Memorial Architectural Library, as reported, is that work once owned by Washington entitled “The Contrast,” being the first American comedy; and in the celebrated collection of Mr. William H. Havemeyer are many volumes once Washington’s. The relation of the Father of our Country to religious books is considered later.

The USE he made of books has been declared of most importance. Can we estimate which of his books he used most, even if we cannot decide as to each of them as yet whether or no it was a favorite? Laws and constitutions were among topics to which he must often have turned. We have seen that he was well informed as to constitutions of republics, and such constitutions are few in number; and the books for necessary information on practical essentials are few also. If a great book comes once in a century, twenty would comprise such produced since the Christian era. The books which were the foundation for his adequate and accurate information may yet be named. But now that the materials are scattered, the inductive and deductive work, essential to the complete treatment of our topic, includes excerpts from Washington’s letters and literary material and from other quarters quite beyond our present limits. Works relating to his farms and Mount Vernon estate have been recognized from the first as among favorites often consulted. In Boston an examination of three hundred and eighty of the books in his library there, shows that between one and two hundred of the number are upon agriculture and related matters. One who has been conducting an examination of Washington’s books and pamphlets for me there may enable me to furnish, in an appended statement or later publication, correct titles, editors’ and authors’ names, size, date and place of publication, character of paper and binding, the prices in the appraiser’s list contrasted with sales of late, together with the presentations, notes and other inscriptions, and possibly a full account of pamphlets now entered as “Miscellanies,” but swelling the titles of the collection to a very much larger number than the inventory indicates.

In a letter counselling the proper education of a young friend Washington writes that in addition to mathematics, modern languages, and some other subjects, “he is unacquainted with several of the classic authors.” Had Washington favorites among such authors? Did he take volumes with him from his library to camp, Congress, and the capital, perhaps losing them by the way? Suffice it here to say that whether he was like conquerors of old who had Homer with them in the tent, among books of his missing when the appraiser’s list was made were two volumes of Homer’s Iliad. His copy was not Homer in the original. Time and opportunity allowed him knowledge of only his native language, to which, however, he gave that marked attention which is its rightful due from all. Accordingly, it is not surprising to find Washington’s autograph at seventeen written in the volume found inn his library, entitled “The Royal English Grammar, containing what is necessary to the knowledge of the English tongue for the use of young gentlemen and ladies: London, 1747.” His library also contained Johnson’s Dictionary in two volumes, 1786.

In England and on the Continent are found materials for our subject, including volumes with choice autographs of Washington, of which one was bought from Mr. Stevens “for the Bodleian, and one for the Royal Library at Berlin.” Weighty facts as to his autograph manuscripts in the possession of our Government and of several of the States and of private individuals and cognate information is [are] massed in the pamphlet of which, as well as of that relating to Washington as an inventor, Dr. J. M. Toner is the author. The collection of copies and autograph manuscripts of Washington owned by the United States is said to be the most complete in the world as well as the largest, and to be in safe custody, and further to confirm Washington’s high rank as a man of letters and of books. Of late “there has appeared in the hands of autograph-dealers in New York several hundred certified returns of surveys with plates made along about 1750, 1751, and 1752, in the handwriting of George Washington. These had doubtless been surreptitiously taken from the records of the counties in the Valley of Virginia, to which they had been returned in accordance with the law made and provided for the government of licensed surveyors. It is evident Virginia is still being despoiled of here treasures.”

The public is to be cordially congratulated when at sales of Washingtoniana the Regents of Mount Vernon are represented and make purchases for that mansion; or when any of the public collections in safe custody have income or other aid enabling them to rescue and safely place the flotsam and jetsam of the Mount Vernon library. The fine collection in the Boston Athenæum which I have seen is increased from year to year by an income for the purpose. With more than three hundred engraved portraits of Washington, four hundred books, and a thousand related pamphlets, it includes what has been called erroneously Washington’s Library. An effort in Washington City having failed, just as what has thus been called the Washington Library was about to be alienated from this country by sale abroad; it was purchased and thus placed, by distinguished subscribers. Consequently there are nearly four hundred of the books on the shelves in the Athenæum, and you may be permitted to inspect them, as one who is making examinations for me has lately done. He reports that “while there are thirteen hundred titles found in the record of the Washington Library, even that inventory is very meagre, as several hundred pamphlets are there represented by a very small number of titles.”

Presentation copies are attracting attention wherever found. We must visit Mount Vernon to see that work already referred to as having not only the initials G.W. stamped upon the cover, but a golden crown. If the binder designed the crown as a flattering bait to ambition, it was misdirected. All those who suggested a kingly crown to Washington were without equivocation or hesitation sternly rebuked. What we know of Washington’s autograph letters and the papers of Rochambeau in the Library of Congress show that nobleman to have harbored no such design. In the Athenæum collection the reply to Paine’s attack there has the fact indicated on the cover that it is a presentation copy. There, too, is the “Defence of the Constitution by John Adams.” Appropriately there, printed by T. and J. Flat, at Heart and Crown, Cornhill, Boston, New England, is the “Manual of Field Day Exercises and Reviews, as ordered by His Majesty in 1764.” There is to be seen “A plan wherein the power of steam is shown by a new constructed machine, by James Ramsey of Virginia (1788), showing how vessels can be propelled against the most rapid stream.” Presentation copies include volumes of the debates of the “House of Commons” of Great Britain, and a treatise inscribed “For General Washington from the British Board of Agriculture.” There are also treatises on the French Revolution, “pro and con,” sent to him from France. His firmness in 1793, and notwithstanding the alliance of 1783, prevented our joining France against England, and fixed our foreign policy of absolute neutrality. This has its traces and to some extent its foundation in his library.

Before quoting other inscriptions complimentary to Washington, a passage from one of his letters, referring to the request of a flattering writer for the use of papers in his possession, is here in place. “Whenever Congress shall have opened their archives to any historian for information, he shall have the examination of all the others in my possession which are subsequent thereto; but until that epoch, I do not think myself at liberty to unfold papers which contain all the occurrences and transactions of my late command. . . . I will frankly declare to you, my Dr. Doctor, that any memoirs of my life. distinct and unconnected with the general history of the war, would rather hurt my feelings than tickle my pride whilst I live. I had rather glide gently down the stream of life, leaving it to posterity to think and say what they please of me, than by any act of mine to have vanity and ostentation imputed to me.” To another he writes in the following year (1785): “This must be a very futile work . . . either from my papers, or my recollection, . . . many of the former relative to the part I had acted in the war between France and Great Britain from the year 1754, until the peace of Paris, which contained some of the most interesting occurrences of my life were lost. . . . Memory is too treacherous to be relied on to supply this defect. . . . I intended to have devoted the present expiring winter in arranging all my papers which I had left at home, and which I found a mere mass of confusion (occasioned by frequently shifting them into trunks, and suddenly removing them from the reach of the enemy)—but however strange it may seem it is nevertheless true, that, what with company, references of old matters with which I ought not to be troubled—applications for certificates, and copies of orders, in addition to the routine of letters which have multiplied greatly upon me;—I have not been able to touch a single paper, or transact any business of my own, in the way of accounts, etc., during the whole course of the winter.”

Although modesty led Washington to deprecate praise in his lifetime, among tributes worthy to be perpetuated in full are the best of those in the presentation copies in his library. That by Arthur Young is inscribed in his “Annals of Agriculture and other Useful Arts, in thirty-one volumes, London, 1784–88.” In the last five volumes is the name of “Martha Washington, 1800.” Washington had previously placed his name in twenty-one of them, “1798,” being the very year before his death. Among payments by Washington for publications in his library the following is of more than ordinary interest, as found indorsed on a letter to Lord Buchan, dated Philadelphia, June 20, 1792: “It was not till the tenth instant that I had the honor to receive your Lordship’s second favor of the 15th of September which was enclosed in a letter from Doct’r James Anderson, and accompanied with six volumes of the Bee.—These were forwarded by a Bookseller at New York, who mentioned his having received directions from Doct’r Anderson to submit them to me. I must therefore beg your Lordship’s acceptance of my warmest thanks for this additional testimony of your politeness.—Considering myself a subscriber to the Bee, I have written to Doct’r Anderson to know in what manner I shall pay the money, that it may get regularly to his hands.—With sincere prayers for the health and happiness of your Lordship—and gratefully impressed with the many marks of attention which I have received from you—I have the honor to be with great esteem,” etc. On the back page the Earl of Buchan has written and signed “B. Feb. 2, 1800,” the following: “I had presented to the General some volumes of Dr. Anderson’s bee & mentioned to him that I proposed to write some papers for that periodical work which might have a scope towards the United States. So attentive was the great and good man to the most minute circumstance that five guineas accompanied this letter for Dr. Anderson as a subscriber to his paper.”

Washington’s pleasant humor must have pardoned the inscription of one whose heart was evidently not as bay as his muse: “To George Washington, a name honored in History and immortal as memory. Loved by the muses the following poem originated by enthusiasm, is presented with Diffidence.” Whatever you may think of the Hibernian dedication to be quoted in a moment, its spirit is most praiseworthy compared with attempts to place Washington in a ludicrous light which have abounded in proportion as the current rage for money-getting has decreased popular regard for much once respected. Disraeli’s principle, true in the sense in which it was applied to the feudal system, which makes ability the measure of responsibility, seems regarded no longer by the typical plutocrat and even less by some bright writers. From Paris, where are preserved valuable materials relating to our subject, the following assertion was lately cabled: “It will take longer to de-dollarize the United States than it did to de-Christianize France.” As we hold that France has not been de-Christianized, we are confident also that the United States will be Christianized, or, as the new phrase, is, “de-dollarized.” In the coming centuries the nation, we have reason to believe, will grow in Christianity, and so slough off much which mars the fair fame of our boasted nineteenth century, and with it the impertinent readiness to speak evil of dignities, and cheap wit such as that which has already done its worst herein without lowering the altitude of Washington’s greatness one inch in public esteem.

Those who have enjoyed the brilliant conversation of Mr. Charles O’Conor know that the great Irishmen of this age, like those of the past, have been cordial admirers of Washington. On the fly-leaf of “Thoughts of an Utilist on the Interests of Mankind and particularly on those of the Irish nation, Dublin, 1785,” has been found the following: “March 12, 1796. To his Excellency Gen. Washington. The Hibernian Utilist who never appeared in print until he was past the age of sixty-five, presents two of his scribbles to ye great Washington ye most distinguished Utilist now existing on ye surface of our orb. This being an honest Hibernian’s sincere opinion of ye illustrious general; he need not describe his feelings with regard to that personage because those feelings must be intense in exact proportion to the goodness of ye Hibernian’s own heart.”

An interesting writer whose name I have been unable to learn prepared an article, giving an account of his visit to the Boston Athenæum and Washingtoniana there, which I am informed by Mr. J. C. Lane, the librarian, appeared in the evening edition of the Boston Herald of January 6, 1894. A friend on the spot finding that the article was out of print has sent me—from the files, I presume—pencil notes received as I write, and most serviceable in this connection.

In the Washington Library of the Boston Athenæum the “most frivolous bits of literature were a couple of volumes of ‘John Buncle’ published anonymously, but really by an Englishman named Thomas Amory. Readers of Lamb and Hazlitt will remember how they discussed this curious book. Amory was a Unitarian, and this Buncle roams over England, meeting constantly beautiful women who are always Unitarians, and marries them one after the other; in each case he tarries with his wife’s father a year until she dies.” Whether Washington’s interest in such a publication was inferred from his having a brother noted for his oft marryings is not stated. On turning to the appraiser’s list you will find this peculiar work under the title “Life of John Buncle, 2 vols.” If not adequate the list is suggestive, and shows as now starred herewith, where the student or collector may be certain that from three to four hundred of Washington’s books are to be found.

The following inscription is more suited to the serious aspects of our subject, as from the pen of John Marshall, first [fourth] chief justice of the Supreme Court, when transmitting a volume of plates to Mount Vernon, with this note: “Mr. Marshall has the honor of sending to the President of the United States an exemplar of a monument erected by Prince Henry of Prussia to the memory of the officers who distinguished themselves in the wars between Prussia and the House of Austria. Mr. Marshall has the honor of sending to the President of the United States an exemplar of a monument erected by Prince Henry of Prussia to the memory of the officers who distinguished themselves in the wars between Prussia and the House of Austria. Mr. Marshall is directed by his Royal Highness to request the President’s acceptance of this as a testimony of the great respect and esteem he feels for his character.”

We have reproduced above the catalogue of the Library of Belvoir, Copied in the record by “a later hand,” when adding a volume of Washington’s to the list, dated 1774, is the following: “A Compendious View of the Civil War; being the substance of a course of lectures read in the University of Dublin by Arthur Browne Esq. Professor of Civil Law in the University, and Representative in Parliament for the same, 1777. Inscription: To his Excellency, General Washington with the utmost respect this book is humbly presented by the Author, once an American; who knew in America his earliest and happiest days.” Is there not foundation here for a revolutionary romance? In the presentation copy of Young’s work above referred to is the following inscription: “To General Washington in testimony of the veneration I feel for so good and great a character.”

Conspicuous in presentation copies and public addresses in his day, tributes not only at home but abroad have continued to multiply. A leader among living statesmen and theologians adds to them from Hawarden Castle. His life has ever found its centre in books, and his work in his library continues to be potent. Respecting the reading man, as well as the man of action, he would be first to detect and disapprove a writer who, planning and building a library, and in his correspondence referring to books as the fountain of knowledge, and treating his library of book-room as the heart of his home, neglected to make such use of it as his duties permitted and demanded. But, on the contrary, Gladstone writes: “Washington is to my mind the purest figure in history.” As though echoing across the century sounds our American minister’s assertion, in 1797, that in England “all parties” admire Washington as “not only the most illustrious, but the most meritorious character that has yet appeared.” This accords with Lord Brougham in making “appreciation of Washington” the test “of the progress of mankind.”

Fontanes, directed by Napoleon to pronounce the eulogy of France upon Washington, proclaimed him “a character worthy the best days of antiquity;” and Chas. James Fox declared that “a character of virtues so happily tempered by one another, and so wholly unalloyed by any vices, is hardly to be found on the pages of history.” The author of the second Hoffman Lecture tells me, in a recent conversation, that the son of the Duke of Wellington, being his host, said that the Duke, his father, regarded Washington as the purest and greatest man of his time, and probably of all times, and therefore had declined a command against the United States. England’s laureate’s lines of Wellington may, many of them, be applied to Washington:

“Rich in saving common-sense,
And as the greatest only are,
In his simplicity sublime;
O good gray head which all men knew,
O vice from which their omens all men drew;
O iron nerve to true occasion true.
And thro’ the centuries let a people’s voice
In full acclaim,
The proof and echo of all human fame,
Attest the great Commander’s claim
With honor, honor, honor to him,
Eternal honor to his name.”

A French vessel passing Mount Vernon while Washington’s remains awaited burial sadly saluted with flag and bell. A similar sentiment of respect has invariably led all vessels since, as they pass, to “toll the bell.” In an old letter to General Braddock we read: “Is Mr. Washington among your acquaintances? If not, I must recommend you to embrace the first opportunity to form his friendship. He is about twenty-three years of age, with a countenance both mild and pleasant, promising both wit and judgment. He is of a comely and dignified demeanor, and at the same time displays much self-reliance and decision. He strikes me as being a young man of an extraordinary and exalted character, and is destined, I am of opinion, to make no inconsiderable figure in our country.” Better than “making a figure,” his career proved such as to justify Gladstone’s exalted estimate: “I look upon Washington, among great and good men, as one peculiarly good and great: he has been to me for more than forty years a light upon the path of life.”

Called great by earth’s greatest, I am asked, in view of his gifts as reader, writer, and mature man, “Had he genius?” In answering the question, appropriate under this division of our subject, and regarded by some authorities as of essential importance, excerpts of abiding value on other grounds also might well be published. Tributes to Washington should be carefully collated and distributed broadcast. The various societies of Revolutionary or colonial name and fame engaging in philanthropic efforts, such as Washington commended to the Cincinnati, might secure and disseminate tributes uttered, some before, some at the time of his death, and some since that memorable event. Jewels in our country’s crown and reflecting his attributes, they would glow as guiding lights. The following occurs in a printed sermon, recently recovered, which was delivered by my grandfather, the late President Eliphalet Nott, after the death of Washington: “The glory of furnishing protectors belongs to God; and who does not see his wisdom and goodness in raising up such a character at such a crisis? His equal has not existed for ages, and probably will not for ages to come. Like the celebrated leader of Israel, he was great in the sight of all his people and all their enemies. Great with respect to the energies of his mind, the resources of his genius, and great with respect to that divine efficacy which stamped victory on his arms, and crowned his exertion with success.” Herein Washington’s genius is lauded. But, as not understood, had he genius?

The conception which the parable of the talents seems to have made part of the consciousness of Christian races is that talent is any gift coupled with responsibility. If genius is responsible, good judgment contrasted with genius will better express the common conception than to speak of genius and talent as contrasted. Instead of saying that a man has talent but not genius, we might well, as talents include it, say he has genius but not good judgment, or, vice versa, he has judgment but not genius. However, when one is called a genius in one breath, it is but a left-handed compliment to be styled in the next a “mattoid,” a “degenerate,” a “graphomaniac,” a “border-land dweller” between the realms of the sane and the insane; Legrain holding that genius coexists with meanness and lack of balance; Guérinsen defining genius as “a disease of the nerves,” while Nordau, as though making a concession, concludes: “Science does not assert that every genius is a lunatic.”

Is, then, Nordau a striking illustration of his own theory? That judgment seems scarcely sane which sees no general growth in sanity as going along with civilization. Contrast with the present the cruelties of the past in war and peace, in instruments of torture, in usages of oppression; accepted as a matter of course then, they are denounced and disused now—doubtless a measure of hardness of heart remains. If, as Bishop Butler suggested to his chaplain, nations, like individuals, may suddenly go mad; if, as we see, misfortunes to persons and peoples come largely from unsound judgment, it goes without saying that for better results physical, mental, moral, healthful development is essential. For deliverance from the derangement of the fall, for permanent recovery from all falls, is not the spread of sanity now admitted to be essential? Doubtless the times, if stimulating, are exciting, and nervous diseases increase. Of late we hear of degeneration as going along with genius and with pretty much everything else. This is to lose sight of the fact that, in nations and individuals, increasing consciousness of defects is often a mark, not of degeneration, but of aspiration, and of the determination on “stepping-stones of their dead selves” to rise to higher things.

Conscience grows more sensitive, judgment more sound, the moral horizon clears up, the standard of conduct is more exacting, conceptions of duty rise as ideals become more Christlike. Acts are held to be infamous now which passed current in the cities of the Orient and in the Roman Empire; while conduct recognized as customary, and condoned if not approved then, now brings the perpetrator deep distrust if suspected and indignant condemnation if proved. Is it not more reasonable to conclude that better principles have been generally diffused, and a higher point of view attained, than, looking out upon the disorders and dissatisfactions of the times, to say either that all men are liars or that all men are mad, and that this planet is the Lunatic Asylum of the Solar System? This discussion, demanded by the failure to recognize his relation to books, discloses the growing greatness of Washington. Independent of stimulants, abnormality, and superficial quickness, books and the use he made of them and of his pen, these must be credited with due share of influence, when estimating his extraordinary powers of statement and of self-command. By his reading habits as well as by nature and principle, his ardent character and impulsive will and quick temper were subordinated to his regulative faculties. Yet he had also the imagination and intuitional faculties considered characteristic of genius.

The question remains, is genius responsible? Certainly not according to some self-constituted authorities, or to the readiness with which public opinion excuses the lawlessness or excesses of genius; not if we follow Morel’s reasoning to its end; not if Lombroso is right and genius is thus abnormal. He cites many instances—Napoleon and epileptic, Carlyle an insane dyspeptic, and so on—pointing to genius as a form of insanity. The misconception as to genius lies in supposing there are two separate and exclusive types of men, whereas gifts mingle. There are people of great and little genius; the latter are called original or eccentric, but the type is marked; and so there are people of restricted judgment, but what they have is good; and in almost all there re indications of both types. Even in youth a great genius reaches ends by short-cuts in flashes of illumination, acts appearing instinctive. The man of judgment plods, but arrives, and usually at the right place, at the right time. But with him habit is potent, and so his acts become apparently more and more intuitional; prompt under the pressure of necessity, and in deliberate foresight he ultimately accomplishes that which in another at an early age would be called genius.

If human life were long enough—a thousand years more or less—the evolution of experienced judgment into genius, and of genius into sound judgment, would show, as we might have inferred, that the two are one in essence, the difference being a question of degree and development. And this development in Washington had its source in his library. Informed from the lessons of history, and loving his country with more even than a mother’s love, through the throes and agony of his great burdens and supremely from experience, necessity, and his deep and devout relation to books, his intuitional faculties came to birth. If in all potentially, though often long dormant, in him they rose until he could project himself into the future for the benefit of his country and of humanity.

In recalling earlier De Kalb’s estimate I quoted from Lecky’s “England in the Eighteenth Century.” Incidentally I observe that he credits Washington with much that could only come from books; and his estimate of Washington, which is similar as to his talents to that presented above, is as follows. To this class “belong the superintending, restraining, discerning, and directing faculties which enable men to employ their several talents with sanity and wisdom, which maintain the proportion of intellect and character, and make sound judgments and well-regulated lives. It was at first the constant dread of large sections of the American people that if the old government were overthrown they would fall into the hands of military adventurers and undergo the yoke of military despotism. It was mainly the transparent integrity of the character of Washington that dispelled the fear. It was always known by his friends, and it was soon acknowledged by the whole nation, and by the English themselves, that in Washington America had found a leader who could be induced by no earthly motive to tell a falsehood, or to break an engagement, or to commit any dishonorable act. It is one of the great advantages of the long practice of free institutions that it diffuses through the community a knowledge of character and a soundness of judgment which save it from the enormous mistakes that are almost always made by enslaved nations when suddenly called upon to change their rulers. No fact shows so eminently the high intelligence of the men who managed the American Revolution as their selection of a leader whose qualities were so much more solid than brilliant, and who was so entirely free from all the characteristics of a demagogue.”

As Homer and Shakespeare were in his library, he had before him the two instances in which the imaginative or intuitional and the harmoniously blended in one person. Ultimately so it was with Washington. Happy the nation having such a character as an exemplar!

We have not space at this point for all the appropriate citations at hand. Digressions may be pardoned which, reaffirming Washington’s closer relation to books, also recall the lasting impression made on many of us in youth by the presentation of his moral character and genius. We have had enough of late of Napoleonic revivals, both in literature and in business. This study to-day, recalling Washington’s Mount Vernon library, appropriate for a library lecture, is but a neglected feature of that larger subject, which, if duly impressed now, will add to the moral wealth of coming centuries.

The assertion by President Nott of his belief in Washington’s genius recalls words spoken years later by my father, Vice-President Potter, repeated after he became Bishop of Pennsylvania, and still remembered by many: “We are proud to point to Washington as one whose fame shines with vestal purity, whose outward deeds are but the reflection of his inward principles, and who, after all the examples which the world has had of great powers coupled with great meanness or great guilt, appeared as if to reanimate expiring faith in virtue and in man. We point to him as one to whom the young can look without catching the contagion of splendid wickedness, without imbibing the perilous belief that lofty talents and endowments must needs be associated with signal frailties, and that the latter should be pardoned, and even respected, for he sake of the former. Let us never forget that there is something better than Washington’s renown. It is his worth. It is the moral greatness which belonged not so much to his deeds as to himself, and which, if it had found no theatre in the presence of the world, would have found it in the retirement of his neighborhood and home.” From other expressions of the bishop as to Washington, it is evident that he believed that he must have been a reading man, although his many engagements did not permit him to look up facts to prove it. Have not others asked, how could Washington have written this paper, done that deed, spoken such words, except as informed by books?

We have seen that the critical days of the Revolution, of constitution-building and opening administration, called for a man strongest in judgment. Erratic, impatient, unbalanced, selfish, self-conscious, egotistic genius, with its flashy successes, if it landed the people, it would have been in wreck and ruin. “Genius of the crank order” has never been able to appreciate Washington. But how shall we account for it that when critics essay to deal with our national hero the result, especially of late, is sometimes so offensive a presentation, if not an intentional misrepresentation? It arises partly from causes such as these, i.e., letters of Washington emasculated and published by devotees of dignity, or what not, but robbed by whole passages of their fire and force; characteristic words and deeds suppressed; misrepresentations of him as “priggish,” and especially of his boyhood as of the infant Hercules order, derived from Weems and others, as a gifted friend suggests. Thus, possibly, has come to birth the ridiculous notion that he was but a wooden sort of giant. But the English actor, incidentally meeting him and helping him set to rights a poor couple’s overturned heavy wagon, and then recognizing Washington, who invited him to hospitable entertainment at Mount Vernon, close at hand, ardently praises his table-talk. Bernard recalls wise words about the theatre, as though the Mount Vernon library had its Shakespeare for use rather than for ornament. For Washington’s reading included polite letters, not only when, by Lord Fairfax at Greenway Court, he was introduced to the “Spectator,” but, as we have remarked, in following years. It is in point, too, that Bernard further gives sparkling instances of his esprit, quoting his playful exclamation as to having seen him act, and being pleased, also, that on another stage and without a prompter he could play so effective a part. All of which suggests that McMaster’s conclusion was correct, that the President or the General was commonly, but not the man, Washington.

Was it not the eloquence of genius when Washington, late in life, learning that his fellows had been treacherously misled toward a course dangerous to them and to the country, appeared unexpected, unattended, in their midst, and removing his spectacles slowly and sadly, suggesting that having grown old in the service of his country, perhaps now he was growing blind, in a brief address, replete with reason and principle as well as with deep feeling, turned the tide in the right direction? If great faculties, benevolently active and working harmoniously, constitute true genius, genius was characteristic of Washington. Is genius the art of taking pains? Surely Washington had that. As his books, his writings, and his life pass under review, if we do not find marks of genius conspicuous in young Washington, we find not only the “old man eloquent,” but gifted with the foresight of genius; as when favoring the abolition of slavery, and linking the States and Territories in bonds of intercommunication, tending to develop resources and extend commerce, he warned the people against the excesses of party and the dangers of sectionalism; enforced neutrality abroad and non-intervention at home; made provision against secession by his bequest for an antisectional national university, and proclaimed the principles of “abiding union.”

Since the above was formulated I find that one, famous for his lecture which secured some fifty thousand dollars for the Mount Vernon fund, and noted for his saying that Washington “of all the men that have ever lived was the greatest of good men and the best of great men,” although not disclosing to his readers Washington’s literary excellence, yet discovered and proclaimed his “genius.” Edward Everett having spoken as above, regarded recognition of his genius as so essential to an adequate estimate of Washington, and his conclusion is so clear and cogent that we may well concur in it. “Without adopting Virgil’s magnificent but scornful contrast between scientific and literary skill, on the one hand, and those masterful arts on the other by which victories are gained and nations are governed, we must still admit that the chieftain who, in spite of obstacles the most formidable and vicissitudes the most distressing, conducts great wars to successful issues—that the statesman who harmonizes angry parties in peace, skilfully moderates the counsels of constituent assemblies, and without the resources of rhetoric, but by influence mightier than authority secures the formation and organization of governments, and in their administration establishes the model of official conduct for all following time, is endowed with a divine principle of thought and action as distinct in its kind as that of Demosthenes or Milton. It is the genius of consummate manhood.”

Part Third.
THE FATHER OF OUR COUNTRY AND THE BOOK OF BOOKS.

OF one book of which there were copies of note in the Mount Vernon library to say only it was a favorite would be far below the mark. World-moulding, character-shaping, the sinner’s friend, the saint’s inspiration, rulers’ Book and peoples’ Book: was it not to Washington as the man of his counsels and the guide of his steps? Bishop Wilson’s insight into character is well known; we see it in the “Sacra Privata,” and again in his gift to the Father of our Country of the noble Bible he presented him. That Washington prized it and appreciated the giver is shown by its being singled out in his will for special mention. It is there referred to just before his appropriate bequest to Lafayette: “To the Reverend, now Bryan Lord Fairfax, I give a Bible in three folio volumes with notes, presented to me by the Right Reverend Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man.”

This title, “Lord” Fairfax, in Washington’s will reminds us of his letter of March 18, 1798, to the Rev. Mr. Fairfax, who had sailed for England, and there claimed his title and consequently his seat in the House of Lords, where he sat once and then returned to his American home, Mount Eagle. We may add from the same volume that “the Fairfax family in America is represented by a cultivated and unpretending gentleman residing in the neighborhood of Washington City,” entitled to a seat in the House of Lords which he might take at any time. In Washington’s library was also “Wilson’s Works,” and I found at the Lenox Library, in one of his letters in his press copy, the following: “Philadelphia, July 10th, 1795.— . . . Acknowledging a copy of the works of the Bishop of Sodor and Man, which agreeably to the wish of the late Dr. Wilson, his son, you had the goodness to send me. Accept now, I pray you, my thanks, . . . and the assurance that delay in writing you did not proceed from want of respect to the memory of the author, his son, or yourself, but to mere accident.”

We need further information as to Washington’s Bibles and religious books. Mr. William Evarts Benjamin tells me that in examining some two hundred of Washington’s letters, thirty to forty were found to relate to books; an exhaustive examination of his letters may yet prove beyond question the claim that he was “built on books.” While the appraiser’s list records his ownership of Brown’s Folio Bible, one would also be glad to examine related books, such as that called in the same list a “History of the Holy Scriptures.” Others, and great orators among them, have lauded the Bible for its influence in forming a fine literary style, and he unconsciously imbibed this benefit, but his use of it was devout, and he read it not only for himself but often to others. From many instances, we recall one mentioned by one of his best and best-known aides in the French and Indian wars, that on Sunday he had “frequently known Washington, in the absence of the chaplain, to pray with the regiment and read the Scriptures.” Lay reading by leaders of eminence and men of devotion happily continues. Washington searched the Scriptures, and in mentioning other helps to individuals and nations estimated, “above all,” as he declared in 1783, “the pure and benign light of revelation.”

If the Prayer-books he used in the church services he regularly attended, whether in the parish near home or wherever his country called him, could be collected, the association would make them priceless. Not only do his public and private papers show the influence of the liturgy upon his language and his life, but the fervency and constancy of his devotions have been attested, and that he respected his mother’s early injunction never to forget his private prayers. I have examined the well-worn original, and have a copy of the volume in which are published in fac-similes of the handwriting prayers which it is claimed he originated or compiled. We see the power of heredity and home influence further in that, among his books is that work called in the appraiser’s list “Discussions upon Common Prayer,” which is now included in the collection of the Athenæum. In it are inscribed autographs of Augustine Washington, his father, and of his father’s second wife, Mary Ball, his mother, and of “George Washington.” Young Washington’s repeated here his mother’s name in his own handwriting recalls his filial fidelity.

Among countless proofs I find in a reprint of his journal of expenditures from October 24th to October 27th, 1774, items as follows: “Cloak for my mother, £10 2s.; chaise for my mother, £40.” Such facts need to be reiterated, since recently he has been misrepresented in this regard. Late in life he wrote to his brother John Augustine to make diligent inquiry and to spend the needed money to render his mother comfortable, adding that he would meet the charges. When she was eighty-one, and broken with age, Washington, who was always conscientious in visiting and caring for her, wrote her in a letter enclosing money the reason why she would not be comfortable at Mount Vernon; but that while the task might prove dangerous to her health of attempting to entertain so much company, and dressing often to receive them, and although he feared lest she might not find there the retirement she desired in her age, his home was ever at her service. her testimony was that he fulfilled the commandment, “Honor thy father and thy mother.” He repaid the fidelity with which she had early taught him to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” his Bible and Book of Common Prayer and works relating to Christian conduct.

Quite near the volume of “Discussions on Common Prayer” in the list of his books, we find sermons by a former Bishop of Exeter (London, 1717), with an autograph of the boy George Washington, and on the fly-leaf a note by G. C. Washington, stating that the “autograph of George Washington’s name is believed to be the earliest specimen of his handwriting, when he was probably not more than eight or nine years old.” A volume of sermons seems an unusual place for a boy’s earliest known autograph; but the appraiser’s list shows a comparatively large proportion of books of a religious character in Washington’s library. Looking at his character from the religious point of view, there are those convinced that it was the Bible with the Prayer Book, and the use he made of them, that made him the man he was. Like all great works, the influence of the Bible lies in what it is, not in what is said about it. The most widely circulated volume in the world, called a book because so bound, it is in fact a literature, one which he absorbed and to which he conformed his life. Written by many writers, made up of many books, the Bible, time and again, apart from theories about it, has proved its inherent power.

In a familiar letter one of his family circle refers to Washington’s reverent use of the Bible. In writing further of the suitable character of his Sunday evening readings to his wife Martha, or, as she was then sometimes called, Lady Washington, he adds that on that day visitors were not received. No wonder that the Presbyterian General Assembly, in 1789, recorded their esteem of him as an avowed “friend of the Christian religion,” and one “who, in his private conduct, adorns the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Two collects in the Prayer-book, famed from of old, that for Quinquagesima Sunday and that for the fourteenth Sunday after Trinity, reaffirm the Christian ideal of noble character comprised in three words, “faith, hope, and charity.” Long considered characteristic of him, we proceed to find therein a summary of that excellence of Washington, making him a worthy Christian model—an excellence which could hardly have been so conspicuously his but for books, and the Book of Books, and his use of them.

Amidst the stars which rise above the horizon of human life, none shine with a lovelier radiance than “these three.” Among those who illustrate this trinity of virtues, one, only, attains Divine perfection, dawning above the manger-cradle at Bethlehem, threatened with the darkness of Calvary, but rising and ascending “far above all things, that He might fill all things,” our Lord and Master. Of others who illustrate the virtues “faith, hope, and charity,” rendering as private citizens and in public life civic service to humanity, is not Washington (“primus inter pares”) most admirable? A Christian, he was connected with the English Church in the Colonies, named, after the formation of the United States, the Protestant Episcopal Church. This is noted not as a matter of pride, to those who with similar privileges fall far short of his standard, but because so many of the statesmen of our heroic age were of the same communion: the Church not being papal nor despotic, not individualistic nor revolutionary, but constitutional, their consequent influence is seen in that greatest of gifts to the people, the Constitution of the United States.

The Revolutionary war we hold to have been won, not only by patriotic soldiers of this and other lands, but because of contending parties in the British Parliament. Upon the declaration of peace, Washington declared that the people deserved contempt if they stopped at that, and pointed tot he long and arduous path of duty which opened before them. In 1786 he wrote Jay: “I do not conceive we can exist long as a nation without having lodged somewhere a power which will pervade the whole Union in as energetic a manner as the authority of the State governments extends over the several States.” Already had civil war loomed, and some demanded the dissolution of the Union; secession was threatened; submission to a foreign or a native king was proposed. Washington was sounded to see if he could be made a leader or tool of a monarchical movement. But he was too loyal and too well read to be tempted or duped. In doubt the Constitutional Convention met. Then as we have seen in proved that his library, with his use of it, was one of the pillars of his power. It was found wisest to keep the proceedings secret. his prompt and fearless reproof of carelessness as to memoranda which threatened to divulge them at the very outset, produced a profound impression and showed him well fitted to preside and guide. We know from a patriot’s diary and from patriot lips the inestimable services of one so well informed, and holding himself and others so well in hand, and by his letters and views influencing the whole country. His habits of reading and reticence helped the framing of the Constitution.

The learned prime minister