are incapable of governing ourselves,
and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely
ideal and fallacious! Would to God, that wise measures may be
taken in time to avert the consequences we have but too much
reason to apprehend.[1]

[Footnote 1: Hapgood, 285.]

In the renewal of his life at Mount Vernon, Washington gave almost
as much attention to the cultivation of friendship as to that of his
estate. He pursued with great zest the career of planter-farmer. "I
think," he wrote a friend, "with you, that the life of a husbandman
of all others is the most delectable. It is honorable, it is amusing,
and, with judicious management, it is profitable. To see plants rise
from the earth and flourish by the superior skill and bounty of the
laborer fills a contemplative mind with ideas which are more easy to
be conceived than expressed."[1]

[Footnote 1: Hapgood, 288.]

The cultivation of his friendships he carried on by letters and by
entertaining his friends as often as he could at Mount Vernon. To
Benjamin Harrison he wrote: "My friendship is not in the least
lessened by the difference, which has taken place in our political
sentiments, nor is my regard for you diminished by the part you have
acted."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Ibid_., 289.]

How constantly the flock of guests frequented Mount Vernon we can
infer from this entry in his diary for June 30, 1785: "Dined with only
Mrs. Washington which, I believe, is the first instance of it since my
retirement from public life." To his young friend Lafayette he wrote
without reserve in a vein of deep affection:

At length, my dear Marquis, I am become a private citizen on the
banks of the Potomac; and under the shadow of my own vine and my
own fig-tree, free from the bustle of a camp, and the busy
scenes of public life, I am solacing myself with those tranquil
enjoyments, of which the soldier, who is ever in pursuit of fame,
the statesman, whose watchful days and sleepless nights are spent
in devising schemes to promote the welfare of his own, perhaps the
ruin of other countries, as if this globe was insufficient for us
all, and the courtier, who is always watching the countenance of
his prince, in hopes of catching a gracious smile, can have
very little conception. I have not only retired from all public
employments, but I am retiring within myself, and shall be able to
view the solitary walk