, the desires of a man. Stewart, the
artist, has said, "All of his features were indications of the strongest
and most ungovernable passions, and had he been born in the forest, he
would have been the fiercest man among savage tribes."

But over the sleeping volcano of his temper he kept watch and ward, until
his habit became one of gentleness, generosity, and shining, simple truth;
and, behind all, we behold his unswerving purpose and steadfast strength.

And so the object of this sketch will be, not to show the superhuman
Washington, the Washington set apart, but to give a glimpse of the man
Washington who aspired, feared, hoped, loved and bravely died.

* * * * *

The first biographer of George Washington was the Reverend Mason L. Weems.
If you have a copy of Weems' "Life of Washington," you had better wrap it
in chamois and place it away for your heirs, for some time it will command
a price. Fifty editions of Weems' book were printed, and in its day no
other volume approached it in point of popularity. In American literature,
Weems stood first. To Weems are we indebted for the hatchet tale, the
story of the colt that was broken and killed in the process, and all those
other fine romances of Washington's youth. Weems' literary style reveals
the very acme of that vicious quality of untruth to be found in the
old-time Sunday-school books. Weems mustered all the "Little Willie"
stories he could find, and attached to them Washington's name, claiming to
write for "the Betterment of the Young," as if in dealing with the young
we should carefully conceal the truth. Possibly Washington could not tell
a lie, but Weems was not thus handicapped.

Under a mass of silly moralizing, he nearly buried the real Washington,
giving us instead a priggish, punk youth, and a Madame Tussaud, full-dress
general, with a wax-works manner and a wooden dignity.

Happily, we have now come to a time when such authors as Mason L. Weems
and John S.C. Abbott are no longer accepted as final authorities. We do
not discard them, but, like Samuel Pepys, they are retained that they may
contribute to the gaiety of nations.

Various violent efforts have been made in days agone to show that
Washington was of "a noble line"--as if the natural nobility of the man
needed a reason--forgetful that we are all sons of God, and it doth not
yet appear what we shall be. But Burke's "Peerage" lends no light, and the
careful, unprej