n in the open
air. "Happy," he wrote, "is he who gets the berth nearest the fire." He
could spend a happy day in admiring the trees and the richness of the
land on a neighbor's estate. Always his thoughts were turning to the
soil. There was poetry in him. It was said of Napoleon that the one
approach to poetry in all his writings is the phrase: "The spring is at
last appearing and the leaves are beginning to sprout." Washington,
on the other hand, brooded over the mysteries of life. He pictured to
himself the serenity of a calm old age and always dared to look death
squarely in the face. He was sensitive to human passion and he felt the
wonder of nature in all her ways, her bounteous response in growth to
the skill of man, the delight of improving the earth in contrast
with the vain glory gained by ravaging it in war. His most striking
characteristics were energy and decision united often with strong likes
and dislikes. His clever secretary, Alexander Hamilton, found, as he
said, that his chief was not remarkable for good temper and resigned
his post because of an impatient rebuke. When a young man serving in
the army of Virginia, Washington had many a tussle with the obstinate
Scottish Governor, Dinwiddie, who thought his vehemence unmannerly and
ungrateful. Gilbert Stuart, who painted several of his portraits, said
that his features showed strong passions and that, had he not learned
self-restraint, his temper would have been savage. This discipline he
acquired. The task was not easy, but in time he was able to say with
truth, "I have no resentments," and his self-control became so perfect
as to be almost uncanny.

The assumption that Washington fought against an England grown decadent
is not justified. To admit this would be to make his task seem lighter
than it really was. No doubt many of the rich aristocracy spent idle
days of pleasure-seeking with the comfortable conviction that they could
discharge their duties to society by merely existing, since their luxury
made work and the more they indulged themselves the more happy and
profitable employment would their many dependents enjoy. The eighteenth
century was, however, a wonderful epoch in England. Agriculture became
a new thing under the leadership of great landowners like Lord Townshend
and Coke of Norfolk. Already was abroad in society a divine discontent
at existing abuses. It brought Warren Hastings to trial on the charge of
plundering India. It attacked sla