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Title: The Americanism of Washington

Author: Henry Van Dyke

Release Date: February 20, 2004 [EBook #11192]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE

AMERICANISM

OF

WASHINGTON

By

Henry van Dyke

1906

Hard is the task of the man who at this late day attempts to say
anything new about Washington. But perhaps it may be possible to unsay
some of the things which have been said, and which, though they were at
one time new, have never at any time been strictly true.

The character of Washington, emerging splendid from the dust and tumult
of those great conflicts in which he played the leading part, has passed
successively into three media of obscuration, from each of which his
figure, like the sun shining through vapors, has received some disguise
of shape and color. First came the mist of mythology, in which we
discerned the new St. George, serene, impeccable, moving through an
orchard of ever-blooming cherry-trees, gracefully vanquishing dragons
with a touch, and shedding fragrance and radiance around him. Out of
that mythological mist we groped our way, to find ourselves beneath the
rolling clouds of oratory, above which the head of the hero was
pinnacled in remote grandeur, like a sphinx poised upon a volcanic peak,
isolated and mysterious. That altitudinous figure still dominates the
cloudy landscapes of the after-dinner orator; but the frigid, academic
mind has turned away from it, and looking through the fog of criticism
has descried another Washington, not really an American, not amazingly a
hero, but a very decent English country gentleman, honorable,
courageous, good, shrewd, slow, and above all immensely lucky.

Now here are two of the things often said about Washington which need,
if I mistake not, to be unsaid: first, that he was a solitary and
inexplicable phenomenon of greatness; and second, that he was not an
American.

Solitude, indeed, is the last quality that an intelligent student of