as I remarked earlier, the fact that none of the painters indicate the
very strong marks of smallpox (which he took on his trip to Barbados)
on Washington's face creates a natural suspicion as to accuracy in
detail of any of the portraits. Perhaps the divergence among them
is not greater than that among those of Mary, Queen of Scots, and
indicates only the marked incapacity of some of the painters who did
them. We are certainly justified in saying that Washington's features
varied considerably from his early prime to the days when he was
President. We have come to talk about him as an old man because
from the time when he was sixty years old he frequently used that
expression himself; although, as he died at sixty-seven, he was never
really "an old man." One wonders whether those who lived among pioneer
conditions said and honestly believed that they were old at the time
when, as we think, middle age would hardly have begun. Thus Abraham
Lincoln writes of himself as a patriarch, and no doubt sincerely
thought that he was, at a time when he had just reached forty. The two
features in Washington's face about which the portraitists differ most
are his nose and his mouth. In the early portrait by Charles Peale,
his nose is slightly aquiline, but not at all so massive and
conspicuous as in some of the later works. His mouth, and with it the
expression of the lower part of his face, changed after he began to
wear false teeth. Is it not fair to suppose that the effigies of
Washington, made in later years and usually giving him a somewhat
stiff and expansive grin, originated in the fact that his false set of
teeth lacked perfect adjustment?

Thus Washington dropped into the ways of peace; working each day what
would have been a long stint for a strong young man, and thinking,
besides, more than most men thought of the needs and future of the
country to which he had given liberty and independence. His chief
anxiety henceforth was that the United States of America should not
miss the great destiny for which he believed the Lord had prepared it.

CHAPTER VIII

WELDING THE NATION

The doubt, the drifting, the incongruities and inconsistencies, the
mistakes and follies which marked the five years after 1783 form what
has been well called "The Critical Period of American History." They
proved that the conquests of peace may not only be more difficult than
the conquests of war, but that they may outlast those of war. Who