cares had made it white.
He spoke of himself without affectation as a very old man, and
apparently he often thought, as he was engaged in some work, "this is
the last time I shall do this." He seems to have taken it for granted
that he was not to live long; but this neither slackened his industry
nor made him gloomy. And he had in truth spent a life of almost
unremitting laboriousness. Those early years as surveyor and Indian
fighter and pathfinder were years of great hardships. The eight years
of the Revolution were a continuous physical strain, an unending
responsibility, and sometimes a bodily deprivation. And finally his
last service as President had brought him disgusts, pinpricks which
probably wore more on his spirits than did the direct blows of his
opponents. Very likely he felt old in his heart of hearts, much older
than his superb physical form betokened. We cannot but rejoice that
Nelly Custis flashed some of the joyfulness and divine insouciance of
youth into the tired heart of the tired great man.

[Footnote 1: Irving, V, 277.]

Perhaps the best offhand description of Washington in these later days
is that given by an English actor, Bernard, who happened to be driving
near Mount Vernon when a carriage containing a man and a woman was
upset. Bernard dismounted to give help, and presently another rider
came up and joined in the work. "He was a tall, erect, well-made man,
evidently advanced in years, but who appeared to have retained all the
vigor and elasticity resulting from a life of temperance and exercise.
His dress was a blue coat buttoned to the chin, and buckskin
breeches."[1] They righted the chaise, harnessed the horse, and
revived the young woman who, true to her time and place, had fainted.
Then she and her companion drove off towards Alexandria. Washington
invited Bernard to come home with him and rest during the heat of the
day. The actor consented. From what the actor subsequently wrote about
that chance meeting I take the following paragraphs, some of which
strike to the quick:

[Footnote 1: Lodge, II, 277.]

In conversation his face had not much variety of expression. A
look of thoughtfulness was given by the compression of the mouth
and the indentations of the brow (suggesting an habitual conflict
with, and mastery over, passion), which did not seem so much
to disdain a sympathy with trivialities as to be incapable of
denoting them. Nor had his voice, so far as