and
virtues. He was self-contained, he was not voluble, he had a sense of
personal dignity, but underneath he was not cold. He was really
hot-tempered and on a few well-authenticated occasions fell into
passions in which he used language that would have blistered the steel
sides of a dreadnaught. Yet he was kind-hearted, he pitied the weak and
sorrowful, and the list of his quiet benefactions would fill many pages
and cost him thousands of pounds. He was even full of sentiment in some
matters; on more than one occasion he provided positions that enabled
young friends or relatives to marry, and I shrewdly suspect that he
engineered matters so that the beloved Nelly Custis obtained a good
husband in the person of his nephew, Lawrence Lewis. I might say much
more tending to show his human qualities, but I shall add only this:
Having for many years studied his career from every imaginable point of
view, I give it as my deliberate opinion that perhaps no man ever lived
who was more considerate of the rights and feelings of others. Not even
Lincoln had a bigger heart.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE VALE OF SUNSET

Washington looked forward to the end of his presidency as does "the
weariest traveler, who sees a resting-place, and is bending his body to
lay thereon." "Methought I heard him say, 'Ay.' I am fairly out, and you
are fairly in; see which of us is the happiest," wrote John Adams to his
wife Abigail. And from Mount Vernon Nelly Custis informed a friend that
"grandpapa is very well and much pleased with being once more Farmer
Washington."

The eight years of toilsome work, which had been rendered all the harder
by much bitter criticism, had aged him greatly and this helped to make
him doubly anxious to return to the peace and quiet of home for his
final days. And yet he was affected by his parting from his friends and
associates. A few partisan enemies openly rejoiced at his departure, but
there were not wanting abundant evidences of the people's reverence and
love for him. It is a source of satisfaction to us now that his
contemporaries realized he was one of the great figures of history and
that they did not withhold the tribute of their praise until after his
death. As we turn the thousands of manuscripts that make up his papers
we come upon scores of private letters and public resolutions in which,
in terms often a bit stilted but none the less sincere, a country's
gratitude is laid at the feet of its benefactor.