y to the leaders of mankind and the founders
of nations; and in this very devotion lies one secret at least of the
fact that, while all men have praised Washington, comparatively
few have understood him. He has been lifted high up into a lonely
greatness, and unconsciously put outside the range of human sympathy.
He has been accepted as a being as nearly perfect as it is given to
man to be, but our warm personal interest has been reserved for other
and lesser men who seemed to be nearer to us in their virtues and
their errors alike. Such isolation, lofty though it be, is perilous
and leads to grievous misunderstandings. From it has come the
widespread idea that Washington was cold, and as devoid of human
sympathies as he was free from the common failings of humanity.

Of this there will be something to say presently, but meantime there
is another more prolific source of error in regard to Washington to
be considered. Men who are loudly proclaimed to be faultless always
excite a certain kind of resentment. It is a dangerous eminence
for any one to occupy. The temples of Greece are in ruins, and her
marvelous literature is little more than a collection of fragments,
but the feelings of the citizens who exiled Aristides because they
were weary of hearing him called "just," exist still, unchanged and
unchangeable. Washington has not only been called "just," but he
has had every other good quality attributed to him by countless
biographers and eulogists with an almost painful iteration, and the
natural result has followed. Many persons have felt the sense of
fatigue which the Athenians expressed practically by their oyster
shells, and have been led to cast doubts on Washington's perfection
as the only consolation for their own sense of injury. Then, again,
Washington's fame has been so overshadowing, and his greatness so
immutable, that he has been very inconvenient to the admirers and the
biographers of other distinguished men. From these two sources, from
the general jealousy of the classic Greek variety, and the particular
jealousy born of the necessities of some other hero, much adverse and
misleading criticism has come. It has never been a safe or popular
amusement to assail Washington directly, and this course usually has
been shunned; but although the attacks have been veiled they have none
the less existed, and they have been all the more dangerous because
they were insidious.

In his lifetime Washington had his en