hat must be lit up with colored panegyric; no
subterranean passage to be trod in trembling, lest there be stirred the
ghost of a buried crime.

A true son of nature was George Washington--of nature in her brightest
intelligence and noblest mold; and the difficulty, if such there be, in
comprehending him, is only that of reviewing from a single standpoint
the vast procession of those civil and military achievements which
filled nearly half a century of his life, and in realizing the magnitude
of those qualities which were requisite to their performance--the
difficulty of fashioning in our minds a pedestal broad enough to bear
the towering figure, whose greatness is diminished by nothing but the
perfection of its proportions. If his exterior--in calm, grave, and
resolute repose--ever impressed the casual observer as austere and cold,
it was only because he did not reflect that no great heart like his
could have lived unbroken unless bound by iron nerves in an iron frame.
The Commander of Armies, the Chief of a People, the Hope of Nations
could not wear his heart upon his sleeve; and yet his sternest will
could not conceal its high and warm pulsations. Under the enemy's guns
at Boston he did not forget to instruct his agent to administer
generously of charity to his needy neighbors at home. The sufferings of
women and children thrown adrift by war, and of his bleeding comrades,
pierced his soul. And the moist eye and trembling voice with which he
bade farewell to his veterans bespoke the underlying tenderness of his
nature, even as the storm-wind makes music in its undertones.

Disinterested patriot, he would receive no pay for his military
services. Refusing gifts, he was glad to guide the benefaction of a
grateful State to educate the children of his fallen braves in the
institution at Lexington which yet bears his name. Without any of the
blemishes that mark the tyrant, he appealed so loftily to the virtuous
elements in man, that he almost created the qualities which his country
needed to exercise; and yet he was so magnanimous and forbearing to the
weaknesses of others, that he often obliterated the vices of which he
feared the consequences. But his virtue was more than this. It was of
that daring, intrepid kind that, seizing principle with a giant's grasp,
assumes responsibility at any hazard, suffers sacrifice without pretense
of martyrdom, bears calumny without reply, imposes superior will and
understanding on all