so perfect was his mastery of himself. He was intensely reserved and very silent, and these are the qualities which gave him the reputation in history of being distant and unsympathetic. In truth, he had not only warm affections and a generous heart, but there was a strong vein of sentiment in his composition. At the same time he was in no wise romantic, and the ruling element in his make-up was prose, good solid prose, and not poetry. He did not have the poetical and imaginative quality so strongly developed in Lincoln. Yet he was not devoid of imagination, although it was here that he was lacking, if anywhere. He saw facts, knew them, mastered and used them, and never gave much play to fancy; but as his business in life was with men and facts, this deficiency, if it was one, was of little moment. He was also a man of the strongest passions in every way, but dominated them; they never ruled him. . .

He had, too, a fierce temper, and although he gradually subdued it, he would sometimes lose control of himself and burst out into a tempest of rage. When he did so he would use strong and even violent language, as he did at Kip's landing and at Monmouth.

But although he would now and then give way to these tremendous bursts of anger, Washington was never unjust. As he said to one officer, "I never judge the propriety of actions by after events"; and in that sound philosophy is found the secret not only of much of his own success, but of the devotion of his officers and men. He might be angry with them, but he was never unfair. In truth, he was too generous to be unjust or even over-severe to any one, and there is not a line in all his writings which even suggests that he ever envied any man. So long as the work in hand was done, he cared not who had the glory, and he was perfectly magnanimous and perfectly at ease about his own reputation. He never showed the slightest anxiety to write his own memoirs, and he was not in the least alarmed when it was proposed to publish

the memoirs of other people, like General Charles Lee,1 which would probably reflect upon him.

He had the same confidence in the judgment of posterity that he had in the future beyond the grave. He regarded death with entire calmness and even indifference not only when it came to him, but when in previous years it had threatened him. He loved life and tasted of it deeply, but the courage which never forsook him made him ready to face the inevitable at any moment with an unruffled spirit. In this he was helped by his religious faith, which was as simple as it was profound. . . . He made no parade of his religion, for in this as in other things he was perfectly simple and sincere. He was tortured by no doubts or questionings, but believed always in an overruling Providence and in a merciful God, to whom he knelt and prayed in the day of darkness, or in the hour of triumph, with a supreme and childlike confidence.

...

For many years I have studied minutely the career of Washington, and with every step the greatness of the man has grown upon me, for analysis has failed to discover the act of his life which, under the conditions of the time, I could unhesitatingly pronounce to have been an error. Such has been my experience, and although my deductions may be wrong, they at least have been carefully and slowly made. I see in Washington a great soldier who fought a trying war to a successful end impossible without him; a great statesman who did more than all other men to lay the foundations of a republic which has endured in prosperity for more than a century. I find in him a marvellous judgment which was never at fault, a penetrating vision which beheld the future of America when it was dim to other eyes, a great intellectual force, a will of iron, an unyielding grasp of facts, and an unequalled strength

1 Washington had showered Charles Lee with wrath and strong language for disobedience to orders at the battle of Monmouth Courthouse in eastern New Jersey. Lee was an English soldier of fortune and a schemer. He was in no way related to "Light Horse Harry” Lee.

of patriotic purpose. I see in him too a pure and high-minded gentleman of dauntless courage and stainless honor, simple and stately of manner, kind and generous of heart. Such he was in truth. The historian and the biographer may fail to do him justice, but the instinct of mankind will not fail. The real hero needs not books to give him worshippers. George Washington will always receive the love and reverence of men because they see embodied in him the noblest possibilities of humanity.

THE AMERICANISM OF WASHINGTON

HENRY VAN DYKE

[From an address on Washington's Birthday at the University of Pennsylvania in 1906.]

WHAT, then, must we say of the Americanism of Washington? It was denied during his lifetime for a little while by those who envied his greatness. . . . But the modern doubt is more subtle. . . . It arises from the modern theory of what true Americanism really is a theory which goes back, indeed, for its inspiration to Dr. Samuel Johnson's somewhat crudely expressed opinion that "the Americans were a race whom no other mortals could wish to resemble," but which, in the later form, takes counsel with those English connoisseurs who demand of their typical American not depravity of morals, but deprivation of manners; not vice of heart, but vulgarity of speech; not badness, but bumptiousness; and at least enough of eccentricity to make him amusing to cultivated people.

For what is true Americanism? and where does it reside? Not in the tongue, not in the clothes, nor among the transient social forms, refined or crude, which mottle the surface of human life. Its dwelling is in the heart. It speaks a score of dialects, but one language; follows a hundred paths to the same goal, performs a thousand kinds of service in loyalty to the same ideal which is its life.

True Americanism is this:

To believe that the inalienable rights of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are given by God.

To believe that any form of power that tramples on these rights is unjust.

To believe that taxation without representation is tyranny, that government must rest upon the consent of the governed, and that the people should choose their own rulers.

To believe that freedom must be safeguarded by law and order, and that the end of freedom is fair-play for all.

To believe not in a forced equality of conditions and estates, but in a true equalization of burdens, privileges and opportunities.

To believe that the selfish interests of persons, classes, and corporations must be subordinated to the welfare of the Commonwealth.

To believe that union is as much a human necessity as liberty is a divine gift.

To believe, not that all people are good, but that the way to make them better is to trust the whole people.

To believe that a free State should offer an asylum to the oppressed and an example of virtue, sobriety, and fair dealing to all nations.

To believe that for the existence and perpetuity of such a State a man should be willing to give his whole service in property, in labor, and in life.

That is Americanism; an ideal embodying itself in a people; a creed heated white-hot in the furnace of conviction and hammered into shape on the anvil of life; a vision commanding men to follow it whithersoever it may lead them. And it was the subordination of the personal self to that ideal, that creed, that vision, which gave eminence and glory to Washington and the men who stood with him.

Men tell us that the age of ideals is past, and that we are now come to the age of expediency, of polite indifference to

moral standards, of careful attention to the bearing of different policies upon our own personal interests. It is past, indeed, for those who proclaim or whisper, or in their hearts believe, or in their lives obey, this black gospel. . . . But not for us who claim our heritage in blood and spirit from Washington and the men who stood with him not for us of other tribes

and kindred who

“have found a fatherland upon this shore”

and learned the meaning of manhood beneath the shelter of liberty not for us, nor for our country, that dark apostasy, and that dismal outlook! We see the heroes of the present conflict, the men whose allegiance is not to sections, but to the whole people, the fearless champions of fair-play. We believe that the liberties which the heroes of old won with blood and sacrifice are ours to keep with labor and service.

"All that our fathers wrought,

With true prophetic thought,
Must be defended."

No privilege that encroaches upon those is to be endured. No lawless disorder that imperils them is to be sanctioned. No class that disregards or invades them is to be tolerated. There is a life that is worth living now, as it was worth living in former days, and that is the honest life. There is a battle that is worth fighting now, as it was worth fighting then, and that is the battle of the rights of the people. To make our city and our State free in fact as in name; to break the rings that strangle real liberty, and to keep them broken; to cleanse, so far as in our power lies, the fountain of our national life from political, commercial, and social corruptions; to teach our sons and daughters, by precept and example, the honor of serving such a country as America that is work worthy of the finest manhood and womanhood.