1761.] DANGER OF SETTING A BAD EXAMPLE. 201 pace with their years, and was never interrupted by any stress of public affairs. Mrs. Washington was a doting mother, and in no instance can an expression of impatience or want of sympathy on the part of Washington be detected, though he had a great deal of care and trouble in the education and settling of the children. That they feared him is very certain, yet they feared only his displeasure, not his unkindness. How could such a judge not be feared, by any heart of ordinary sensibility? His strictness with regard to others was so backed by a still greater strictness in reference to himself, that there was no appeal, no loophole for retreat, no turning upon him his own weapons, even in thought. He says, in a letter about the conduct of his overseers, speaking of a bad example having been set"Whenever this is the case, it is not easy for a man to throw the first stone, for fear of having it returned to him;" and throughout his whole life, which was necessarily one of command, of advice, of judgment, of examination and reproof, he bore in mind this pregnant truth, and this made every word of his fly like an arrow to the heart of wrong-doers a quality by no means calculated to make him immediately popular, although it has been said again and again, on the best authority, that "there was perhaps never any man so much beloved." His personal influence was unbounded, and such is never the result of qualities that inspire chiefly fear; for there is something too noble in human nature to yield its hearty homage to what merely intimidates. "Perfect love casteth out fear;" those who thoroughly understood and appreciated Washington loved him intensely, and he warmly and faithfully reciprocated affection. He had no time for great demonstrations, no taste for loud or empty professions; but the root of the matter was alive and upspringing in the depths of his nature, ready to appear at the proper sea"Service" was the motto of his life; his words were no fruitless flowers of rhetoric, but the blossoms of his deeds; and the ear that waited for only flattery or glozing commendation from him, was sure to be disappointed. The tireless benefactor, the new Prometheus, would have been ill employed in son. Unfruitful labor and light-thoughted folly, but his heart was tenderly alive to the real wants and feelings of those whom he served. An ever-welling impulse towards good deeds cannot owe its origin to reason, though reason must guide and control the stream, lest it run to waste, or carry with it an unprofitable softness. It may be mentioned here that the long, severe and fatal illness of Mrs. Washington's daughter, was the darkest cloud that overspread Mount Vernon for many years of quiet time. The feeble child was the darling of her mother; and her prolonged suffering made large drafts, not only upon the tender mother, but upon the kind step-father; and when at length she died, Wash 1761.] WASHINGTON'S TENDERNESS OF HEART. 203 ington, who was just setting out upon a long journey of exploration, preparatory to the purchase of some tracts of land at the West, gave up the expedition, and staid at home to comfort and cheer his wife under her great affliction. Mrs. Lewis, granddaughter of Mrs. Washington, says that on the occasion of this young lady's death, Washington exhibited a passionate excess of feeling-falling on his knees at the bedside, and praying aloud and with tears, that she might be spared, unconscious that even as he spoke, life had departed. We find, by his diary after that time, that he took Mrs. Washington out every day, driving about the neighborhood, and calling on intimate friends, endeavoring by exercise in the open air, and by the society of those she loved, to turn her thoughts from the too constant contemplation of her loss. She was a woman of strong affections, very quiet and retiring in her habits, and devoted to her family; and Washington's sympathy was never wanting when she suffered from loss or separation. The constant flow of company to Mount Vernon, where Washington may be said almost to have kept open house for many years, obliged Mrs. Washington to attend very closely to her domestic duties; for a Virginia housekeeper finds it no easy matter to provide a company dinner every day, with no market at hand, and only slaves to depend on. One little expression of the general's speaks volumes as to that matter: "Would any person believe," he says, "that with a |