The house in which the first Presidential levee was held will always be a point of interest, and the consultations between Washington and the great officers of state about the simple ceremonial of these public receptions, are extremely curious, as showing the manners and ideas of the times, and the struggle between the old-country associations natural to gentlemen of that day, and the recognized necessity of accommodating even court regulations to the feelings of a people to whom the least shadow of aristocratic form was necessarily hateful. We must not condemn the popular scrupulousness of 1789 as puerile and foolish, until we too have perilled life and fortune in the cause of liberty and equality.
A dangerous illness brought Washington near the grave, during his first Presidential summer, and he is said never to have regained his full strength. In August his mother died, venerable for years and wisdom, and always honored by her son in a spirit that would have satisfied a Roman matron. She maintained her simple habits to the last, and is said never to have exhibited surprise or elation, at her son's greatest glory, or the highest honors that could be paid him. Her remains rest under an unfinished monument, near Fredericksburgh, Virginia.
Of the wife of the illustrious Chief, it is often said that little is known, and there is felt almost a spite against her memory because she destroyed before her death every letter of her husband to herself, save only one, written when he accepted the post of Commander-in-Chief. But, to our thinking, one single letter of hers, written to Mrs. Warren, after the President's return from a tour through the eastern States, tells the whole story of her character and tastes, a story by no means discreditable to the choice of the wisest of mankind. Mr. Sparks gives the letter entire, as we would gladly do if it were admissible. We must, however, content ourselves with a few short extracts:
"You know me well enough to believe that I am fond only of what comes from the heart. Under a conviction that the demonstrations of respect and affection to him originate in that source, I cannot deny that I have taken some interest and pleasure in them. The difficulties which presented themselves to view in his first entering upon the Presidency, seem thus to be in some measure surmounted. * * * I had little thought, when the war was finished, that any circumstances could possibly happen which would call the General into public life again. I had anticipated that from that moment we should be suffered to grow old together, in solitude and tranquillity. That was the first and dearest wish of my heart. I will not, however, contemplate with too much regret, disappointments that were inevitable, though his feelings and my own were in perfect unison with respect to our predilection for private life. Yet I cannot blame him for having acted according to his ideas of duty, in obeying the voice of his country. The consciousness of having attempted to do all the good in his power, and the pleasure of finding his fellow-citizens so well satisfied with the disinterestedness of his conduct, will doubtless be some compensation for the great sacrifice I know he has made. * * * With respect to myself, I sometimes think the arrangement is not quite as it ought to have been, that I, who had much rather be at home, should occupy a place with which a great many younger and gayer women would be extremely pleased. * * * I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us, in our minds, wherever we go." The whole letter bespeaks the good, kind, dutiful and devoted wife, the loving mother, for she represents her grandchildren as her chief joy, and the sensible, domestic woman. What more can any man ask in the partner of his bosom? She was the best wife possible for Washington, and he thought her such, and loved her entirely and always. The picture by Stuart shows her, even in the decline of life, to have been of a delicate and sprightly beauty.
Another eight years of public duty and public life two presidential terms were bravely borne by the pair always longing for Mount Vernon. The reluctance of Washington to the second term of office was even stronger than that which he had expressed to the first, but he was overborne by stress of voices. "The confidence of the whole Union," writes Jefferson, "is centred in you. * * * There is sometimes an eminence of character on which society have such peculiar claims, as to control the predilection of the individual for a particular walk of happiness, and restrain him to that alone arising from the present and future benedictions of mankind. This seems to be your condition, and the law imposed on you by Providence in forming your character, and fashioning the events on which it was to operate." And Hamilton says "I trust, and I pray God, that you will determine to make a further sacrifice of your tranquillity and happiness to the public good." And such were, throughout, the sentiments of the first men of the country, without distinction of politics. Thus urged, he yielded once more, even after he had prepared a farewell address to the people on his contemplated resignation.
It was during this second term that Fox spoke of Washington before Parliament, concluding thus: "It must indeed create astonishment, that, placed in circumstances so critical, and filling for a series of years a station so conspicuous, his character should never once have been called in question. * * * For him it has been reserved to run the race of glory without experiencing the smallest interruption to the brilliancy of his career." And Mr. Erskine, writing to Washington himself, says: "I have taken the liberty to introduce your august and immortal name in a short sentence which will be found in the book I send you.1 I have a large acquaintance among the most valuable and exalted classes of men; but you are the only human being for whom I ever felt an awful reverence. I sincerely pray God to grant a long and serene evening to a life so gloriously devoted to the universal happiness of the world."
The evening was indeed serene, but it was not destined to be long. Two years were spent in domestic and social duty and pleasure, the old Virginia hospitality being carried to an enormous extent at Mount Vernon, over which General and Mrs. Washington presided, with all that good sense, dignity, and bonhommie united, which seems now to have characterized their home life. Mrs. Washington, content with the greatness described by the wise king, looked well to her maidens, and so managed the affairs of a large establishment that "the heart of her husband could safely trust in her, so that he had no need of spoil." Who knows how much the good management of his household affairs had to do with Washington's superiority to the temptations of gain? The ladies should see to it that they so regulate their habits of expense that their husbands have "no need of spoil." The extravagant tastes of Mrs. Arnold, amiable woman though she was, are known to have heightened her husband's rapacity, and thus added to the incentives which resulted in treason and just ruin. Mrs. Washington, when she was in the highest position in the nation, wore gowns spun under her own roof, and always took care, in her conversation with the ladies about her, to exalt domestic employments, and represent them as belonging to the duty of woman in any station. She was supposed to have written a patriotic paper, published in 1780, called "The Sentiments of American Women," but the authorship has not been ascertained. The energy and consistency of her patriotic feeling was, however, perfectly well understood, and she is said to have borne her part in the conversation of the distinguished company at Mount Vernon, with invariable dignity and sweetness. The General had returned with unction to his rural and agricultural pursuits, keeping up his life-long habit of rising before the sun, and after breakfast making the tour of the plantation on horseback. These employments were somewhat interrupted by the speck of war which troubled our horizon in 1798, on which occasion all eyes were turned to him, and his friends and the President called upon him once more to give his services to the country. His reply was consistent with the tenor of his life, "In case of actual invasion by a formidable force, I certainly should not intrench myself under the cover of age and retirement, if my services should be required by my country in repelling it." Without waiting for his reply, the Senate had appointed him to the post of Commander-in-Chief, and the Secretary at War was despatched immediately to Mount Vernon with the commission, which was at once accepted. This involved Washington once more in a press of correspondence and many anxious duties; and his letters during this time show that his mind had lost none of its fertility or his judgment of its soundness. He predicted at once that France would not invade the United States, and the event justified his foresight. But another Enemy lay in wait for him, and to this one the hero succumbed, in the same manly spirit in which he had battled with an earthly foe. Great suffering was crowded into the twenty-four hours' illness which served to prostrate that vigorous form, and to still that active brain; but he could look up, at the last, and say "I am not afraid to die."