I know that I ought not to write to you again this week, but my
clients are few, and time hangs heavily on my hands, out here in the
backwoods. You ask me if there are no handsome Springfield girls to
take my attention, and keep me from being lonely. There are some very
decent-looking young ladies, whom I see when I attend divine worship
in the First Church, but you know very well why I do not care to
cultivate their acquaintance. There is only One—no, I will not break
my promise which I made, not to propose for your hand again for six
months, but you know what I mean. I am going to tell you about the
visit which that noble Patriot & Friend of Mankind, President George
Washington, has just made to Springfield. He was here yesterday. About
four o’clock his coach came up the Main street, horses at a smart
trot, and drew up with a flourish in front of Zenas Parson’s Tavern.
There was a small crowd, and three cheers were give as the President
stepped from his coach, but no great enthusiasm, for I am bound to say
that Springfield is an anti-Federalist town, and there is already much
grumbling about the government. The general remained in the tavern but
a short time, when he came out, and mounting a horse set out with
several officers up the Boston road, to visit the Government Stores. I
learn that he was well satisfied with the location and the
improvements, and predicts that there will be here one day great
manufactories and warehouses for the making and storing of Munitions
of War. After supper he sat for a couple of hours, until ten o’clock,
with a company of gentlemen in the great room of the Tavern, before a
roaring fire, for the nights are chill. I was invited, no doubt on my
father’s account, for whom the General inquired kindly. There were,
among others in the company, Col Worthington, Col Williams, Adjt.
General of the State, Gen William Shepard, Mr Lyman, and many other
respectable gentlemen of the Town. I shall never forget that evening.
His Excellency talked more freely than is his wont. He is loth to
speak of his own achievements, but at the urgent solicitation of Col
Williams he told of his part in the Trenton campaign. He gave great
praise to our Massachusetts men, particularly to the Marblehead
fishermen, who ferried the army, men, horses and guns, across the
river, amid the floating ice. I can very well see, Dorothy, how some
men can worship him and others hate him. He is a gentleman, an
aristocrat, if you please, by nature; proud, self-contained, refined
in every sense of the word. Added to that he is afflicted—I think that
is the right word—with an abnormal shyness and reserve. His nature
suddenly draws in upon itself, leaving him silent, diffident, almost
glum. He cannot speak at such times. His lips close in a firm line; he
looks like a marble statue. This mood is what some men mistake for
hauteur, pride, arrogance. They call him Caesar, because he does not
smirk and grin, and slap every country Tom and Jerry on the back. And
yet, beneath that cold exterior, there is a nature which can be as
warm and as tender as Spring. Once or twice during the evening he
laughed as heartily as any one. I am convinced that the reserve and
apparent exclusiveness, which seems so offensive to some, is partly a
natural dignity, a respect for his position, and partly a disposition
which he cannot help.
But there is a quality about him which only the most superficial
observer can fail to notice. The sense of it grew upon me as I sat
there and watched the play of his features in the firelight. Dorothy,
he is a great man, the greatest, perhaps, that our country will ever
see. He is cast in the heroic mold. He belongs in the company of the
elect of all the ages. Only once in centuries does Nature form such a
man, and then, like Caesar and Cromwell, he must be misunderstood,
because he walks in a different atmosphere from the common throng.
When I was in college I went on a hunting trip in the New Hampshire
wilderness. Away up there in the Northland, suddenly, from a hilltop,
I saw that splendid mountain peak, which has just been rightly named
Washington. Gloriously, above its fellows, it soared into the sunset
sky, remote, inaccessible, companion of the stars, yet rooted in
mother earth, with running stream and birds and flowers about its
base. That is our Washington, and such he must ever be. Once he
alluded to the slanders and vituperations, which cannot but annoy him.
He spoke in a voice which had more of sadness than anger in it. “These
attacks,” he said, “are outrages on common decency. But I have a
consolation within that no earthly effort can deprive me of, and that
is, that neither ambition nor interested motives have influenced my
conduct. The arrows of malevolence, therefore, however barbed and well
pointed, can never reach the most vulnerable part of me, though while
I am up as a mark they will be continually aimed.” The truth is,
Dorothy, his public life is one continual martyrdom and
self-sacrifice. He does not care for public life. He loves his farm on
the Potomac—his horses and his dogs, his tobacco and his wheat, and he
would be happier there than in any office which the people can give
him. This talk about his being unrepublican is absurd. No man could be
more ardently republican. He went into the war from pure sentiment and
love of the country. He would have fought in the ranks, if his place
had not been in the saddle. He believes, as every man must, in a
strong central government, but monarchial institutions he abhors.
At the stroke of ten he arose, and we stood and remained standing as
he bade us a gracious good-night and left the room. There was no
laughter and loud talking as we went away. A spell seemed to be upon
us, the spell of his dignity and nobility and greatness. This morning
at seven he started for Boston. May God go with him.
I must say good-night, Dorothy. I wish I could see you. Could you not
write more often than once a week? It is very lonely here, but
Springfield is really a lovely place. The river, as it comes sweeping
down from the hills, is beautiful. There is a very pretty society here
for a small town, and some assemblies. I think you love the country. I
think that a girl, even one who had been brought up in Boston, might
under certain circumstances be happy here. Good-night, again, and
Farewell.
Ever your ob’d’t Servant and well-wisher,