A VISIT TO MOUNT VERNON.
On a day of exceeding sultriness (it was the fourth of September) I left
the dusty, stifled streets of Washington, and went on board the
excursion steamer Wawaset, bound for Mount Vernon.
Ten o’clock, the hour of starting, had nearly arrived. No breath of air
was stirring. The sun beat down with torrid fervor upon the boat’s
awnings, which seemed scarce a protection against it, and upon the
glassy water, which reflected it with equal intensity from below. Then
suddenly the bell rang, the boat swung out in the river, the strong
paddles rushed, and almost instantly a magical change took place. A
delightful breeze appeared to have sprung up, increasing as the
steamer’s speed increased. I sat upon a stool by the wheelhouse,
drinking in all the deliciousness of that cooling motion through the
air, and watching compassionately the schooners with heavy and languid
sails lying becalmed in the channel,—indolent fellows, drifting with the
tide, and dependent on influences from without to push them,—while our
steamer, with flashing wake, flag gayly flying, and decks swept by
wholesome, animating winds, resembled one of your energetic, original
men, cutting the sluggish current, and overcoming the sultriness and
stagnation of life by a refreshing activity.
On we sped, leaving far behind the Virginia long-boats, with their
pointed sails on great poles swung aslant across the masts,—sails dingy
in color and irregular in shape, looking, a little way off, like huge
sweet potatoes. Our course was southward, leaving far on our right the
Arlington estate embowered in foliage on the Virginia shore; and on our
left the Navy Yard and Arsenal, and the Insane Asylum standing like a
stern castle, half hidden by trees, on the high banks back from the
river. As we departed from the wharves, a view of the city opened behind
us, with its two prominent objects,—the unfinished Washington Monument,
resembling in the distance a tall, square, pallid sail; and the
many-pillared, beautiful Capitol, rising amid masses of foliage, with
that marvellous bubble, its white and airy dome, soaring superbly in the
sun.
Before us, straight in our course, was Alexandria, quaint old city, with
its scanty fringe of straight and slender spars, and its few anchored
ships suspended in a glassy atmosphere, as it seemed, where the river
reflected the sky. We ran in to the wharves, and took on board a number
of passengers; then steamed on again, down the wide Potomac, until,
around a bend, high on a wooded shore, a dim red roof and a portico of
slender white pillars appeared visible through the trees.
It was Mount Vernon, the home of Washington. The shores here, on both
the Maryland and Virginia sides, are picturesquely hilly and green with
groves. The river between flows considerably more than a mile wide: a
handsome sheet, reflecting the woods and the shining summer clouds
sailing in the azure over them, although broad belts of river-grass,
growing between the channel and the banks like strips of inundated
prairie, detract from its beauty.
As we drew near, the helmsman tolled the boat’s bell slowly. “Before the
war,” said he, “no boat ever passed Mount Vernon without tolling its
bell, if it had one. The war kind of broke into that custom, as it did
into most everything else; but it is coming up again now.”
We did not make directly for the landing, but kept due on down the
channel until we had left Mount Vernon half a mile away on our right.
Then suddenly the steamer changed her course, steering into the tract of
river-grass, which waved and tossed heavily as the ripple from the bows
shook it from its drowsy languor. The tide rises here some four feet. It
was low tide then, and the circuit we had made was necessary to avoid
grounding on the bar. We were entering shallow water. We touched and
drew hard for a few minutes over the yielding sand. The dense grass
seemed almost as serious an impediment as the bar itself. Down among its
dark heaving masses we had occasional glimpses of the bottom, and saw
hundreds of fishes darting away, and sometimes leaping sheer from the
surface, in terror of the great, gliding, paddling monster, invading, in
that strange fashion, their peaceful domain.
Drawing a well-defined line half a mile long through that submerged
prairie, we reached the old wooden pier, built out into it from the
Mount Vernon shore. I did not land immediately, but remained on deck,
watching the long line of pilgrims going up from the boat along the
climbing path and disappearing in the woods. There were, perhaps, a
hundred and fifty in the procession, men and women and children, some
carrying baskets, with intent to enjoy a nice little picnic under the
old Washington trees. It was a pleasing sight, rendered interesting by
the historical associations of the place, but slightly dashed with the
ludicrous, it must be owned, by a solemn tipsy wight bringing up the
rear, singing, or rather bawling, the good old tune of Greenville, with
maudlin nasal twang, and beating time with profound gravity and a big
stick.
As the singer, as well as his tune, was tediously slow, I passed him on
the way, ascended the long slope through the grove, and found my
procession halted under the trees on the edge of it. Facing them, with
an old decayed orchard behind it, was a broad, low brick structure, with
an arched entrance and an iron-grated gate. Two marble shafts flanked
the approach to it on the right and left. Passing these, I paused, and
read on a marble slab over the Gothic gateway the words,—
“WITHIN THIS ENCLOSURE REST THE REMAINS OF GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON.”
The throng of pilgrims, awed into silence, were beginning to draw back a
little from the tomb. I approached, and leaning against the iron bars,
looked through into the still, damp chamber. Within, a little to the
right of the centre of the vault, stands a massive and richly sculptured
marble sarcophagus, bearing the name of “Washington.” By its side, of
equal dimensions, but of simpler style, is another, bearing the
inscription, “Martha, the consort of Washington.”
It is a sequestered spot, half enclosed by the trees of the grove on the
south side,—cedars, sycamores, and black-walnuts, heavily hung with
vines, sheltering the entrance from the mid-day sun. Woodpeckers flitted
and screamed from trunk to trunk of the ancient orchard beyond. Eager
chickens were catching grasshoppers under the honey-locusts, along by
the old wooden fence. And, humming harmlessly in and out over the heads
of the pilgrims, I noticed a colony of wasps, whose mud-built nests
stuccoed profusely the yellowish ceiling of the vault.
There rest the ashes of the great chieftain, and of Martha his wife. I
did not like the word “consort.” It is too fine a term for a tombstone.
There is something lofty and romantic about it; but “wife” is simple,
tender, near to the heart, steeped in the divine atmosphere of home,—
“A something not too bright and good
For human nature’s daily food.”
She was the _wife_ of Washington: a true, deep-hearted woman, the
blessing and comfort, not of the Commander-in-chief, not of the first
President, but of the MAN. And Washington, the MAN, was not the cold,
majestic, sculptured figure which has been placed on the pedestal of
history. There was nothing marble about him but the artistic and
spotless finish of his public career. Majestic he truly was, as simple
greatness must be; and cold he seemed to many;—nor was it fitting that
the sacred chambers of that august personality should be thrown open to
the vulgar feet and gaze of the multitude. It is littleness and vanity
that are loose of tongue and unseasonably familiar.
“Yet shine forever virgin minds,
Beloved by stars and purest winds,
Which, o’er passion throned sedate,
Have not hazarded their state;
Disconcert the searching spy,
Rendering, to the curious eye,
The durance of a granite ledge
To those who gaze from the sea’s edge.”
Of these virgin minds was Washington. The world saw him through a veil
of reserve, as habitual to him as the sceptre of self-control. Yet
beneath that veil throbbed a fiery nature, which on a few rare occasions
is known to have flamed forth into terrible wrath. Anecdotes, recording
those instances of volcanic eruption from the core of this serene and
lofty character, are refreshing and precious to us, as showing that the
ice and snow were only on the summit, while beneath burned those
fountains of glowing life which are reservoirs of power to the virtue
and will that know how to control them. A man of pure, strong, constant
affections, his love of tranquil domestic enjoyments was as remarkable
as his self-sacrificing patriotism. I know not Washington’s “consort”;
but to me a very sweet, beautiful, and touching name is that of “Martha,
Washington’s wife.”
Quitting the tomb, I walked along by the old board fence which bounds
the corner of the orchard, and turned up the locust-shaded avenue
leading to the mansion. On one side was a wooden shed, on the other an
old-fashioned brick barn. Passing these, you seem to be entering a
little village. The out-houses are numerous; I noticed the wash-house,
the meat-house, and the kitchen, the butler’s house, and the gardener’s
house,—neat white buildings, ranged around the end of the lawn, among
which the mansion stands the principal figure.
Looking in at the wash-house, I saw a pretty-looking colored girl
industriously scrubbing over a tub. She told me that she was twenty
years old, that her husband worked on the place, and that a bright
little fellow, four years old, running around the door, handsome as
polished bronze, was her son. She formerly belonged to John A.
Washington, who made haste to carry her off to Richmond, with the money
the Ladies’ Mount Vernon Association had paid him, on the breaking out
of the war. She was born on the place, but had never worked for John A.
Washington. “He kept me hired out; for I s’pose he could make more by me
that way.” She laughed pleasantly as she spoke, and rubbed away at the
wet clothes in the tub.
I looked at her, so intelligent and cheerful, a woman and a mother,
though so young; and wondered at the man who could pretend to own such a
creature, hire her out to other masters, and live upon her wages! I have
heard people scoff at John A. Washington for selling the inherited bones
of the great,—for surely the two hundred thousand dollars, paid by the
Ladies’ Association for the Mount Vernon estate, was not the price
merely of that old mansion, these out-houses, since repaired, and two
hundred acres of land,—but I do not scoff at him for that. Why should
not one, who dealt in living human flesh and blood, also traffic a
little in the ashes of the dead?
“After the war was over, the Ladies’ Association sent for me from
Richmond, and I work for them now,” said the girl, merrily scrubbing.
“What wages do you get?”
“I gits seven dollars a month, and that’s a heap better ’n no wages at
all!” laughing again with pleasure. “The sweat I drap into this yer tub
is my own; but befo’e, it belonged to John A. Washington.” As I did not
understand her at first, she added, “You know, the Bible says every one
must live by the sweat of his own eyebrow. But John A. Washington, he
lived by the sweat of my eyebrow. I alluz had a will’n mind to work, and
I have now; but I don’t work as I used to; for then it was work to-day
and work to-morrow, and no stop.”
Beside the kitchen was a well-house, where I stopped and drank a
delicious draught out of an “old oaken bucket,” or rather a new one,
which came up brimming from its cold depths. This well was dug in
General Washington’s time, the cook told me; and as I drank, and looked
down, down into the dark shaft at the faintly glimmering water,—for the
well was deep,—I thought how often the old General had probably come up
thither from the field, taken off his hat in the shade, and solaced his
thirst with a drink from the dripping bucket.
Passing between the kitchen and the butler’s house, you come upon a
small plateau, a level green lawn, nearly surrounded by a circle of
large shade-trees. The shape of this pleasant esplanade is oblong: at
the farther end, away on the left, is the ancient entrance to the
grounds; close by on the right, at the end nearest the river, is the
mansion.
Among the shade-trees, of which there are a great variety, I noticed a
fine sugar-maple, said to be the only individual of the species in all
that region. It was planted by General Washington, “who wished to see
what trees would grow in that climate,” the gardener told me. It has for
neighbors, among many others, a tulip-tree, a Kentucky coffee-tree, and
a magnolia set out by Washington’s own hand. I looked at the last with
peculiar interest, thinking it a type of our country, the perennial
roots of which were about the same time laid carefully in the bosom of
the eternal mother, covered and nursed and watered by the same
illustrious hand,—a little tree then, feeble, and by no means sure to
live; but now I looked up, thrilling with pride at the glory of its
spreading branches, its storm-defying tops, and its mighty trunk which
not even the axe of treason could sever.
I approached the mansion. It was needless to lift the great brass
knocker, for the door was open. The house was full of guests thronging
the rooms and examining the relics; among which were conspicuous these:
hanging in a little brass-framed glass case in the hall, the key of the
Bastile, presented to Washington by Lafayette; in the dining-hall, a
very old-fashioned harpsichord that had entirely lost its voice, but
which is still cherished as a wedding-gift from Washington to his
adopted daughter; in the same room, holsters and a part of the
Commander-in-chief’s camp-equipage, very dilapidated; and, in a square
bedroom up-stairs, the bedstead on which Washington slept, and on which
he died. There is no sight more touching than this bedstead, surrounded
by its holy associations, to be seen at Mount Vernon.
From the house I went out on the side opposite that on which I had
entered, and found myself standing under the portico we had seen when
coming down the river. A noble portico, lofty as the eaves of the house,
and extending the whole length of the mansion,—fifteen feet in width and
ninety-six in length, says the Guide-Book. The square pillars supporting
it are not so slender, either; but it was their height which made them
appear so when we first saw them miles off up the Potomac.
What a portico for a statesman to walk under,—so lofty, so spacious, and
affording such views of the river and its shores, and the sky over all!
Once more I saw the venerable figure of him, the first in war and the
first in peace, pacing to and fro on those pavements of flat stone,
solitary, rapt in thought, glancing ever and anon up the Potomac towards
the site of the now great capital bearing his name, contemplating the
revolution accomplished, and dreaming of his country’s future. There was
one great danger he feared: the separation of the States. But well for
him, O, well for the great-hearted and wise chieftain, that the
appalling blackness of the storm, destined so soon to deluge the land
with blood for rain-drops, was hidden from his eyes, or appeared far in
the dim horizon no bigger than a man’s hand!
Saved from the sordid hands of a degenerate posterity, saved from the
desolation of unsparing civil war, Mount Vernon still remains to us with
its antique mansion and its delightful shades. I took all the more
pleasure in the place, remembering how dear it was to its illustrious
owner. There is no trait in Washington’s character with which I
sympathize so strongly as with his love for his home. True, that home
was surrounded with all the comforts and elegancies which fortune and
taste could command. But had Mount Vernon been as humble as it was
beautiful, Washington would have loved it scarcely less. It was dear to
him, not as a fine estate, but as the home of his heart. A simply great
and truly wise man, free from foolish vanity and ambition, he served his
country with a willing spirit; yet he knew well that happiness does not
subsist upon worldly honors nor dwell in high places, but that her
favorite haunt is by the pure waters of domestic tranquillity.
There came up a sudden thunder-shower while we were at the house. The
dreadful peals rolled and rattled from wing to wing of the black cloud
that overshadowed the river, and the rain fell in torrents. Umbrellas
were scarce, and I am sorry to say the portico leaked badly. But the
storm passed as suddenly as it came; the rifted clouds floated away with
sunlit edges glittering like silver fire, and all the wet leafage of the
trees twinkled and laughed in the fresh golden light. I did not return
to the boat with the crowd by the way we came, but descended the steep
banks through the drenched woods in front of the mansion, to the low
sandy shore of the Potomac, then walked along the water’s edge, under
the dripping boughs, to the steamer, and so took my leave of Mount
Vernon.