There is a fine symmetry in the features
of his face indicative of a benign and dignified spirit. His nose is
straight, and his eyes inclined to blue. He wears his hair in a
becoming cue, and from his forehead it is turned back, and powdered in
a manner which adds to the military air of his appearance. He displays
a native gravity, but devoid of all appearance of ostentation. His
uniform dress is a blue coat with two brilliant epaulets, buff-colored
underclothes, and a three-cornered hat with a black cockade. He is
constantly equipped with an elegant small-sword, boots and spurs, in
readiness to mount his noble charger."
In this description, somewhat fulsome in its praise, we can read
between the lines the confidence and affection which inspired his
troops during all the trying days of the Revolution.
Washington has suffered much at the hands of his biographers. They
have over-praised him, with the result that many readers of today have
come to regard him as scarcely human--a sort of demi-god. But one or
two more recent biographers have had the courage and conviction to tear
aside the mask, and we can, if we will, see Washington the
man--quick-tempered at times, perhaps profane in the heat of battle,
fond of display and good living in his hours of ease--but also a man to
be trusted in every crisis, cool, courageous, resourceful--a strategist
who made the ablest generals that England could send over against him,
suffer by comparison.
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