صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

We, therefore, infer that she preferred the repose and seclusion which she could best enjoy in her favorite retreat, surrounded by household companions who might almost be said to impersonate the Penates of Mount Vernon.

Devoted to the varied and important duties of her high station, eight successive years sped away in pleasures and occupations, which, if not those most congenial to the conjugal, maternal and domestic tastes and affections of this eminent American Matron, were yet crowned by the grateful consciousness of usefulness and the high approbation of that mental guide to the test of whose scrutinizing arbitration she was wont to submit each thought, word and action of her life.

The final departure of President and Mrs. Washington from the place and power through which they had acquired so much personal honor, and conferred such lasting benefit upon their country, was distinguished by every manifestation of national and individual reverence and gratitude.

All mourned the retirement of the great and good Father of his Country from the immediate supervision to which all might so safely and implicitly trust; and the love and blessings of a nation followed both Mrs. Washington and its honored Chief to the well-earned tranquility of private life.

Many were the tender farewells of those who were to be forever officially separated, and many the parting tokens of remembrance and affection long preserved as the sacred mementoes of those patriarchal days.

Mrs. Washington's part in these touching adieux will be characteristically illustrated by the following pleasing anecdote, for which we are obliged to a gentleman who personally received it from the most authentic

Source:

"On leaving the Seat of Government after the inauguration of his successor, Washington presented to all his principal officers some token of regard. When Mrs. Oliver Wolcott, the wife of one of these gentlemen and the particular friend and correspondent of Miss Custis, called to take leave,' Mrs. Washington asked if she did not wish a memorial of the General. 'Yes,' replied Mrs. Wolcott, 'I should like a lock of his hair.' Mrs. Washington instantly took her scissors, and with a happy smile, cut a large lock from her husband's head, added to it one from her own, and presented them to her fair friend.'

CHAPTER IX.

And a vision of happiness steals through

her rest

Cease, then, the funeral strain !-Lament no more,
Whom, rife for fate, 'twere impious to deplore!
He died the death of glory. Cease to mourn,
And cries of grief to songs of triumph turn!
Ah, no!-Awhile, ere reason's voice o'erpowers
The fond regret that weeps a loss like ours,

[blocks in formation]

DIMOND

SCOTT.

Yes, there is pain in this

Most passionate longing to o'erreach the clay-
This exile-thirst, which stronger grows each day
To take the morning-wings and flee away
To realms of future bliss.

MRS. E. J. EAMES.

RELIEVED, at last, from the irksomeness of elaborate ceremony and the time-engrossing duties of a public station, the illustrious Subject of our Memoir returned permanently, in the Spring of 1797, to the earnestly-coveted and peaceful enjoyments of the

home from which she had so often and so long been exiled.

Never had that home seemed so worthy to be graced by the continued presence of its gentle and admirable mistress. The walks, the gardens, the grounds, the venerable mansion, all gave most pleasing token of the refined taste and careful supervision of the beneficent spirits who shed everywhere around them so benign an influence.

But, though the effects of their previous efforts were so plainly discernable, General and Mrs. Washington entered, with much zeal and interest, upon projects for the further improvement and embellishment of the intended asylum of their declining years.

And now these faithful votaries of nature, these unaffected lovers of all the thousand nameless joys that constitute the sacred charm of HOME, contemplated with exquisite pleasure the calm vista through which they could at last trace their mutual pathway along the vale of time. A temperate enjoyment of the luxuries afforded by affluence, the affectionate reverence of dependents and relations, the exalted pleasures of friendship, the heavenly delights of benevolence, the joys of conjugal love-all these sources of happiness were theirs!

"And memory stood sidewise, half covered with [flowers,

Displaying each rose, but secreting its thorn,"

while recalling the many varying incidents of long

years of high duty and successfnl effort, of well-rewarded self-sacrifice and eventual triumph!

Such were the natural and appropriate rewards that crowned a life so useful, so virtuous, so exalted as that which it has been our desire to sketch in these brief pages! Unfettered by the "irons of circumstance," through each changing scene of her eventful career, Mrs. Washington had been faithful to the dictates of a noble nature, disciplined and controlled by Christian principle. Yielding to no selfish, effeminate love of the dolce far niente of existence, nor yet to the insidious promptings of worldly ambition, but ever "true to the kindred points of Heaven and Home" she had passed unfalteringly on, scathed neither by the fierce lightnings of adversity, nor the dazzling splendors of place and power. The wordless eloquence expressed by the serene majesty of her life, commends itself to our hearts with far more resistless pathos than all the eulogies panegyrists could pronounce, or poet's pen; and we turn from the contemplation of her character with mingled emotions of admiration, affection and humility!

Felicity such as now blessed the venerable mistress of Mount Vernon partook too little of the usual attributes of human happiness to be perpetuated on earth.

Two years after his final resignation of the cares of state, the immortal Washington was suddenly summoned to possess, in the revealed Presence of Deity,

"Through boundless Space and countless Time," the immutable bliss of a “just man made perfect" !

« السابقةمتابعة »