University of Virginia Library

LEGEND THIRD.
THE YOUTH OF WASHINGTON.

It is not the most difficult thing in the world
to write the history of a battle. The tramp of
legions, the crash of contending foemen, the
waving of banners — arms glittering here, and
the cold faces of the dead glowing yonder, in
the battle flash — these form a picture that
strikes the heart at once, and makes its mark
forever.

But who can write the history of a Soul?

Who can tell how the germ of heroism, the
idea of greatness first swells in the mind of the
Boy, and slowly ripens into full life?

We have seen Washington the President.
We have known Washington the General.
Shall we look into the soul of Washington the
Boy? Shall we behold the almost imperceptible
gradations which marked the progress of
that soul into manhood? Shall we witness
the silent, gradual, ceaseless EDUCATION of that
soul?

How was Washington educated? Did he
lounge away five years of his life within the
walls of a college, occupied in removing the
shrouds from the mummies of Classic Literature,
busy in familiarizing his mind with the
elaborate pollutions of Grecian mythology, or
in analyzing the hollow philosophies of the
academy and portico?

No. His education was on a broader, vaster
scale.

At seventeen he leaves the common school,
where he had received the plain rudiments of
an English education, and with knapsack
strapped to his shoulders, surveyor's instruments
in his hand, he goes forth, a pilgrim
among the mountains. Where there is blue
sky, where the tumultuous river hews its way
through colossal cliffs, where the great peaks
of the Alleghanies rise like immense altars into
the heavens — such were the scenes in which
the soul of Washington was educated.

He went forth a wanderer into the wilderness.
At night he stretched his limbs in the
depths of the forest, or rose to look upon the
stars, as they shone in upon the awful night
of the wilderness, or sat down with the red
men by their council fire, and learned from
this strange race the traditions of the lost
nations of America.

Three years of his life glide away while he
sojourns among the scenes of nature's grandeur.
Those three years form his character, and
shape his soul. Glimpses of the future come
upon him like those blushes of radiance in the
day-break sky, which announce the rising of
the sun.

Shall we learn the manner of his communion
with nature and with God?

We know it is beneath the dignity of history
to look even for an instant into the heart. We
know that vague generalities, misty outlines,
compact and well-proportioned falsehoods,
sprinkled with a dash of what is called philosophy
— too often constitute the object and the
manner of history.

Shall we depart a little while from the respectable
regularities of history, which too
often resemble the regular tactics of Braddock
on his fatal field, and call tradition and legend
to our aid? Tradition and legend, which, in
their vivid but irregular details, remind us
forcibly of the crude style of battle which
young Washington so fruitlessly commended to
the notice of the regular general, on the battle
day of Monongahela.

Learn, then, the manner of young Washington's
communion with nature and with
God.

But first learn and know by heart the scenes
in which his boyhood passed away.

Over a tumultuous torrent, high in the upper
air, there hangs a bridge of rock, fashioned by
the hand of Nature, with the peaks of granite
mountains for its horizon. Two hundred feet
above the foaming waves you behold this arch,
which in its very ruggedness, looks graceful
as a floating scarf. Over the waves, looking
through the arch, you catch a vision of colossal
cliffs, with a glimpse of smiling sky. Advance
to the parapet of this bridge — cling to
the shrubs that grow there — look below!
Your heart grows sick — your brain reels.

Stand in the shadow of the arch, and look
above. How beautiful! While the torrent
sparkles at your feet, yonder, in the very
Heaven, the Arch of Rock fills your eye, and
spans the abyss, with giant trees upon its
brow.

To the Natural Bridge, Washington, the
young pilgrim came. He stood by the waves
at sunset — he drank in the rugged sublimity
of the scene. And when the morning came,
with an unfaltering step, and hand that never
shook, not for an instant, with one pulse of
fear, he climbed the awful height — he wrote
his name upon the rock — he stood upon the
summit, beneath the tall pine, and saw the
march of day among the mountains.

Who shall picture his emotions in that
hour?

As his unfaltering hand traced the name
upon the rock, did he dream of the day when
that name should be stamped upon the history
of his country, and written not in stone, but in
the throbs of living hearts?

As he stood upon the arch, and saw the torrent
sparkle dimly far below, while the kiss
of light was glittering on the mountain tops,
did no vision of the battle field, no shadowy
presentiment of glory, gleam awfully before
his flashing eyes?

Again; another scene of Washington's
education.

There is a river which sparkles beautifully
among its leafy banks — glides on as smoothly
as the dream of sinless slumber; but even as
you gaze upon its glassy waves, it rushes from
your sight. It glides over a bed of rocks, and
then through a yawning abyss sinks with one
sullen plunge into the bosom of the earth. On
one side you behold its smooth waters — at
your feet the abyss — and yonder, an undulating
meadow. Yes, where should be the
course of the river, you behold slopes of grass
and flowers.

It is simply called the Lost River.

It fills you with inexplicable emotions to see
this beautiful stream, now flashing in the sunlight,
now — ere you can count one — lost in
a dismal cavern, with flowers growing upon its
grave.

Here Washington, the young pilgrim, wandered
oftentime, and gazed with a full heart
upon the mysterious river.

“Shall my life be like that river? Gliding
smoothly on — shining in sunlight, only to
plunge, without a moment's warning, into
night and eternity.”

Did no thought like this cross the young
pilgrim's soul? In that wondrous river he beheld
a symbol of a brave life, suddenly plunged
in darkness. Or, it may be, of a great heart,
hurled into obscurity, only to rise more beautiful
and strong, after the night was over and
the darkness gone. For after three miles of
darkness, the lost river comes sparkling into
light again, singing for very gladness, as it
rushes from the cavern into open air.

Amid scenes like these the youth of Washington
was passed. He grew to manhood
amid the glorious images of unpolluted nature.
Now, pausing near the mountain top, he saw
the valleys of Virginia fade far away, in one
long smile of verdure and sunshine, with the
Potomac, like a silver thread, in the distance.

Now battling for life, amid hunger, snow,
and savage foes, he makes his bed in the hollow
of the rock, or sets his destiny afloat amid
the waves and ice of a wintry river.

There is one picture in the life of Washington,
the Boy, which has ever impressed my
soul.

It is not so much that picture of young
Washington, seated at the feet of his widowed
mother, gazing into her pale face, drinking the
fathomless affection of her mild eyes, and for
her sake renouncing the glittering prospect of
an ocean life, and laurels gathered from its
gory waves.

This picture, in its simplicity, is very beautiful.

But it is another picture which enchains
me. Behold it.

By the side of a lonely stream, in the depth
of a green woodland, sits a boy of fourteen —
shut out from all the world, alone with his
heart — his finger laid upon an opened volume,
while his large grey eye gazes vacantly into
the deep waters.

And that volume is the old Family Bible,
marked with the name of his ancestor, John
Washington; and from its large letters look
forth the Prophets of Israel, and from its pages,
printed in antique style, the face of Jesus
smiles in upon the soul of the dreaming boy.

Washington the boy, alone with the old Bible
which his ancestor, a wanderer and an exile,
brought from the English shore — alone
with the prophets and the warriors of long distant
ages — shut in from the world by the awful
forms of revelation — now wandering with
the Patriarchs under the shade of palms,
among the white flocks — now lingering by Samaria's
well, while the Divine voice melts in
accents of unutterable music upon the stillness
of noonday.

Let us for a few moments survey the various
EPOCHA of the youth of Washington.

At the age of ten years he is left an orphan;
from the hour of his father's death he is educated
by his widowed mother.

At the age of fourteen a midshipman's warrant
is offered to him — with a brilliant prospect
of naval glory in the distance. He accepts
the warrant — his destiny seems trembling
in the balance — when his mother, who
already saw a nobler theatre open before her
boy, induces him to surrender the idea of an
ocean life.

He is seventeen when he takes up the instruments
of the surveyor's craft, and crossing
the Alleghanies, beholds, for the first time, the
customs of the Indian people.

Three years pass, and he is a pilgrim amid
the forms of external nature.

We behold him on the ocean, amid the terror
of its storms, and very near the doom of
its shipwrecks. His heart pillows the head of
a dying brother; he accompanies Laurence
Washington on a voyage to Barbadoes, and is
absent on the ocean, and on the shores of a
strange land, from the fall of 1751 until the
spring of 1752.

When Laurence dies, his young brother,
George Washington, a youth of twenty years,
is appointed executor of his immense estates.

At the age of twenty-one, he is designated by
the Governor of Virginia as a Commissioner
to treat with the hostile French and their Indian
allies, who threaten our western borders.
In the pursuit of the object of this mission, he
journeys 560 miles into the trackless wilderness.

He is twenty-two when he first mingles in
battle; his sword is unsheathed July 3, 1754,
at the fight of the Great Meadows.

And at the age of twenty-three, July 9th,
1775, he shares in the dangers of Braddock's
field, and saves the wreck of the defeated
army.

The great epochs of the Youth of Washington
are written in the preceding paragraphs.
A wonderful youth indeed! From the common
school-house into the untrodden wilderness;
from the couch of a dying brother into
the terror of battle, Washington had already
lived a life, before he was twenty-three years
old.

Let us, my friends, write the unwritten history
of Washington, Not the dim outline
which History sketches, but a picture of the
Man — with color, shape, life and voice. Yes,
life; for as we go on, among the shrines of the
Past, the dead will live with us; and voice,
too; for as we question the ghosts of other
days, they will answer us, although the
shadows of a hundred years brood over their
graves.

And ere we hasten forth upon our journey,
let us for a moment compare the youth of
Washington with the boyhood of Arnold.

Washington, nourished by the counsels of a
mother, surrounded by powerful friends, and
with many a kind hand for his brow when it
was stricken with fever, many a kind voice for
his heart when it was heavy with sorrow.

Arnold, a friendless boy, left by an intemperate
father to the — world; guided, it is true,
by a kind mother, but a mother who saw all
the clouds of misfortune lowering upon her
path, and felt the heaviest blows of misery upon
her breast.