XXV.
“He was nearly six feet high.... Exposure had deepened
the tints of a light-brown complexion.... His portrait...
may still be seen at Clermont. As you look upon it you perceive
that his dark eyes have that peculiar expression, half sad, half severe,
which is seen in the eyes of the painter Giotto, the shepherd boy,
whom Cimabue found in the recesses of the Alps, tending sheep, and
who, like Mason, when he was summoned from his forest home made
an era in the history of his art.... The Declaration of Rights
is indeed a remarkable production.... It is the quintessence
of all the great principles and doctrines of freedom, which had been
wrought out by the people of England from the earliest times...
It received the applause of the generation which hailed its birth, and
of those generations which have passed away, and will receive the
applause of those to come. It stands without a model in ancient or
in recent times.”
Mr. Grigsby's “Virginia Convention of '76.”
“Virginia, Gunston Hall, June 3d, 1781.
“Dear George,
... “God bless you, my dear child! and grant that we may
again meet, in your native country, as freemen; otherwise, that we
never see each other more, is the prayer of
“Your affectionate father,
“G. Mason.”
“I recommend it to my sons, from my experience in life, to prefer
the happiness and independence of a private station to the troubles
and vexations of public business; but if either their own inclinations,
or the necessities of the times, should engage them in public affairs, I
charge them, on a father's blessing, never to let the motive of private
interest or ambition induce them to betray, nor the terrors of poverty
and disgrace, or the fear of danger or death, deter them from asserting
the liberty of their country, and endeavoring to transmit to their
posterity those sacred rights to which themselves were born.”
Mason's
Will.
