I thank you for your attentions, but
I pray you will take no more trouble about me. Let me go off quietly.
I cannot last long." He lay there for some hours longer, restless and
suffering, but utterly uncomplaining, taking such remedies as the
physicians ordered in silence. About ten o'clock he spoke again to
Lear, although it required a most desperate effort to do so. "I am
just going," he said. "Have me decently buried, and do not let my body
be put into the vault in less than three days after I am dead." Lear
bowed, and Washington said, "Do you understand me?" Lear answered,
"Yes." "'Tis well," he said, and with these last words again fell
silent. A little later he felt his own pulse, and, as he was counting
the strokes, Lear saw his countenance change. His hand dropped back
from the wrist he had been holding, and all was over. The end had
come. Washington was dead. He died as he had lived, simply and
bravely, without parade and without affectation. The last duties
were done, the last words said, the last trials borne with the quiet
fitness, the gracious dignity, that even the gathering mists of the
supreme hour could neither dim nor tarnish. He had faced life with a
calm, high, victorious spirit. So did he face death and the unknown
when Fate knocked at the door.
[Footnote 1: It was called at the time a quinsy.]
[Footnote 2: See Memoir on _The Last Sickness of Washington_, by James
Jackson, M.D. In response to an inquiry as to the modern treatment of
this disease, the late Dr.
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