He had fought the
Revolution, which opened the way for a new nation, and was at the
height of his fame when he wrote to the French officers, who begged
him to visit France, that he was "too old to learn French or to talk
with ladies;" and it was this feeling in a large measure which kept
him from ever being a maker of phrases or a sayer of brilliant things.
In other words, the fact that he was modest and sensitive has been the
chief cause of his being thought dull and cold. This idea, moreover,
is wholly that of posterity, for there is not the slightest indication
on the part of any contemporary that Washington could not talk well
and did not appear to great advantage in society. It is posterity,
looking with natural weariness at endless volumes of official letters
with all the angles smoothed off by the editorial plane, that has
come to suspect him of being dull in mind and heavy in wit. His
contemporaries knew him to be dignified and often found him stern, but
they never for a moment considered him stupid, or thought him a man at
whom the shafts of wit could be shot with impunity. They were fully
conscious that he was as able to hold his own in conversation as he
was in the cabinet or in the field; and we can easily see the justice
of contemporary opinion if we take the trouble to break through the
official bark and get at the real man who wrote the letters. In many
cases we find that he could employ irony and sarcasm with real force,
and his powers of description, even if stilted at times, were vigorous
and effective.
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