Jfourn^s $0 tbf S&omfi of Smmrwi Wntten by Elbert Hubbard and done into a Book by The Roycrofters at their Shop, at East Aurora, New York, mcmxi Copyright, 1911 By Elbert Hubbard h v, LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA CONTENTS GEORGE WASHINGTON BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ALEXANDER HAMILTON SAMUEL ADAMS JOHN HANCOCK JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 9 37 59 91 in 139 GEORGE WASHINGTON HE left as fair a reputation as ever belonged to a human character. . . . Midst all the sorrowings that are mingled on this melancholy occasion I venture to assert that none could have felt his death with more regret than I, because no one had higher opinions of his worth. . . . There is this consolation, though, to be drawn, that while living no man could be more esteemed, and since dead none is more lamented. Washington, on the death of Tilghman. GEORGE WASHINGTON 'BAN STANLEY has said that all the gods of ancient mythology were once men, and he traces for us the evolution of a man into a hero, the hero into a demigod, and the demigod into a divinity. By a slow process, the natural man is divested of all our common faults and frailties; he is clothed with superhuman attributes and declared a being separate and apart, and is lost to us in the clouds. When Greenough carved that statue of Washington that sits facing the Capitol, he unwittingly showed how a man may be transformed into a Jove. But the world has reached a point when to be human is no longer a cause for apology; we recognize that the human, in degree, comprehends the divine. Jove inspires fear, but to Washington we pay the tribute of affection <> Beings hopelessly separated from us are not ours : a god we can not love, a man we may. We know Washington as well as it is possible to know any man. We know him better, far better, than the people who lived in the very household with him. We have his diary showing "how and where I spent my time"; we have his journal, his account-books (and no 10 man was ever a more painstaking accountant) ; we have hundreds of his letters, and his own copies and first drafts of hundreds of others, the originals of which have been lost or destroyed. From these, with contemporary history, we are able to make up a close estimate of the man; and we find him human splendidly human. By his books of accounts we find that he was often imposed upon, that he loaned thou sands of dollars to people who had no expectation of paying ; and hi his last will, written with his own hand, we find him canceling these debts, and making bequests to scores of relatives; giving freedom to his slaves, and acknowledging his obligation to servants and various other obscure persons. He was a man in very sooth. He was a man in that he had in him the appetites, the ambitions, the desires of a man. Stewart, the artist, has said, "All of his features were indications of the strongest and most ungovernable pas sions, and had he been born in the forest, he would have been the fiercest man among savage tribes." But over the sleeping volcano of his temper he kept watch and ward, until his habit became one of gentleness, generosity and shining, simple truth; and, behind all, we behold his unswerving purpose and steadfast strength. And so the object of this sketch will be, not to show the superhuman Washington, the Washington set apart, but to give a glimpse of the man Washington who aspired, feared, hoped, loved and bravely died. GEORGE WASHINGTON 11 rHE first biographer of George Washington was the Reverend Mason L. Weems. If you have a copy of Weems' "Life of Washington," you had better wrap it in chamois and place it away for your heirs, for some time it will command a price. Fifty editions of Weems' book were printed, and in its day no other volume approached it in point of popularity. In American literature, Weems stood first. To Weems are we indebted for the hatchet tale, the story of the colt that was broken and killed in the process, and all those other fine romances of Washington's youth. Weems' literary style reveals the very acme of that vicious quality of untruth to be found in the old-time Sunday-school books. Weems mustered all the "Little Willie" stories he could find, and attached to them Washington's name, claiming to write for "the Betterment of the Young," as if in dealing with the young we should carefully conceal the truth. Possibly Washington could not tell a lie, but Weems was not thus handicapped. Under a mass of silly moralizing, he nearly buried the real Washington, giving us instead a priggish, punk youth, and a Madame Tussaud, full-dress general, with a wax works manner and a wooden dignity. Happily, we have now come to a time when such authors as Mason L. Weems and John S. C. Abbott are no longer accepted as final authorities. We do not discard them, but, like Samuel Pepys, they are retained that they may contribute to the gaiety of nations. Various violent efforts have been made in days agone to show that Washington was of "a noble line" as if the 12 GEORGE WASHINGTON natural nobility of the man needed a reason forgetful that we are all sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. But Burke's "Peerage" lends no light, and the careful, unprejudiced, patient search of recent years finds only the blue blood of the common people. Washington himself said that in his opinion the history of his ancestors "was of small moment and a subject to which, I confess, I have paid little attention." He had a bookplate and he had also a coat of arms on his carriage-door. The Reverend Mr. Weems has described Washington's bookplate thus: "Argent, two bars gules in chief, three mullets of the second. Crest, a raven with wings, indorsed proper, issuing out of a ducal coronet, or." GEORGE WASHINGTON 13 >ARY BALL was the second wife of Augustine Wash ington. In his will the good man describes this marriage, evidently with a wink, as "my second Venture." And it is sad to remember that he did not live to know that his "Venture" made America his debtor. The success of the union seems pretty good argument in favor of widowers marrying. There were four children in the family, the oldest nearly full grown, when Mary Ball came to take charge of the household. She was twenty-seven, her husband ten years older. They were married March Sixth, Seventeen Hundred Thirty-one, and on February Twenty-second of the following year was born a man child and they named him George. The Washingtons were plain, hard-working people land- poor. They lived in a small house that had three rooms downstairs and an attic, where the children slept, and bumped their heads against the rafters if they sat up quickly in bed jt jt Washington got his sterling qualities from the Ball family, and not from the tribe of Washington. George was endowed by his mother with her own splendid health and with all the sturdy Spartan virtues of her mind. In features and in mental characteristics, he resembled her very closely. There were six children born to her in all, but the five have been nearly lost sight of in the splendid success of the firstborn. & After his retirement from business, Franklin enjoyed seven years of what he called leisure, but they were years of study and application ; years of happiness and sweet content, but years of aspiration and an earnest looking into the future. His experiments with kite and key had made his name known hi all the scientific circles of Europe, and his sug gestive writings on the subject of electricity had caused Goethe to lay down his pen and go to rubbing amber for the edification of all Weimar. Franklin was in correspondence with the greatest minds of Europe, and what his "Poor Richard Almanac " had done for the plain people of America, his pamphlets were now doing for the philosophers of the Old World jt jt In Seventeen Hundred Fifty-four, he wrote a treatise showing the Colonies that they must be united, and this was the first public word that was to grow and crystallize and become the United States of America. Before that, the Colonies were simply single, independent, jealous and bickering overgrown clans. Franklin showed for the first time that they must unite hi mutual aims, In Seventeen Hundred Fifty-seven, matters were getting a little strained between the Province of Pennsylvania and England. "The lawmakers of England do not understand BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 51 us some one should go there as an authorized agent to plead our cause," and Franklin was at once chosen as the man of strongest personality and soundest sense. So Franklin went to England and remained there for five years as agent for the Colonies. He then returned home, but after two years the Stamp Act had stirred up the public temper to a degree that made revolution imminent, and Franklin again went to England to plead for justice. The record of the ten years he now spent in London is told by Bancroft in a hundred pages. Bancroft is very good, and I have no desire to rival him, so suffice it to say that Franklin did all that any man could have done to avert the coming War of the Revolution. Burke has said that when he appeared before Parliament to be examined as to the condition of things in America, it was like a lot of schoolboys interrogating the master. With the voice and tongue of a prophet, Franklin foretold the English people what the outcome of their treatment of America would be. Pitt and a few others knew the greatness of Franklin, and saw that he was right, but the rest smiled in derision jfc jt He sailed for home in Seventeen Hundred Seventy-five, and urged the Continental Congress to issue the Declaration of Independence, of which he became a signer. Then the war came, and had not Franklin gone to Paris and made an ally of France, and borrowed money, the Continental Army could not have been maintained in the field jt He remained in France for nine years, and was the pride and pet of the people. His sound sense, his good humor, his 52 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN distinguished personality, gave him the freedom of society everywhere. He had the ability to adapt himself to conditions, and was everywhere at home. Once, he attended a memorable banquet in Paris shortly after the close of the Revolutionary War. Among the speakers was the English Ambassador, who responded to the toast, "Great Britain." & The Ambassador dwelt at length on England's greatness, and likened her to the sun that sheds its beneficent rays on all. The next toast was "America," and Franklin was called upon to respond. He began very modestly by saying : "The Republic is too young to be spoken of in terms of praise; her career is yet to come, and so, instead of America, I will name you a man, George Washing ton the Joshua who successfully commanded the sun to stand still." The Frenchmen at the board forgot the courtesy due their English guest, and laughed needlessly loud. Franklin was regarded in Paris as the man who had both planned the War of the Revolution, and fought it. They said, "He despoiled the thunderbolt of its danger, and snatched sovereignty out of the hand of King George of England." No doubt that his ovation was largely owing to the fact that he was supposed to have plucked whole handfuls of feathers from England's glory, and surely they were pretty nearly right.