The Placer herald., 1857-10-24
Jefferson's Portrait of Washington.

Thomas Jefferson, writing to DIR. Walter
Jones, in letter dated Monticello, January
I'd, 1914, draws living portrait of Wash
ington. These two great men are both
honored in the picture. Jefferson says:
think knew General Washington init
mately and thoroughly; and were called
en- to delineate his character, it should be in
terms like these:
His mind was great and powerful, without
beng of the first order his penetration
strong, though not SO acute as that Of New
ton, Bacon, or Locke; and, as far as | saw,
no Judgment was ever sounder. 1t was slow
in operation, being little aided b. invention
or Imagination, but sure in conclusion.-
Hence the common remark of his officers
of the advantage he derived from councils
of war, where. hearing all suggestions, he
selected whatever was best; and certainly no
General ever planned his battles more Judi
riously. But if deranged during the course
of the action, if a y member of his plan
was distracted by sudden circumstances, he
was slow in a REIMBURSEMENT. The conse-
quence was that he often failed in the field
and rarely against an enemy in station, as
at Boston AID York. He was incapable of
fear meeting personal dangers with the calm
est uHcOncern.
Perhaps the strongest feature in his char
acter was prudence, never acting until every
circumstance, every consideration, was ma
turely weighed; .refraining, if he saw doubt,
but, when once decided, going through with
his purpose, whatever obstacles opposed.
His integrity acas most pure, his justice the
most imferible Ihave erer known;; no motives
of interest or consonguinity, of friendship or
hatred being able to bias his decision. He
scas, amdeed, an every sense of the aUord, pise,
good, and great man. His temper was
naturally irritable and high-toned; but reAec-
ton and resolution had obtained firm and
habitual ascendancy over it. If ever, how
ever, it broke its bounds he was most tre-
mendous in his wrath.
In his expenses he was honorable, but ex-
act; liberal in contributions to whatever
promised utility, but frowning and unyield-
ing on all visionary projects, and all unwor-
thy calls on his charity. His heart was not
warm in its affections, but he exactly calcu-
lated every mans value, and gave him solid
esteem proportioned to it. His person, you
know, was fine, his stature exactly what one
would wish, his department easy, erect and
noble; the best horseman Of his age, and the
most graceful figure that could be seen on
horseback. Although in the circle OF his
friends, where he might be unreserved with
safety, he took free share in conversation,
bis colloquial talents were not above medioc-
rity, possessing neither copousness Of ideas
nor fluency of words.
In public, when called on for sudden
opinion, he was unready, short. and embar-
rassed. Yet he wrote readily, rather ditfuse-
ly, in an easy and correct style. This he
had acquired by conversation with the world,
for his education was merely reading, writ
ing and common arithmetic to which he
added surveying at a later day. His time
was employed in action chiefly, reading little,
and that only in agriculture and English his
tory. His correspondence became neccs-
sarily extensive, and with journalising his
agricultural proceedings, occupied most of
his leisure hours within doors. On the whole,
his character was, in its mass, perfect-in
nothing bad, in few points Indifferent; and it
may truly be said, that never did nature and
fortune combine more perfectly to make a
man great, and to place him in the same
constellation with whatever worthless have
merited from man an everlasting remem-
brance; for his was the singular destiny and
merit Of leading the armies of his country
through an arduous war, for the establish
ment of its independence, of conducting it's
councils through the birth of Government,
new in its forms and principles, until it had
settled down into quiet orderly train; and
of scrupuously obeying the laws through
the whole Of his career, civil and military,
of which the history Of the world furnishes
no other example. l felt on his death, with
my countrymen, that "verily a great man
hath this day fallen in Israel