Set upon that fine bluff overlooking the Potomac, it has the dignity of elevation; a certain aloofness above the level, self-centred within its own appanage of outbuildings, gardens and grounds, and yet such a modest dignity, suggesting the sweet amenities, the little graces and quiet refinement of cultured country life. Certainly it is the most completely interesting memorial home of a great man anywhere to be seen, inasmuch as it is pervaded by the flavour of the old times and by the spirit of its former occupant. And the whole association of the place is of the choicest kind of gentle living. Assuredly it was a good thing that there should be an artist of the period who could record these qualities. Stuart brought to the task a keenly comprehending mind, and a large experience in the acquaintanceship with men of affairs, of wit and learning, and brilliant, varied accomplishments. Himself a man of brilliant parts, he had ceased to be dazzled by brilliance; could look at the individual example of manhood that he was studying in its own separate perspective; could take in the complexities of his character and give a complete, instead of a fragmentary, record. Neither in his whirl of success, we may believe, had he lost touch entirely with the gentle associations that surrounded his early life. There was much in the riot of those times to hurt a sensitive susceptibility, and Stuart so often refused a sitter, or threw up a commission partly executed, that it is not unreasonable to assume that such acts were due in some measure, at least, to a certain preciosity in his own feelings. Certainly no other man of his time could have presented this fine side of Washington. West would have given a grandiloquent rendering of the hero; if not bombastic, probably theatrical; whereas it is the reticence of Stuart’s portraits that is so admirable. “I copy the works of God,” he said, “and leave clothes to tailors and mantua makers.” Without admitting the general desirableness of such a painter theory, we may acknowledge its value when tested on such a subject as Washington. We are glad to be free of the curtains and columns and all the other stock paraphernalia of the painter of the period, and to be left in uninterrupted possession of the man and nothing but the man.