From the age of twenty years, Washington considered agriculture as his principal employment, making himself well acquainted with the prevalent tone of feeling, and sympathizing with the virtuous and simple habits of his country. {54} Traveling, field-sports, the survey of distant tracts of land, intercourse, friendly or hostile, with the Indians on the frontier, these formed the amusements of his youth. He was of that bold and hardy temperament, which takes pleasure in those adventures and perils, which, in a vast and wild country, man has to encounter. He had that strength of body, perseverance, and presence of mind, which insure success. In this respect, at his entrance into life, he felt a slightly presumptuous degree of self-confidence. He writes to Governor Dinwiddie; "For my own part I can answer, that I have a constitution hardy enough to encounter and undergo the most severe trials, and, I flatter myself, resolution to face what any man dares." [Footnote 24] [Footnote 24: Washington's Writings, Vol. II. p. 29.] To a spirit like this, war was a more congenial employment than field-sports or traveling. As soon as an opportunity offered, he embraced the employment with that ardor, which, in the early period of life, does not reveal a man's capacity so certainly as his taste. {55} In 1754, it is said, when George the Second was hearing a despatch read, which had been transmitted by the Governor of Virginia, and in which Washington, than a young major, ended the narrative of his first battle with the words, "I heard the bullets whistle, and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound;" the King observed, "He would not say so, if he had been used to hear many." Washington was of the King's opinion; for, when the major of the Virginia militia had become the Commander-in-chief of the United States, some one having asked him if it were true, that he had ever expressed such a sentiment, he replied, "If I said so, it was when I was young." [Footnote 25] [Footnote 25: Washington's Writings, Vol. II. p. 39.]