Washington's Birthday : $b its history, observance, spirit, and significance as related in prose and verse, with a selection from Washington's speeches and writings
History
Washington's Birthday : $b its history, observance, spirit, and significance as related in prose and verse, with a selection from Washington's speeches and writings
Washington, George, 1732-1799 -- Anniversaries, etc.
The character of Washington! Who can delineate it worthily? Modest,
disinterested, generous, just, of clean hands and a pure heart,
self-denying and self-sacrificing, seeking nothing for himself,
declining all remuneration beyond the reimbursement of his outlays,
scrupulous to a farthing in keeping his accounts, of spotless integrity,
scorning gifts, charitable to the needy, forgiving injuries and
injustices, brave, fearless, heroic, with a prudence ever governing his
impulses, a wisdom ever guiding his valor, true to his friends, true to
his country, true to himself, fearing God, no stranger to private
devotion or public worship, but ever recognizing a divine aid and
direction in all that he accomplished. His magnetism was that of merit,
superior, surpassing merit; the merit of spotless integrity, of
recognized ability, and of unwearied willingness to spend and be spent
in the service of his country.
ROBERT C. WINTHROP.
* * * * *
One of the best of modern Americans, James Russell Lowell, who was born
on the same day of the month as Washington, February 22d, 1819, wrote
shortly before his death, to a schoolgirl, whose class proposed noticing
his own birthday: "Whatever else you do on the twenty-second of
February, recollect, first of all, that on that day a really great man
was born, and do not fail to warm your hearts with the memory of his
service, and to brace your minds with the contemplation of his
character. The rest of us must wait uncovered till he be served."
ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS.
* * * * *
The fame of Washington stands apart from every other in history, shining
with a truer luster and a more benignant glory. With us his memory
remains a national property, where all sympathies, throughout our widely
extended and diversified empire meet in unison. Under all dissensions
and amid all the storms of party, his precepts and example speak to us
from the grave with a paternal appeal; and his name--by all
revered--forms a universal brotherhood, a watchword of our Union.
IRVING AND FISKE.
* * * * *
The soul of Washington was one of the grandest of all ages that takes
its equal rank with Greek and Roman and Hebrew names of renown for
humane and prime worth, names that seem written not in our poor records,
but on the sky's arch--names in the broad sunshine of whose moral glory,
spreading through the world, all the little fires which men have made
with the kindling of words from abstract conceptions,--go out. For
however otherwise a man may be distinguished--unless there be in him a
spirit of love, devotion, and self-sacrifice, we feel he lacks the very
pith and beauty of manhood; and though he may be a great performer with
his pen as one plays well on a musical instrument, a Great Being he is
not.
_Christian Examiner_.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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