Nor was his enthusiasm for agriculture the evanescent enthusiasm of the man who in middle age buys a farm as a plaything and tries for the first time the costly experiment of cultivating the soil.  He was born on a plantation, was brought up in the country and until manhood he had never even seen a town of five thousand people.  First he was a surveyor, and so careful and painstaking was he that his work still stands the test.  Later he became a soldier, and there is evidence to show that at first he enjoyed the life and for a time had military ambitions.  When Braddock’s expedition was preparing he chafed at the prospect of inaction and welcomed the offer to join the general’s staff, but the bitter experiences of the next few years, when he had charge of the herculean task of protecting the settlers upon the “cold and Barren Frontiers ... from the cruel Incursions of a crafty Savage Enemy,” destroyed his illusions about war.  After the capture of Fort Duquesne had freed Virginia from danger he resigned his commission, married and made a home.  Soon after he wrote to an English kinsman who had invited him to visit London:  “I am now I believe fixed at this seat with an agreeable Consort for Life.  And hope to find more happiness in retirement than I ever experienced amidst a wide bustling world.”

Thereafter he quitted the quiet life always with reluctance.  Amid long and trying years he constantly looked forward to the day when he could lay down his burden and retire to the peace and freedom of Mount Vernon, there to take up again the task of farming.  As Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the Revolution and as first President of the Republic he gave the best that was in him—­and it was always good enough—­but more from a sense of duty than because of any real enthusiasm for the role of either soldier or statesman.  We can well believe that it was with heartfelt satisfaction that soon after independence was at last assured he wrote to his old comrade-in-arms the Marquis de Chastellux:  “I am at length become a private citizen on the banks of the Potomac, where under my own vine and fig-tree free from the bustle of a camp and the intrigues of a court, I shall view the busy world with calm indifference, and with serenity of mind, which the soldier in pursuit of glory, and the statesman of a name, have not leisure to enjoy.”

Years before as a boy he had copied into a wonderful copy-book that is still preserved in the Library of Congress some verses that set forth pretty accurately his ideal of life—­an ideal influenced, may we not believe, in those impressionable years by these very lines.  These are the verses—­one can not call them poetry—­just as I copied them after the clear boyish hand from the time-yellowed page: 

     True happiness