I have thus noticed succinctly, perhaps I might more appropriately say described, these letters.  In abridging and connecting the train of them, Washington’s language is used to the extent that will be seen.  The style is different from that of his official productions and other letters of his voluminous correspondence.  He naturally stepped into one more familiar when writing to a confidential friend on family matters relating to his home at Mount Vernon, or as it was to be arranged in Philadelphia while he was President.  But the style has the directness and sincerity of all his writings.  It is apparent that the letters are written without reserve.  With two or three exceptions, no copies appear to have been kept; yet everything is frank and straight-forward.  Understanding human nature thoroughly under all its phases, he deals wisely with men in small things as in great; but he does no one injustice.  When others are acting disingenuously towards him, though seeing through it, he is considerate and forbearing, not taking steps hastily, but ready to make allowances where they could be made.  Dishonesty or suspicion of it he never overlooks.  In the second letter he suspects his steward of extravagance in spending too much for supplies of the table kept for his upper servants; yet he authorizes Mr. Lear to retain him, if, on looking into his accounts, he finds him honest; intimating that any successor to him might act in the same way, and a dismissal might be only a change without a benefit.  His reprobation of all dishonesty is seen in more than one of the letters, as well as his restrained modes of dealing with it whilst affecting only his own interests.

As regards the minutiae seen in the letters; the details respecting his house, furniture, servants, carriages, horses, postilions, and so on, these will be read with curiosity and interest.  They suggest a new test by which to try Washington, and let him be tried by it.  We have not before had such details from himself.  It is for the first time the curtain has been so lifted.

All great men, the very greatest, Caesar, Cromwell, Napoleon, Frederick, Peter the Great, Marlborough, Alexander, all on the long list of towering names, have had contact with small things.  No pinnacle in station, no supremacy in excellence or intellect, can exempt man from this portion of his lot.  It is a human necessity.  Washington goes into this sphere with a propriety and seemliness not always observable in others of his high cast, but often signally the reverse.  In dealing with small things, he shows no undue tenacity of opinion; no selfishness; no petulance; no misplaced excitements.  He never plays the petty tyrant.  He does not forget himself; he does not forget others; he assumes nothing from any exaltation in himself, but is reasonable and provident in all his domestic and household arrangements.

Shall we seek for comparisons, or rather contrasts?  With as much of Washington’s domestic portraiture before us as these letters hold up, shall we turn to look at others?  There is no difficulty, but in selecting from the vast heap.