Another source of annoyance, to which, however, he resigned himself as contentedly as he could, was the work of the artists who came to him to beg him to sit for his picture or statue.  Of the painters the most eminent were Charles Peale and his son Rembrandt.  Of the sculptors Houdon undoubtedly made the best life-sized statue—­that which still adorns the Capitol at Richmond, Virginia—­and from the time it was first exhibited has been regarded as the best, most lifelike.  Another, sitting statue, was made for the State of North Carolina by the Italian, Canova, the most celebrated of the sculptors of that day.  The artist shows a Roman costume, a favorite of his, unless, as in the case of Napoleon, he preferred complete nudity.  This statue was much injured in a fire which nearly consumed the Capitol at Raleigh.  The English sculptor, Chantrey, executed a third statue in which Washington was represented in military dress.  This work used to be shown at the State House in Boston.

Of the many painted portraits of Washington, those by Gilbert Stuart have come to be accepted as authentic; especially the head in the painting which hung in the Boston Athenaeum as a pendant to that of Martha Washington, and is now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.  But as I remarked earlier, the fact that none of the painters indicate the very strong marks of smallpox (which he took on his trip to Barbados) on Washington’s face creates a natural suspicion as to accuracy in detail of any of the portraits.  Perhaps the divergence among them is not greater than that among those of Mary, Queen of Scots, and indicates only the marked incapacity of some of the painters who did them.  We are certainly justified in saying that Washington’s features varied considerably from his early prime to the days when he was President.  We have come to talk about him as an old man because from the time when he was sixty years old he frequently used that expression himself; although, as he died at sixty-seven, he was never really “an old man.”  One wonders whether those who lived among pioneer conditions said and honestly believed that they were old at the time when, as we think, middle age would hardly have begun.  Thus Abraham Lincoln writes of himself as a patriarch, and no doubt sincerely thought that he was, at a time when he had just reached forty.  The two features in Washington’s face about which the portraitists differ most are his nose and his mouth.  In the early portrait by Charles Peale, his nose is slightly aquiline, but not at all so massive and conspicuous as in some of the later works.  His mouth, and with it the expression of the lower part of his face, changed after he began to wear false teeth.  Is it not fair to suppose that the effigies of Washington, made in later years and usually giving him a somewhat stiff and expansive grin, originated in the fact that his false set of teeth lacked perfect adjustment?

Thus Washington dropped into the ways of peace; working each day what would have been a long stint for a strong young man, and thinking, besides, more than most men thought of the needs and future of the country to which he had given liberty and independence.  His chief anxiety henceforth was that the United States of America should not miss the great destiny for which he believed the Lord had prepared it.