There was also a lighter and pleasanter side to this hard-working existence, which was quite as useful, and more attractive, than toiling in the woods and mountains.  The young surveyor passed much of his time at Greenway Court, hunting the fox and rejoicing in all field sports which held high place in that kingdom, while at the same time he profited much in graver fashion by his friendship with such a man as Lord Fairfax.  There, too, he had a chance at a library, and his diaries show that he read carefully the history of England and the essays of the “Spectator.”  Neither in early days nor at any other time was he a student, for he had few opportunities, and his life from the beginning was out of doors and among men.  But the idea sometimes put forward that Washington cared nothing for reading or for books is an idle one.  He read at Greenway Court and everywhere else when he had an opportunity.  He read well, too, and to some purpose, studying men and events in books as he did in the world, for though he never talked of his reading, preserving silence on that as on other things concerning himself, no one ever was able to record an instance in which he showed himself ignorant of history or of literature.  He was never a learned man, but so far as his own language could carry him he was an educated one.  Thus while he developed the sterner qualities by hard work and a rough life, he did not bring back the coarse habits of the backwoods and the camp-fire, but was able to refine his manners and improve his mind in the excellent society and under the hospitable roof of Lord Fairfax.

Three years slipped by, and then a domestic change came which much affected Washington’s whole life.  The Carthagena campaign had undermined the strength of Lawrence Washington and sown the seeds of consumption, which showed itself in 1749, and became steadily more alarming.  A voyage to England and a summer at the warm springs were tried without success, and finally, as a last resort, the invalid sailed for the West Indies, in September, 1751.  Thither his brother George accompanied him, and we have the fragments of a diary kept during this first and last wandering outside his native country.  He copied the log, noted the weather, and evidently strove to get some idea of nautical matters while he was at sea and leading a life strangely unfamiliar to a woodsman and pioneer.  When they arrived at their destination they were immediately asked to breakfast and dine with Major Clarke, the military magnate of the place, and our young Virginian remarked, with characteristic prudence and a certain touch of grim humor, “We went,—­myself with some reluctance, as the smallpox was in the family.”  He fell a victim to his good manners, for two weeks later he was “strongly attacked with the smallpox,” and was then housed for a month, getting safely and successfully through this dangerous and then almost universal ordeal.  Before the disease declared itself, however, he went about everywhere, innocently