It may be suspected that it was well for the recipient of this letter that he did not have a personal interview with its author, and it may be doubted if he ever sought one subsequently.  Just, generous, and magnanimous to an extraordinary degree, Washington had a dangerous temper, held well under control, but blazing out now and again against injustice, insolence, or oppression.  He was a peaceful man, leading a peaceful life, but the fighting spirit only slumbered, and it would break out at wrong of any sort, in a way which was extremely unpleasant and threatening to those who aroused it.

Apart from lands and money and the management of affairs, public and private, there were many other interests of varied nature which all had their share of Washington’s time and thought.  He was a devoted husband, and gave to his stepchildren the most affectionate care.  He watched over and protected them, and when the daughter died, after a long and wasting illness, in 1773, he mourned for her as if she had been his own, with all the tenderness of a deep and reserved affection.  The boy, John Custis, he made his friend and companion from the beginning, and his letters to the lad and about him are wise and judicious in the highest degree.  He spent much time and thought on the question of education, and after securing the best instructors took the boy to New York and entered him at Columbia College in 1773.  Young Custis, however, did not remain there long, for he had fallen in love, and the following year was married to Eleanor Calvert, not without some misgivings on the part of Washington, who had observed his ward’s somewhat flighty disposition, and who gave a great deal of anxious thought to his future.  At home as abroad he was an undemonstrative man, but he had abundance of that real affection which labors for those to whom it goes out more unselfishly and far more effectually than that which bubbles and boils upon the surface like a shallow, noisy brook.

From the suggestions that he made in regard to young Custis, it is evident that Washington valued and respected education, and that he had that regard for learning for its own sake which always exists in large measure in every thoughtful man.  He read well, even if his active life prevented his reading much, as we can see by his vigorous English, and by his occasional allusions to history.  From his London orders we see, too, that everything about his house must have denoted that its possessor had refinement and taste.  His intense sense of propriety and unfailing instinct for what was appropriate are everywhere apparent.  His dress, his furniture, his harnesses, the things for the children, all show the same fondness for simplicity, and yet a constant insistence that everything should be the best of its kind.  We can learn a good deal about any man by the ornaments of his house, and by the portraits which hang on his walls; for these dumb things tell us whom among the great men of earth