Beyond the bounds of his own estate he had also many occupations and pleasures.  He was a member of the House of Burgesses, diligent in his attention to the work of governing the colony.  He was diligent also in church affairs, and very active in the vestry, which was the seat of local government in Virginia.  We hear of him also as the manager of lotteries, which were a common form of raising money for local purposes, in preference to direct taxation.  In a word, he was thoroughly public-spirited, and performed all the small duties which his position demanded in the same spirit that he afterwards brought to the command of armies and to the government of the nation.  He had pleasure too, as well as business, away from Mount Vernon.  He liked to go to his neighbors’ houses and enjoy their hospitality as they enjoyed his.  We hear of him at the courthouse on court days, where all the country-side gathered to talk and listen to the lawyers and hear the news, and when he went to Williamsburg his diary tells us of a round of dinners, beginning with the governor, of visits to the club, and of a regular attendance at the theatre whenever actors came to the little capital.  Whether at home or abroad, he took part in all the serious pursuits, in all the interests, and in every reasonable pleasure offered by the colony.

Take it for all in all, it was a manly, wholesome, many-sided life.  It kept Washington young and strong, both mentally and physically.  When he was forty he flung the iron bar, at some village sports, to a point which no competitor could approach.  There was no man in all Virginia who could ride a horse with such a powerful and assured seat.  There was no one who could journey farther on foot, and no man at Williamsburg who showed at the governor’s receptions such a commanding presence, or who walked with such a strong and elastic step.  As with the body so with the mind.  He never rusted.  A practical carpenter and smith, he brought the same quiet intelligence and firm will to the forging of iron or the felling and sawing of trees that he had displayed in fighting France.  The life of a country gentleman did not dull or stupefy him, or lead him to gross indulgences.  He remained well-made and athletic, strong and enduring, keen in perception and in sense, and warm in his feelings and affections.  Many men would have become heavy and useless in these years of quiet country life, but Washington simply ripened, and, like all slowly maturing men, grew stronger, abler, and wiser in the happy years of rest and waiting which intervened between youth and middle age.

Meantime, while the current of daily life flowed on thus gently at Mount Vernon, the great stream of public events poured by outside.  It ran very calmly at first, after the war, and then with a quickening murmur, which increased to an ominous roar when the passage of the Stamp Act became known in America.  Washington was always a constant attendant at the assembly, in which by sheer force of character, and