her own consent; and secondly, because I know it is to no purpose to advise her to refrain when she has obtained it.  A woman very rarely asks an opinion or requires advice on such an occasion till her resolution is formed; and then it is with the hope and expectation of obtaining a sanction, not that she means to be governed by your disapprobation, that she applies.  In a word, the plain English of the application may be summed up in these words:  ’I wish you to think as I do; but if unhappily you differ from me in opinion, my heart, I must confess, is fixed, and I have gone too far now to retract.’”

In the same spirit, but this time with a lurking smile at himself, did he write to the secretary of Congress for his commission:  “If my commission is not necessary for the files of Congress, I should be glad to have it deposited among my own papers.  It may serve my grandchildren, some fifty or a hundred years hence, for a theme to ruminate upon, if they should be contemplatively disposed.”

He knew human nature well, and had a smile for its little weaknesses when they came to his mind.  It was this same human sympathy which made him also love amusements of all sorts; but he was as little their slave as their enemy.  No man ever carried great burdens with a higher or more serious spirit, but his cares never made him forbidding, nor rendered him impatient of the pleasure of others.  He liked to amuse himself, and knew the value of a change of thought and scene, and he was always ready, when duty permitted, for a chat.  He liked to take a comfortable seat and have his talk out, and he had the talent so rare in great men of being a good and appreciative listener.  We hear of him playing cards at Tappan during the war, and he was always fond of a game in the evening, realizing the force of Talleyrand’s remark to the despiser of cards:  “Quelle triste vieillesse vous vous preparez.”  In 1779 it is recorded that at a party he danced for three hours with Mrs. Greene without sitting down or resting, which speaks well for the health and spirits both of the lady and the gentleman.  Even after Yorktown, he was ready to walk a minuet at a ball, and to the end he liked to see young people dance, as he had danced himself in his youth.  As has been seen from his treatment of Bernard, he liked the theatre and the actors, and when he was in Philadelphia he was a constant attendant at the play, as he had been ever since he went to see “George Barnwell” in the Barbadoes.  His love of horses stayed with him to the last.  He not only rode and drove and trained horses,[1] but he enjoyed the sport of the race-course.  He was probably aware, like the Shah of Persia who declined to go to the Derby, that one horse could run faster than another, but nevertheless he liked to see them run, and we hear of him, after he had reached the presidency, acting as judge at a race, and seeing his own colt Magnolia beaten, which he no doubt considered the next best thing to winning.