in its private pretensions, as indomitable in its public temper as it was gentle in its personal tone—­we are left in wonder and reverence.  But when we would enter into the recesses of that mind—­when we would discriminate upon its construction, and reason upon its operations—­when we would tell how it was composed, and why it excelled—­we are entirely at fault.  The processes of Washington’s understanding are entirely hidden from us.  What came from it, in counsel or in action, was the life and glory of his country; what went on within it, is shrouded in impenetrable concealment.  Such elevation in degree, of wisdom, amounts almost to a change of kind, in nature, and detaches his intelligence from the sympathy of ours.  We cannot see him as he was, because we are not like him.  The tones of the mighty bell were heard with the certainty of Time itself, and with a force that vibrates still upon the air of life, and will vibrate forever.  But the clock-work, by which they were regulated and given forth, we can neither see nor understand.  In fact, his intellectual abilities did not exist in an analytical and separated form; but in a combined and concrete state.  They “moved altogether when they moved at all.”  They were in no degree speculative, but only practical.  They could not act at all in the region of imagination, but only upon the field of reality.  The sympathies of his intelligence dwelt exclusively in the national being and action.  Its interests and energies were absorbed in them.  He was nothing out of that sphere, because he was everything there.  The extent to which he was identified with the country is unexampled in the relations of individual men to the community.  During the whole period of his life he was the thinking part of the nation.  He was its mind; it was his image and illustration.  If we would classify and measure him, it must be with nations, and not with individuals.

This extraordinary nature of Washington’s capacities—­this impossibility of analyzing and understanding the elements and methods of his wisdom—­have led some persons to doubt whether, intellectually, he was of great superiority; but the public—­the community—­never doubted of the transcendant eminence of Washington’s abilities.  From the first moment of his appearance as the chief, the recognition of him, from one end of the country to the other, as THE MAN—­the leader, the counselor, the infallible in suggestion and in conduct—­was immediate and universal.  From that moment to the close of the scene, the national confidence in his capacity was as spontaneous, as enthusiastic, as immovable, as it was in his integrity.  Particular persons, affected by the untoward course of events, sometimes questioned his sufficiency; but the nation never questioned it, nor would allow it to be questioned.  Neither misfortune, nor disappointment, nor accidents, nor delay, nor the protracted gloom of years, could avail to disturb the public trust in him.  It was apart from circumstances; it was beside the action