Upon one occasion I ventured to ask Governor Wolcott to tell me something of Washington.  We were strolling in his garden, where he had invited me to look at some melons he was attempting to grow under glass.  He stopped, and turning round, looked me full in the face, and asked me if I had not read the “Life of Washington.”

“Not the private life,” was the reply.

“Ah! a very laudable curiosity in one so young.  I knew him well, and can only say his private was very much like his public life.  I do not suppose there ever lived a man more natural in his deportment than Washington.  He did nothing for effect.  He was more nearly the same man on the street that he was in his night-gown and slippers, than any man I ever knew; I can’t say I was intimate with Washington; no man can or ever could have said that.  His dignity was austere and natural.  It was grand, and awed and inspired a respect from every one alike.  You breathed low in his presence—­you felt uneasy in your seat, before him.  There was an inspiring something about him, that made you feel it was a duty to, stand in his presence, uncovered, and respectfully silent.  I have heard this sternness attributed to his habit of command; not so—­it was natural, and he was unconscious of it.  Most men, however stern, will unbend to woman.  There is in woman’s presence a divinity which thaws the rigor of the heart and warms the soul, which manifests itself in the softening of the eye, in the glow upon the cheek, and the relaxation of manner.  It was not so with Washington.  In his reception-rooms he was easily polite and courteously affable; but his dignity and the inflexibility of his features never relaxed.

“I remember to have heard Mrs. Adams say ’she did not think he was ever more than polite to Mrs. Washington.’  With all this he was very kind, and if he ever did let himself down it was to children, and these never seemed to feel his austerity, or to shrink away from it.  It is said that it is the gift of childhood to see the heart in the eye and the face.  It is certain they never approach an ill-natured or bad man, and never shrink from a kind and good one.  In his intercourse with his Cabinet, he was respectful to difference—­consulted each without reserve or concealment, and always weighed well their opinions, and never failed to render to them his reasons for differing with them.  He was very concise and exact in stating a case, and never failed to understand well every question before acting.  He had system and order in everything.  In his private affairs, in his household, as well as in his public conduct, he observed strict rules, and exacted their obedience from all about him.  In nothing was he demonstrative or impulsive; but always considerate and cool.