saw, no judgment was ever sounder. It was slow in operation, being little
aided by invention or imagination, but sure in conclusion."



IV


RELATIONS WITH THE FAIR SEX


The book from which Washington derived almost the whole of his education
warned its readers,--


"Young Men have ever more a special care That Womanish Allurements prove
not a snare;"


but, however carefully the lad studied the rest, this particular
admonition took little root in his mind. There can be no doubt that
Washington during the whole of his life had a soft heart for women, and
especially for good-looking ones, and both in his personal intercourse and
in his letters he shows himself very much more at ease with them than in
his relations with his own sex. Late in life, when the strong passions of
his earlier years were under better control, he was able to write,--


"Love is said to be an involuntary passion, and it is, therefore,
contended that it cannot be resisted. This is true in part only, for like