On December 12, 1799, he was caught by a rain and sleet storm,
while riding over his farm, and returned to the house chilled through.
An illness followed, which developed into pneumonia, and three days
later he was dead.
He was buried at Mount Vernon, which has become one of the great shrines
of America, and rightly so. For no man, at once so august and so
lovable, has graced American history. Indeed, he stands among the
greatest men of all history. There are few men with such a record of
achievement, and fewer still who, at the end of a life so crowded and
cast in such troubled places, can show a fame so free from spot, a
character so unselfish and so pure.
We know Washington to-day as well as it is possible to know any man. We
know him far better than the people of his own household knew
him. Behind the silent and reserved man, of courteous and serious
manner, which his world knew, we perceive the great nature, the warm
heart and the mighty will. We have his letters, his journals, his
account-books, and there remains no corner of his life hidden from us.
There is none that needs to be. Think what that means--not a single
corner of his life that needs to be shadowed or passed over in silence!
And the more we study it, the more we are impressed by it, and the
greater grows our love and veneration for the man of whom were uttered
the immortal words, "First in war, first in peace, and first in the
hearts of his countrymen"--words whose truth grows more apparent with
every passing year.
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