himself the regulator of it all under maxims that best conduce to order
because not too rigid. We see that he was truly hospitable; kind;
devoted to his kindred whom he gathers around him, interesting himself
in their education and welfare; cheering them with a welcome at Mount
Vernon, and soothing them in sickness and sorrow. The kindred of Mrs.
Washington alike share his solicitudes, paternal care, and constant
kindness. All this is discernible from the facts that drop out in these
letters. They point to a heart affectionately alive to the best social
and family feelings. We see his attention to the comfort of his
servants, slaves, and others. His government of them, upper and
subordinate, appears to have been perfect by his union of discipline
with liberality. He knew that his postilions, if they slept over the
stable, would carry lights there whether he forbade it or not, for they
would do it when he knew nothing about it and not tell on each other. He
therefore allowed no sleeping there at all.

I could not avoid remarking, as characteristic throughout the whole of
this correspondence, that there is never any complaining of his labors.
Letter-writing alone would have been a heavy labor to him but for his
system and industry. Promptitude in using his pen there must necessarily
have been, or he could not have written so much. The history of the
times will show that when he wrote these letters he was simultaneously
writing others on public business, which, as the world knows, he never
neglected in any jot or tittle no matter what else he might be doing.
The domestic letters must therefore have been struck off with great
facility. Let us call to mind also the more than two hundred volumes of
folio manuscript of his public correspondence which Congress purchased,
and then remember that the sum of all he wrote is as nothing to what he
_did_ in his long career of activity in his country's service, military
and civil.