of his race, but it is not by any means the only one of its family.
There is another, equally diffused, of wholly different parentage.
In its inception this second myth is due to the itinerant parson,
bookmaker, and bookseller, Mason Weems. He wrote a brief biography of
Washington, of trifling historical value, yet with sufficient literary
skill to make it widely popular. It neither appealed to nor was read
by the cultivated and instructed few, but it reached the homes of the
masses of the people. It found its way to the bench of the mechanic,
to the house of the farmer, to the log cabins of the frontiersman and
pioneer. It was carried across the continent on the first waves of
advancing settlement. Its anecdotes and its simplicity of thought
commended it to children both at home and at school, and, passing
through edition after edition, its statements were widely spread, and
it colored insensibly the ideas of hundreds of persons who never had
heard even the name of the author. To Weems we owe the anecdote of the
cherry-tree, and other tales of a similar nature. He wrote with Dr.
Beattie's life of his son before him as a model, and the result is
that Washington comes out in his pages a faultless prig. Whether Weems
intended it or not, that is the result which he produced, and that is
the Washington who was developed from the wide sale of his book. When
this idea took definite and permanent shape it caused a reaction.
There was a revolt against it, for the hero thus engendered had
qualities which the national sense of humor could not endure in
silence. The consequence is, that the Washington of Weems has afforded
an endless theme for joke and burlesque. Every professional American
humorist almost has tried his hand at it; and with each recurring 22d
of February the hard-worked jesters of the daily newspapers take it
up and make a little fun out of it, sufficient for the day that is
passing over them. The opportunity is tempting, because of the ease
with which fun can be made when that fundamental source of humor, a