His political work is preserved officially in the reports of Congress.

Most of the public men who were his contemporaries left memoirs or correspondence in which he figures.
Above all there is the edition, in fourteen volumes, of his own writings compiled by Mr.Worthington C.Ford.And yet many persons find something that baffles them.

They do not recognize a definite flesh and blood Virginian named Washington behind it all.

Even so sturdy an historian as Professor Channing calls him the most elusive of historic personages.

Who has not wished that James Boswell could have spent a year with Wellington on terms as intimate as those he spent with Dr.Johnson and could have left a report of that intimacy?
In this sketch I have conceived of Washington as of some superb athlete equipped for every ordeal which life might cause him to face.
The nature of each ordeal must be briefly stated; brief also, but sufficient, the account of the way he accomplished it.