We can imagine with what satisfaction and gratitude he, to whom home was the dearest place in the world, returned to the home he had seen only once by chance since the beginning of the Revolution, eight years before.
Probably few of those who had risen to the highest station in their country said, and felt more honestly, that they were grateful at being allowed by Fate to retire from office, than did Washington.

To be relieved of responsibility, free from the hourly spur, day and night, of planning and carrying out, of trying to find food for starving soldiers, of leading forlorn hopes against the truculent enemy, must have seemed to the weary and war-worn General like a call from the Hesperides.

Men of his iron nature, and of his capacity for work and joy in it, do not, of course, really delight in idleness.

They may think that they crave idleness, but in reality they crave the power of going on.
It took comparatively little effort for Washington to fall into his old way of life at Mount Vernon, although there, too, much was changed.

Old buildings had fallen out of repair.