From thinking proceeds speaking; thence to acting is often but a single step.

But how irrevocable and tremendous! What a triumph for our enemies to verify their predictions! What a triumph for the advocates of despotism to find, that we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal and fallacious! Would to God, that wise measures may be taken in time to avert the consequences we have but too much reason to apprehend.[1] [Footnote 1: Hapgood, 285.] In the renewal of his life at Mount Vernon, Washington gave almost as much attention to the cultivation of friendship as to that of his estate.

He pursued with great zest the career of planter-farmer.

"I think," he wrote a friend, "with you, that the life of a husbandman of all others is the most delectable.

It is honorable, it is amusing, and, with judicious management, it is profitable.