"
"Is it possible? I never should have thought it."
"Why not, Miss Dare?"
"You have not the air of wishing to be George Washington."
"May I again ask, why not?"
"Certainly. Did you ever see George Washington?"
"Of course not. He died fifty years before I was born."
"I thought so. You see you don't know him. Now, will you give us
an idea of what you imagine General Washington to have looked
like?"
Dunbeg gave accordingly a flattering description of General
Washington, compounded of Stuart's portrait and Greenough's
statue of Olympian Jove with Washington's features, in the Capitol
Square. Miss Dare listened with an expression of superiority not
unmlxed with patience, and then she enlightened him as follows:
"All you have been saying is perfect stuff--excuse the vulgarity of
the expression. When I am a Countess I will correct my language.
The truth is that General Washington was a raw-boned country
farmer, very hard-featured, very awkward, very illiterate and very
dull; very bad tempered, very profane, and generally tipsy after
dinner."
"You shock me, Miss Dare!" exclaimed Dunbeg.
"Oh! I know all about General Washington. My grandfather knew
him intimately, and often stayed at Mount Vernon for weeks
together. You must not believe what you read, and not a word of
what Mr. Carrington will say.
He is a Virginian and will tell you no end of fine stories and not a
syllable of truth in one of them. We are all patriotic about
Washington and like to hide his faults.
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