Happy Washington’s Birthday!

By Nicholas Stix
Originally published on February 22, 2012
 

Gilbert Stuart “Williamstown Portrait of George Washington” 

“First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

As eulogized by “Henry Lee, a soldier and political leader from Washington's home state of Virginia.”

 

"General George Washington Crossing the Delaware at the Battle of Trenton on Christmas Night 1776," by Emmanuel Leutze
 

David Ramsay’s The Life of George Washington


From Larry Auster’s 2004 meditation on Washington’s Birthday, by way of Kidist Paulos Asrat (“Kidist” is a name, rather than a devotee of a movement “Kidism,” and Asrat is a female):

In the moving final verse of Byron’s “Ode to Napolean Bonaparte,” the poet turns away in disgust from that vain French tyrant and looks westward to find a man who embodies true political virtue:

Where may the wearied eye repose
When gazing on the Great;
Where neither guilty glory glows,
Nor despicable state?
Yes, one—the first—the last—the best,
The Cincinnatus of the West,
Whom envy dared not hate,
Bequeath’d the name of Washington,
To make men blush there was but one!



Washington at 53 (1785) by Jean Antoine Houdon, The Louvre



Portrait by John Trumbull 1782 

Are you confused as between Washington’s Birthday and “President’s Day”? I sure was, until Rebecca McCarthy sorted things out for me.

Regards,

Nicholas Stix

 

Statue at Forest Lawn Cemetery, Glendale, California