statesman kept from his school-days until the year of his death.

[Pg 27]

In the archives of the Capitol on a yellowed page, in Washington’s own handwriting, these lines are still to be read:

“Oh, Ye Gods, why should my Poor Resistless Heart Stand to oppose thy might and Power, At last surrender to Cupid’s feather’d Dart, And now lays bleeding every Hour For her that’s Pityless of my grief and Woes, And will not on me, pity take. I’ll sleep amongst my most inveterate Foes, And with gladness never wish to wake. In deluding sleepings let my Eyelids close, [Pg 28]That in an enraptured Dream I may In a soft lulling sleep and gentle repose Possess those joys denied by Day.”

Stand to oppose thy might and Power,

And now lays bleeding every Hour

And will not on me, pity take.

And with gladness never wish to wake.

[Pg 28]

That in an enraptured Dream I may

Possess those joys denied by Day.”

Among these boyish fragments there is also an incomplete acrostic, evidently intended for Miss Frances Alexander, which reads as follows:

“From your bright sparkling Eyes I was undone; Rays, you have, rays more transparent than the Sun Amidst its glory in the rising Day; None can you equal in your bright array; Constant in your calm, unspotted Mind; Equal to all, but will to none Prove kind, So knowing, seldom one so young you’ll Find.  “Ah, woe’s me that I should Love and conceal— Long have I wished, but never dare reveal, Even though severely Love’s Pains I feel; Xerxes that great wast not free from Cupid’s Dart, And all the greatest Heroes felt the smart.”

[Pg 29]

[Pg 29]

He wrote at length to several of his friends concerning his youthful passions. In the tell-tale pages of the diary, for 1748, there is this draft of a letter:

“Dear Friend Robin: My place of Residence is at present at His Lordship’s where I might, was 

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