Excerpt from Washington, the Man and the Mason In adding another treatise on Washington to the many now extant a statement of the author's plan and purpose may not be out of place. N o effort has been made to write a complete biography of our principal subject. Every phase of his public career has already many times been critically investigated and minutely recorded by those who have had that special object in View, but, in doing this, they have allowed his private life to become largely overshadowed by his official greatness, and it is in his private life, with its rural pastimes and rustic occupations, that we find best illustrated the beautiful simplicity of his character. To make this more intimate and personal portrayal of the Father of his Country has been the writer's desire. At the same time he has found it necessary to present a brief synopsis of Washington's entire career that the narrative might appear as a connected whole. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.