"The rock in the ocean," says
Mr. Motley, the historian of the Netherlands, "tranquil amid
raging billows, was the favourite emblem by which his friends
expressed their sense of his firmness."
Mr. Motley compares William the Silent to Washington, whom he in
many respects resembled. The American, like the Dutch patriot,
stands out in history as the very impersonation of dignity,
bravery, purity, and personal excellence. His command over his
feelings, even in moments of great difficulty and danger, was such
as to convey the impression, to those who did not know him
intimately, that he was a man of inborn calmness and almost
impassiveness of disposition. Yet Washington was by nature ardent
and impetuous; his mildness, gentleness, politeness, and
consideration for others, were the result of rigid self-control
and unwearied self-discipline, which he diligently practised even
from his boyhood. His biographer says of him, that "his
temperament was ardent, his passions strong, and amidst the
multiplied scenes of temptation and excitement through which he
passed, it was his constant effort, and ultimate triumph, to check
the one and subdue the other." And again: "His passions were
strong, and sometimes they broke out with vehemence, but he had
the power of checking them in an instant. Perhaps self-control
was the most remarkable trait of his character. It was in part
the effect of discipline; yet he seems by nature to have possessed
this power in a degree which has been denied to other men.
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