"He
undertakes to play the prophet, and he is an uncommon clever man, sir:
he says that you were created for the express purpose of delivering
America, to do it single-handed, if necessary, and that my proud destiny
is to be your biographer. The first I indorse, so does every thinking
man in the country. But for the second--alas! I am not equal to a post
of such exalted honour."
Washington smiled. "No one knows better than your old Chief that your
destiny is no such ha'penny affair as that. But at least you wouldn't
make an ass of me. God knows what is in store for me at the hands of
scribblers."
"You lend yourself fatally well to marble and stone, sir," said
Hamilton, mischievously. "I fear your biographers will conceive
themselves writing at the feet of a New World Sphinx, and that its
frozen granite loneliness will petrify their image of you."
"I like the prospect! I am unhappily conscious of my power to chill an
assemblage, but the cold formality of my manner is a safeguard, as you
know. My nature is one of extremes; if I did not encase myself, I should
be ramming every man's absurd opinions down his throat, and letting my
cursed temper fly at each of the provocations which constantly beset me.
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