Page:The youth of Washington (1910).djvu/95



Like other men, I have had my times of being irritable, but open anger is with me like to a tornado, and if I give way I am as is a ship in a storm when no anchors hold. General Hamilton, on one occasion, observed to me that there were some talents which it was good that men should know you to be possessed of, because once they were aware of this, you were not so apt to be called upon to use them, and this may be true of that rage of anger I now speak of. But I cannot think it a thing of value, nor of any real use; for if it follow another's actions, it can do no good, and there are better ways of showing disapprobation.

The other matter to which his lordship alludes is that I was, at this time, the victim of one of those attachments to a lady older than myself from which lads are apt to suffer. It was not the last, for in the