Apparent Serenity (George and Martha-Part 1)

I have just finished a biography of Martha Washington by Elswyth Thane. For me, it was a splendid way to read about American history by looking at it through Martha's eyes. I think, too, that I have enjoyed reading about a true statesman, which seems to be in short supply these days. Here's a lovely example of Thane's writing as she describes Martha's observations of George very early on in the war with Britain.

"Better than anyone else, she could trace in his face and bearing the almost superhuman self-control which enabled him to sit at the dinner table cracking nuts and drinking little toasts in apparent serenity, for the sake of maintaining the spirits of the men who depended on him for guidance and support, and for the deception of the watchful guests who were always eager for his hospitality. She did not suspect the sleight of hand he performed with the returns on enlistment, desertion, and sick, so that no one officer, not even Harrison, ever saw the whole dreadful situation at any one time. She could guess at his hours of discouragement and despair, spent alone at his desk behind a closed door when other weary men had gone to bed. And she could see him aging day by day under the crushing load he had set himself to carry alone--in the tightening lips and jawline, in the hooded ice-blue gaze, the enigmatic drop of the lean eyelids, the deliberate levelness of tone when he spoke."

from Washington's Lady by Elswyth Thane
(drawing is of a young Martha)