"THE snow, wind, and rain of Virginia and the doctors at Mount Vernon, in their cruel wisdom, had done well by George Washington." With this sentence Mr. Fay closes his book on the first President of the United States. It is his belief that, had Washington lived another year, he would have found himself in a very tragic political conflict with Jefferson, and he would have inevitably seen those principles inculcated in him by birth and by breeding swept boldly aside to make way for certain more popular democratic doctrines. George Washington was a landed Virginia baron whose life was guided not by monarchic nor republican, but by aristocratic ideals. It was the preservation of those ideals and the country which he loved that made him the father of his country.

In a very scholarly, very sympathetic biography, Mr. Fay has developed his thesis. He has made Washington the symbol of a social class endowed with that integrity and intelligence which made him the symbol of a nation. But in his analysis the author has never lost sight of the fact that his subject was a man and not a political theory. There are long passages faithfully describing his boyhood which offer valuable insight into the character of the man. In a fine chapter on Washington as a Virginia baron Mr. Fay accomplishes the dual purpose of constructing a Washington of flesh and blood and of portraying the haleyon feudal civilization that was Virginia's. Believing that the key to many of the President's actions can be found in the English colonel's career, the author dwells at unusual length on the French and Indian War, a period that is customarily dismissed by an amused smile at the military tactics of Braddock.

Washington, the Commander and Chief of the Continental Army, receives more conventional, but equally engaging treatment. The author brings to the beginnings of the Republic a knowledge and an insight that is particularly grateful in a foreigner. Here Washington appears, not as a political genius, but as a symbol of unity around which the distraught Americans can rally. But he is more than a convenient meeting ground, for he possesses an instinct for public opinion and a knowledge of men that is invaluable to the other founders of the United States. While he lacked the vision of the theorist, he had the background of a hard bitten practicality to use as a leaven for the political dough of Hamilton and Adams.

The biography is extraordinarily well rounded and refreshing, refurbishing every facet of a well dusted personality. Where others worship, Fay sits in admiration. Where some debunk, he is content to admit the frailty of man. "This man, who is not conspicuous because he possessed a just sense of proportion, threw in his lot with that of his country. His glory is the patrimony of civilization. Others are born eloquent; he was born legendary."