Beside, the Capitol is vastly more than an object of mere personal attachment to be measured by a narrow individual standard. To every American citizen it is the majestic symbol of the majesty of his land. You may be lowly and poor. You may not own the cottage which shelters you, nor the scanty acres which you till. Your power may not cross your own door-step; yet these historic statues and paintings, these marble corridors, these soaring walls, this mighty dome, are yours. The highest man in the nation owns nothing here which does not belong equally to you. The Goddess of Liberty, gazing down from her shield, bestows no right upon the lofty which she does not extend equally to the lowliest of her sons. The temple of Pallas Athena, the stones of Venice, the mighty mementos of a mightier Mexico do not tell to any human gazer one-half so grand a story as the Capitol of America will yet proclaim to the pilgrim of later ages. In far-off time I see it stand forth the conqueror of the forgetfulness and the indifference of men. A solemn teacher, with stern, watchful, yet silent sympathy, it will impart to a proud people the profound lesson of their past. A loving mother, it will hold before her living children the sacred faces of her dead for the emulation, the reverence, the love, of all who came after. In its halls will stand the sculptured forms of famed men, and of women great in goodness, great in devotion, great in true motherhood. Through sight and sympathy, through the inspiration of grand example, the living woman as she lays her moulding hand upon the budding heart and tender brain of the boy-man, will rise to the true dignity of the wife and mother of the Republic. With psychical sight we see what the Capitol will one day be, to later generations; by our own heart-throbs, we know what it is to ourselves. Strength and depth are in its foundations, power and sublimity in its dome, and these are ours. Its mighty masses of gleaming marble, all veined with azure; its Corinthian capitals, flowering at the top like a palm in nature; its tutelary statue of freedom, are joys to our eyes forever. Serene Mother of our liberties, she watches always and never wearies. When the whole land lay in shadow, when the blood of her sons ran in rivers, when her heart was pierced nigh unto death, in moveless calm she held her steadfast shield; and gazing into her eyes, through the dimness of tears, we read the promise of peace. No matter where darkness fell, she bore the sunlight upon her crest. The dying statesman asked to be lifted up that his eyes might behold her last. The soldier, who gave his all, to perish in her name, watched for the sight of her from afar, and beheld her first with the shout of joy. When the slow river bore him back wounded from battle, he strained his eyes to catch a glimpse of Freedom on the dome, and looking up, was content to know that he was dying for her sake. Political parties will strug- Factions will fight and fall. gle and destroy each other. but the waves which beat and break on her feet. Above, beyond them all Freedom lives for evermore. Because she lives, Truth and Justice must survive, and the Republic will not perish. CHAPTER XVII. THE CAPITOL-MORNING SIGIITS AND SCENES. The Capitol in Spring-A Magic Change-"More Beautiful than Ancient Rome"-Arrival of Visitors-A New Race-"Billing and Cooing"Lovers at the Capitol-A Dream of Perpetual Spring-Spending the Honeymoon in Washington-Charmingly "Vernal" People-New Edition of David Copperfield and Dora-" Very Young "-Divided Affections: the New Bride-Jonathan and Jane-Memories of a Wedding Dress-An Interview With a Bride--" Two Happy Idiots"-A Walk in the City-Utilitarian Projects-President Grant-The Foreign Ambassadors-"Beau" Hickman-An Erratic Genius-Walt Whitman, the Poct-A" Loafer" of Renown-Pocts at Home-Piatt-BurroughsHarriet Prescott Spofford-Sumner and Chase-Foreign Attachés “ on the Flirt "Tiresome Men-Lafayette Square in the Morning-How to Love a Tree-" He Never Saw Washington." WE E rarely have spring in this latitude. Full panoplied, summer springs from under the mail of long lingering winter. We had a fine yesterday. From my window this morning lo! the miracle! my dear longtimed friend, the maple across the street, amazes me once more, though I declared to it last year I never would be amazed again. It beckons me, its myriad little wands all aquiver with the tenderest green, and says: "There now, you can't help it! Again I am a beauty and a wonder!" No long waiting and watching for slow budding blossoms here. Some night when we are all asleep there is a silent burst of bloom; and we wake to find the trees that we left here, when we shut our blinds on them the night before, all tremulous with new life, and the whole city set in glowing emerald. I invite you to the western front of the Capitol, to stand with me in the balcony of the Congressional Library, to survey the city lying at our feet within the amphitheatre of hills soaring beyond, the river running its shining thread between. I am quite ready to believe what Charles Sumner said when pleading against the mooted depot site on its Central Avenue, that this city is more beautiful than ancient Rome. In itself it is absolutely beautiful, and that is enough; and it grows more and more so as the sea of greenery, which now waves and tosses about its housetops, rises each year higher and higher. The Capitol in early spring and summer is in no wise the Capitol of the winter. Every door swings wide; from the doors in the under-ground corridors to the wondrous doors, designed in Rome and cast in Munich, which open into the rotunda. What long, cool, green vistas run out from every angle. You stand beneath the dome; but your eyes find rest in the far shadow of the Virginia hills. And so many people seem to have come under the great dome to rest. You wonder where they could all have appeared from. They are not at all the people who crowd and hurry through the corridors in winter—the claimants, the lobbyists, the pleasure-seekers from great cities who come to spend the "season" in Washington. Nearly all are people from the country, the greater proportion brides and grooms, to whom the only "season" on earth is spring-the marriage season. Pretty pairs! They seem to be gazing out upon life through its portal with the same mingling of delight and wonder with which SPENDING THE HONEYMOON. 155 they gaze through the great doors of the Capitol upon the unknown world beyond. Early summer always brings a great influx of bridal pairs to Washington. Whence they all come no mortal can tell; but they do come, and can never be mistaken. Their clothes are as new as the spring's, and they look charmingly vernal. The groom says: "Be often seems half to deprecate your sudden glance, as if, like David Copperfield, he was afraid you thought him very young." And yet he invites you to glance again, by his conscious air of proud possession, which hold! I may be young-very. But I have gotten me a wife; she is the loveliest creature upon earth." The affections of the lovely creature seem to be divided between her new lord and her new clothes. She loves him. she is proud of him; but this new suit, who but she can tell its cost. What longing, what privation, what patient toil has gone into its mouse or fawn-like folds; for this little bride, who regretfully drags her demi-train through the dust of the rotunda in summer, is seldom a rich man's daughter. You see them everywhere repeated, these two neophytes in the hotel-parlor, in the street-cars, in the Congressional galleries. When Jonathan read to Jane, in distant Mudville, the record of Congressional proceedings in Washington, in the Weekly Tribune, both imagined themselves deeply interested in the affairs of their country; but here, on the spot, how small seem Tariff, Amnesty, Civil Rights, and KuKlux bills beside the ridiculous bliss of these two egotists. They do not even pretend to listen. But they have some photograph cards, and seek out their prototypes below. On the whole, Jane is disappointed. She was not prepared for so many bald heads, or for so much of bad man |