tall, graceful white dome with a statue on it surmounting the palace and

pleasantly contrasting with the background of blue sky. That building is

the capitol; gossips will tell you that by the original estimates it was

to cost $12,000,000, and that the government did come within $21,200,000

of building it for that sum.

You stand at the back of the capitol to treat yourself to a view, and it

is a very noble one. You understand, the capitol stands upon the verge

of a high piece of table land, a fine commanding position, and its front

looks out over this noble situation for a city--but it don't see it, for

the reason that when the capitol extension was decided upon, the property

owners at once advanced their prices to such inhuman figures that the

people went down and built the city in the muddy low marsh behind the

temple of liberty; so now the lordly front of the building, with, its

imposing colonades, its projecting graceful wings, its picturesque

groups of statuary, and its long terraced ranges of steps, flowing down

in white marble waves to the ground, merely looks out upon a sorrowful

little desert of cheap boarding houses.

So you observe, that you take your view from the back of the capitol.

And yet not from the airy outlooks of the dome, by the way, because to

get there you must pass through the great rotunda: and to do that, you

would have to see the marvelous Historical Paintings that hang there,

and the bas-reliefs--and what have you done that you should suffer thus?

And besides, you might have to pass through the old part of the building,

and you could not help seeing Mr. Lincoln, as petrified by a young lady

249

The Gilded Age