artist for $10,000--and you might take his marble emancipation

proclamation, which he holds out in his hand and contemplates, for a

folded napkin; and you might conceive from his expression and his

attitude, that he is finding fault with the washing. Which is not the

case. Nobody knows what is the matter with him; but everybody feels for

him. Well, you ought not to go into the dome anyhow, because it would be

utterly impossible to go up there without seeing the frescoes in it--and

why should you be interested in the delirium tremens of art?

The capitol is a very noble and a very beautiful building, both within

and without, but you need not examine it now. Still, if you greatly

prefer going into the dome, go. Now your general glance gives you

picturesque stretches of gleaming water, on your left, with a sail here

and there and a lunatic asylum on shore; over beyond the water, on a

distant elevation, you see a squat yellow temple which your eye dwells

upon lovingly through a blur of unmanly moisture, for it recalls your

lost boyhood and the Parthenons done in molasses candy which made it

blest and beautiful. Still in the distance, but on this side of the

water and close to its edge, the Monument to the Father of his Country

towers out of the mud--sacred soil is the customary term. It has the

aspect of a factory chimney with the top broken off. The skeleton of a

decaying scaffolding lingers about its summit, and tradition says that

the spirit of Washington often comes down and sits on those rafters to

enjoy this tribute of respect which the nation has reared as the symbol

of its unappeasable gratitude. The Monument is to be finished, some day,

and at that time our Washington will have risen still higher in the

250

The Gilded Age