portraits, remind one irresistibly, by their almost supernal calm, of some of those beautiful heads of Buddha modeled in the far East by the hands of believing men; and his capital recalls very strongly the modern and English portions of such an Indian city as Allahabad, for instance. The beautiful trees, the endless, perfectly smooth roads, the red brick houses, the dark faces of the colored population, and, above all, the moist softness of the sunny air on summer days when it has lately rained, are points which Washington has in common both with Allahabad and Bombay, and which cannot fail to strike one who has lived long in all three places. JASHINGTON is a city planned and built solely for the purposes of government. It is probably the only capitalin the world which has had such an origin; which is named after a nation's first leader, laid out according to his individual views, and beautified, to some extent, according to his ideas of beauty. Washington, as it stands to-day, may be said to be the expression We Americans may say of ourselves that our of George Washington's qualities are real, but that our tastes are artifiintention and personal cial. We may arrogate praise for what we have taste, and, in a conse- done, and deprecate foreign criticism of what quent way, of his char- we like. Our deeds are our own, but our tastes, acter. The plan of the as yet, are not. We have more really the decity reminds one of the sire for taste than taste man's face, with its large, itself. But the desire quiet features, its calm symmetry, and its sin- is enormous, and in gularly unobtrusive individuality. One might seeking to satisfy it almost say that the face of Washington the we have desperately man, like the face of Washington the city, was attempted to throw characterized by its "magnificent distances." an impossible bridge We even feel a little, in spite of what we know across the wide and of his youth, that the man himself was "planned deep gulf by which and built solely for purposes of government." we are divided from Strangely enough, too, the features of the former civilizations, first President, as we know them from his many and to drag the beauCopyright, 1894, by THE CENTURY CO. All rights reserved. A POLITICIAN. C. FROM THE SUNNY SOUTH. tiful by force over that bridge, to stay with us. We have indeed a preeminent right to please ourselves in our own way; but we cannot help being concerned about pleasing other people besides Americans, as we have lately shown. Hence the curious, sporadic conventionalities which crop up in unexpected places all over our country-conventionalities of which the object seems to be to produce a good, though only a temporary, impression where genuine traditions have not as yet developed. They make one think of those sham fronts of wood and plaster which are sometimes put up before great buildings yet unfinished, but to which it is necessary to give the appearance of being completed for some special occasion. They answer the purpose, but we feel that they are not intended to last. In Washington, however, almost everything is meant to be enduring, and in one sense, which is a good sense, there is perhaps no city in any part of the world where a conventional standard has been arbitrarily adopted with such determination, and adhered to with such consistency, throughout so long a period of time, and, on the whole, with such good results. There is no city in the world, I think, where so many public buildings are of Greek style, and yet so unobtrusive. But in these days of specialism, it is for specialists to talk of architecture, and it is the province of the novelist to enjoy such fiction as he can find in the world, and to make it enjoyable for others. It must be in spite of its conventionalism that Washington suggests romance, and breathes the breath of dream-life into the nostrils of dead statues, and in through the windows of lifeless buildings, and through all the bright air of blazing modernness in which we, the living ones, have our being. There is romance - let us not define the pretty word - in the dim, soft dawn, when the mists of the river are surprised in their loves with the sleeping trees; in the fresh morning, when the quiet streets ring with the double trill of the songbirds as each in turn and all together, and none last, they lift up their little voices in a long, caroling cheer to the rising sun; in the broad day, wherein men work and struggle, and quarrel and make peace, and speak words which all the nation hears and judges, condemns, approves, or laughs at, as all humanity laughs. or looks grave over its own centralized self; in the red evening light, when the perspective of the avenues grows long and fairy-like, and the brilliant equipages roll swiftly and smoothly through the sunset air that reddens the horses' bay coats, and enriches collar and harness with its fiery gold. And most of all at night, when the trees are all breathing again, and the broad streets are quiet; when the great army of work ers is gone to its boarding-house quarters, and the little regiment of do-nothings is broken up into squads to hunt the Beast of Boredom with laughter and sometimes with tears; when the stars play hide-and-seek with the moon round the corners of the silent Capitol, and kiss the great Liberty on either cheek, high in the cool, dark blue air; when the moonbeams run quivering through the rustling leaves, and weave white lace across the dark pavement; when the soft lights stream from the windows of the White House, across the broad lawn, and through the trees, to the high railings of the avenue; when the darky boy and girl, hand in hand, pour out their little tale of woe to the passing dandy, trotting beside him as he strolls along in white tie and black cloak, on his way from a dinner to a reception; when the herdic cab backs up under the trees against the curbstone, swinging wide its self-opening doors, and throwing its bright flash out upon a vision of fair hair, and satin, and white lace, and slim silk-clad ankles, just as the impassive English footman opens the door of the house, and lets out a blaze |