enjoyment than is afforded by the debate when he desires to gain
a point over able but envious opponents, who never attack him
single-handed, and to meet whom, their shafts flying on every side, he
brings up his subtlety of argument, his readiness, his audacity, his
wit and repartee and forensic skill, till he winds them in their
own toils. Perhaps while you have been observing these and other
notabilities of the day, another personage has come upon the floor by
prescriptive right of past membership, and has arrested your gaze.
He is a gentleman of portly presence, who looks out of a pair of keen
dark eyes, and still possesses some of the great personal beauty
for which in his youth he was remarkable. He is the last of the
old statesmen; he has had a part in many of the scenes that we call
history; he was the compeer of Webster and Clay and Crittenden and
Calhoun; and one would not marvel if he looked but contemptuously
on the fevered measures and boyish ecstasies and advocacies of
their successors. Familiar with modern languages and literatures, an
encyclopædia of ancient and mediæval learning, a master of the science
of government, as old as the century, and one of its conspicuous
figures, perhaps but a single thing is wanting to make Mr. Cushing a
chief: he does not believe in the people.

Thus it is easily seen that your life at the Federal Capital, if you
possess either an eye for beauty or an interest in affairs, may be
full of enjoyment and variety. Your companions are people of mark;
you learn, by returning, when summer does, to the small scandals and
personalities of common towns, how large is the outlook in Washington;
the theatre of the world opens before you there; you feel that you
assist at the making of history, if you are not yourself a part of
events.