excursionist pure and simple. I said to the United States, grimly: "The
most important and the most imposing thing in all America is surely the
Capitol at Washington. Well, I will see it as you see the sacred sights
of Europe. By me Europe shall be revenged."

Thus it came about that we had hired a kind of carriage known as a
"sea-going hack," driven by a negro in dark blue, who was even more
picturesque than the negroes in white who did the menial work in the
classic hotel, and had set forth frankly as excursionists into the
streets of Washington, and presently through the celebrated Pennsylvania
Avenue had achieved entrance into the Capitol.

[Illustration: THE APPROACH TO THE CAPITOL]

It was a breathless pilgrimage--this seeing of the Capitol. And yet an
impressive one. The Capitol is a great place. I was astonished--and I
admit at once I ought not to have been astonished--that the Capitol
appeals to the historic sense just as much as any other vast legislative
palace of the world--and perhaps more intimately than some. The sequence
of its endless corridors and innumerable chambers, each associated with
event or tradition, begets awe. I think it was in the rich Senatorial
reception-room that I first caught myself being surprised that the heavy
gilded and marmoreal sumptuosity of the decorations recalled the average
European palace. Why should I have been expecting the interior of the
Capitol to consist of austere bare walls and unornamented floors?
Perhaps it was due to some thought of Abraham Lincoln. But whatever its
cause, the expectation was naïve and derogatory. The young guide, Jimmy,
who by birth and genius evidently belonged to the universal race of
guides, was there to keep my ideas right and my eyes open. He was
infinitely precious, and after his own fashion would have done honor to