men. The only centres, now, are narrowed down to those of intelligence,
capital and population. As I said before Washington is the nearest to
those and you don't have to paddle across a river on ferry boats of a
pattern popular in the dark ages to get to it, nor have to clamber up
vilely paved hills in rascally omnibuses along with a herd of all sorts
of people after you are there. Secondly, the removal of the capital is
one of those old, regular, reliable dodges that are the bread-and meat of
back country congressmen. It is agitated every year. It always has
been, it always will be; It is not new in any respect. Thirdly. The
Capitol has cost $40,000,000 already and lacks a good deal of being
finished, yet. There are single stones in the Treasury building (and a
good many of them) that cost twenty-seven thousand dollars apiece--and
millions were spent in the construction of that and the Patent Office and
the other great government buildings. To move to St. Louis, the country
must throw away a hundred millions of capital invested in those
buildings, and go right to work to spend a hundred millions on new
buildings in St. Louis. Shall we ever have a Congress, a majority of
whose members are hopelessly insane? Probably not. But it is possible
--unquestionably such a thing is possible. Only I don't believe it will
happen in our time; and I am satisfied the capital will not be moved
until it does happen. But if St. Louis would donate the ground and the
buildings, it would be a different matter. No, Pamela, I don't see any
good reason to believe you or I will ever see the capital moved.

I have twice instructed the publishers to send you a book--it was the
first thing I did--long before the proofs were finished. Write me if it
is not yet done.

Livy says we must have you all at our marriage, and I say we can't.
It will be at Christmas or New Years, when such a trip across the country