Memorial will not be the most despised among them, for it expresses,
even if it over-expresses, a not ignoble idea, and if it somewhat
stutters and stammers, it does at last get it out; it does not stand
mum, like the different shy, bashful columns stuck here and there, and
not able to say what they would be at.

If one comes to the statues there are, of course, none so good as the
Farragut in Madison Square, or the Logan on the Lake front at Chicago,
and, on the whole, I remember those at Washington as better. There are
not so many English kings standing or riding about as one would expect;
the English kings have, indeed, not been much to brag of in bronze or
marble, though in that I do not say they are worse than other kings. I
think, but I am not sure, that there are rather more public men of
inferior grade than kings, though this may be that they were more
impressive. Most noticeable was the statue of Disraeli, which, on
Primrose Day, I saw much garlanded and banked up with the favorite
flower of that peculiarly rustic and English statesman. He had the air
of looking at the simple blossoms and forbearing an ironical smile, or
was this merely the fancy of the spectator? Among the royal statues is
that of the Charles whom they put to death, and who was so unequal in
character though not in spirit to his dread fate. It was stolen away,
and somewhere long hid by his friends or foes, but it is now to be seen
in the collection of Trafalgar Square, so surely the least imposing of
equestrian figures that it is a pity it should ever have been found. For
a strikingly handsome man, all his statues attest how little he lent
himself to sculpture.

Not far away is another equestrian statue, which never failed to give me
a start, when I suddenly came upon it in a cab. It looked for an instant
quite like many statues of George Washington, as it swept the air with