There Is A Gigantic Statue Of Washington, By
Greenough, Out In The Grounds In Front Of The Building.
The figure
is seated and holding up one of its arms toward the city.
There is
about it a kind of weighty magnificence; but it is stiff, ungainly,
and altogether without life.
But the front of the original building is certainly grand. The
architect who designed it must have had skill, taste, and nobility
of conception; but even this is spoiled, or rather wasted, by the
fact that the front is made to look upon nothing, and is turned from
the city. It is as though, the facade of the London Post-office had
been made to face the Goldsmiths' Hall. The Capitol stands upon the
side of a hill, the front occupying a much higher position than the
back; consequently they who enter it from the back - and everybody
does so enter it - are first called on to rise to the level of the
lower floor by a stiff ascent of exterior steps, which are in no way
grand or imposing, and then, having entered by a mean back door, are
instantly obliged to ascend again by another flight - by stairs
sufficiently appropriate to a back entrance, but altogether unfitted
for the chief approach to such a building. It may, of course, be
said that persons who are particular in such matters should go in at
the front door and not at the back; but one must take these things
as one finds them.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 13 of 531
Words from 3157 to 3409
of 142339
