Nevertheless, And In Spite Of All That I Have Said, I Have Had Pleasure In Walking Backward And Forward, And Through The Grounds Which Lie Before The Eastern Front Of The Capitol.

The space for the view is ample, and the thing to be seen has points which are very grand.

If the Capitol were finished and all Washington were built around it, no man would say that the house in which Congress sat disgraced the city.

Going west, but not due west, from the Capitol, Pennsylvania Avenue stretches in a right line to the Treasury chambers. The distance is beyond a mile; and men say scornfully that the two buildings have been put so far apart in order to save the secretaries who sit in the bureaus from a too rapid influx of members of Congress. This statement I by no means indorse; but it is undoubtedly the fact that both Senators and Representatives are very diligent in their calls upon gentlemen high in office. I have been present on some such occasions, and it has always seemed to me a that questions of patronage have been paramount. This reach of Pennsylvania Avenue is the quarter for the best shops of Washington - that is to say, the frequented side of it is so, that side which is on your right as you leave the Capitol. Of the other side the world knows nothing. And very bad shops they are. I doubt whether there be any town in the world at all equal in importance to Washington which is in such respects so ill provided.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 15 of 531
Words from 3686 to 3950 of 142339