On The Virginian Side Of The Potomac Stands A Country-House Called Arlington Heights, From Which There Is A Fine View Down Upon The City.

Arlington Heights is a beautiful spot - having all the attractions of a fine park in our country.

It is covered with grand timber. The ground is varied and broken, and the private roads about sweep here into a dell and then up a brae side, as roads should do in such a domain. Below it was the Potomac, and immediately on the other side stands the City of Washington. Any city seen thus is graceful; and the white stones of the big buildings, when the sun gleams on them, showing the distant rows of columns, seem to tell something of great endeavor and of achieved success. It is the place from whence Washington should be seen by those who wish to think well of the present city and of its future prosperity. But is it not the case that every city is beautiful from a distance?

The house at Arlington Heights is picturesque, but neither large nor good. It has before it a high Greek colonnade, which seems to be almost bigger than the house itself. Had such been built in a city - and many such a portico does stand in cities through the States - it would be neither picturesque nor graceful; but here it is surrounded by timber, and as the columns are seen through the trees, they gratify the eye rather than offend it. The place did belong, and as I think does still belong, to the family of the Lees - if not already confiscated. General Lee, who is or would be the present owner, bears high command in the army of the Confederates, and knows well by what tenure he holds or is likely to hold his family property. The family were friends of General Washington, whose seat, Mount Vernon, stands about twelve miles lower down the river and here, no doubt, Washington often stood, looking on the site he had chosen. If his spirit could stand there now and look around upon the masses of soldiers by which his capital is surrounded, how would it address the city of his hopes? When he saw that every foot of the neighboring soil was desecrated by a camp, or torn into loathsome furrows of mud by cannon and army wagons - that agriculture was gone, and that every effort both of North and South was concentrated on the art of killing; when he saw that this was done on the very spot chosen by himself for the center temple of an everlasting union, what would he then say as to that boast made on his behalf by his countrymen, that he was first in war and first in peace? Washington was a great man, and I believe a good man. I, at any rate, will not belittle him. I think that he had the firmness and audacity necessary for a revolutionary leader, that he had honesty to preserve him from the temptations of ambition and ostentation, and that he had the good sense to be guided in civil matters by men who had studied the laws of social life and the theories of free government.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 15 of 275
Words from 7167 to 7707 of 142339