He mimicked
thirty different American birds, but their songs were hurried
without the proper pauses and phrasing. It was what piano player
music is to hand-played melodies, lacking the beauty and soul of
the original artists.
How delightful it was to linger here. You could spend days and
weeks in forgetting the maddening strife and cares gazing out
over the majestic Potomac, lulled to rest by this matchless
songster.
Here one can readily see that Washington was fond of trees and
shrubs, and many were the excursions he made to the woods to
select specimens to be transplanted to the grounds around his
home. Just outside the garden are the tulip trees he planted
over one hundred and thirty years ago. The master of these
stately trees has long since gone, yet his spirit seems to
linger there. These glorious tulips are tall and straight as the
man whose hands first broke the sod and pressed the ground
tenderly about their roots. They still aspire and shed delicious
perfume on the balmy summer air and their verdure is perennial
like the memory of a grateful nation.
Bartram, an eminent botanist of Philadelphia, was a close friend
of Washington. In the rear of the mansion is a fine lawn
comprising a number of acres, around which winds a carriage
drive bordered by grand old trees.
We thought of the truthfulness of Mrs. Sangster's words as we
gazed in admiration at these lovely trees:
"Who plants a tree for fruit or shade,
In orchard fair, on verdant slope;
Who plants a tree a tryst has made
With future years, in faith and hope."
When visiting the palace of King Louis XIV of France at
Versailles and the hundreds of rooms that accommodated his
courtiers and their servants, also the two large wings which
housed The State Ministers and contained their offices, you are
greatly impressed at the Herculean labor and immense cost such
magnificence must have required. Here the best artists of his
time, by long years of patient toil, and money in profusion,
were employed on this glorification of a man.
Here was laid out a vast and beautiful garden, filled with noble
statues and marble basins, that extended its geometrical alleys
and lines of symmetrical trees to a park around which spread the
magnificent forest. You see the room in which our great and
illustrious Franklin stayed and marvel at the glorious Hall of
Mirrors where the Peace Conference met. Yet you are glad to get
out and contemplate that wonderful avenue of European elms whose
straight round trunks, bearing innumerable branches which divide
again and again, form glorious fountain-like crests of verdure.
But with what a different feeling you look upon the home of
Washington.
