They passed the Woman’s Building, and the Transportation Building with its dazzling entrance, which looked as though it were a sunrise of jewels, and came to the Administration Building, whose pale gold dome shone like a vision about to vanish into the air. They mounted the steps, turned, and looked down the Court of Honor, towards the Peristyle and Lake Michigan.
The three stood in silence. Mr. Marlowe laid his hand on his father’s shoulder, and shed tears. His son took him by the hand.
THE WHALEBACK PASSENGER STEAMER.
The white walls of the Court of Honor, with their heroic statues, and allegories in plaster, shone in the sun in blinding glory. Just below in the lagoon was the most beautiful fountain on earth. At the end of the lagoon rose the golden-hued Statue of Liberty, and beyond it the most beautiful and majestic structure in all the world, called the Peristyle, white as glistening marble, and surmounted by the Quadriga. Through the white arches of the Peristyle and its procession of heroic statues lay the Lake, blue as a June sky, and covered with boats, vessels, and steamers. Multiform and many-colored flags bloomed like flowers over and against all these colossal walls of white. Congresses of statued heroes were here and there assembled in the niches of immortality. Overhead rose the white allegories of the elements, controlled and uncontrolled. Bands played. Tens of thousands of people darkened the walks and avenues. There was happiness everywhere; continuance was all that was wanting. The trio stood there amazed, bewildered, and unable for a time to speak.
ATLAS.
Grandfather Marlowe was the first to break the silence.
“Let us go away, and find some little corner and die. That is how I feel.”
“Let us sit down on the steps,” said Mr. Marlowe, “and thank God that we are alive.”