“Let us go into the Liberal Arts Building,” said young Ephraim.
“I have no wish to see any exhibits to-day,” said Mr. Marlowe. “I shall never again behold a vision like this,—I could gaze for weeks upon it.”
“There is only one thing that is wanting,” said Grandfather Marlowe.
“What is that?” asked Mr. Marlowe.
“A white-bordered flag!”
“They may raise one here some day,” said Mr. Marlowe.
“I hope that I may live to see that sight,” said the aged Quaker; “to me it would be a sign of the Second Coming. I could die content could I see the sight.”
They went to the Liberal Arts Building, and looked in upon its forty acres of floors. They then passed down to the long wharf, and sat down to rest on the seats of the movable Sidewalk; in which they might sit for hours for five cents each, and go around and around in the cool breezes of the Lake. Here they took the famous “whaleback” steamer for the City. They never had passed a day like that! No one ever passed such a day as one’s first day at the Exposition, and none ever will again.
The Past emptied itself there; the Future anticipated there her glory. The Fair! the Fair! It was all the world was, is, or ever could be.
“Father,” said young Ephraim, “across whose mind did the conception of the White City first pass?”