Samantha at the World's Fair

by Marietta Holley

But time hastens, and to resoom.

As I reluctantly tore myself away from the glory and grandeur inside, and passed through the buildin' to the outside, and a full view of the Court of Honor busted on to our bewildered vision, I did—I actually did feel weak as a cat.

Never agin—never agin will such a seen glow and grow before mine eyes, till the streets of the New Jerusalem open before my vision.

Beyend that wide Plaza, that long basin of clear sparklin' water, dotted all over its glowin' bosom with fairy-like gondolas, and gondolers, dressed in all the colors of the rainbow, or picturesque launches, with their gay freight of happy sightseers. And here and there, jest where they wuz needed, to look the best, wuz statutes and banners and the most gorgeous fountain that ever dripped water.

Then the broad flights of snowy marble steps risin' from the water to the green flowery terraces, and then above them the magnificent white wonders of the different buildin's.

And standin' up aginst the sky, and the blue waters of the lake, the tall ivory columns of the Perestyle stood, like a immense beautiful screen, to guard this White City of magic splendor.

And risin' from the blue waters of the Basin stands the grand figure of the Republic, towerin' up a hundred feet high, lookin' jest as she ort to look. Calm, stately, but knowin' in her heart jest what she had done, and jest what she hadn't done, knowin' jest what she had to be proud on, if she only let her mind run on't.

But there wuz no high-headedness, no tostin' of her neck. No, fair and stately and serene as a dream Queen, she stood a fittin' centre for the onspeakable beauty of her surroundin's.

It wuz all perfect, everything—no flaw in the perfect harmony of the seen. No limit to its onapproachable beauty. Yes, the glory of that seen as it bust onto my raptured vision will go with me through life, and won't never be outdone and replaced by anything more perfect, till that rapt hour when the mortal puts on immortality, and the glory that no eye hath seen busts on my glorified vision.

And as we wended onwards and got still further views of the matchless wonders of the Columbus World's Fair—wall, I gin in, and felt and said, that I spozed I had had emotions all my life, and sights of 'em; why, I have had 'em as high as from 70 to 80 a minute right along for a hour on a stretch—sometimes when I have been rousted up about sunthin'.