These grounds, perfect in themselves, utter but one reproach to the men legislating within yonder walls, and that, because they are not larger and meet in proportion to the august Capitol which they encircle. We pass through them out into Pennsylvania avenue—this great and yet to be fulfilled expectation. Broadway cannot compare with it in magnificent proportions. It is as wide as two Broadways, and at this hour of the afternoon its turn-outs are metropolitan. Nevertheless, judged by its trees and houses, it has a rural, second-rate look. Though here and there a lonesome building shoots up above its fellows, its average shops are shabby and small, and do not compare favorably with those of Third avenue in New York. The idealistic Statesmen of Washington and Jefferson’s time modelled it to repeat the Unter den[den] Lindens of Berlin. As a result, the ample rows of Lombardy poplars are defunct, and the Gradgrind politicians of to-day have voted to dump down a railroad “depot” in its very centre, because Mr. Thomas Scott wants it, and because they have free railroad-passes, and a few other little perquisites in their pockets. This, of course, is very shocking to say; but then it is much more shocking to be true. Excepting Mr. Sumner, Mr. Morrill, Mr. Thurman and a few others, who really care for the future of Washington and who love this Capital, the remainder would, for a sufficient price, sell out the entire city, Capitol and all, to monopolies and corporations. But this broad thoroughfare, stretching straight for a mile between Treasury and Capitol, with its double drive, smooth as a floor, its borders of bloom, its gay promenades and flashing turn-outs has a certain splendor of its own, of which no monopoly can wholly rob it.
Here is the Grant carriage, with its plain brown linings, and in it Mrs. Grant and her father. A light buggy flies past, drawn by superb horses, driven by a single occupant. He is the President—small, slight, erect, smoking a cigar. The courtly equipages of the Peruvian, Argentine, Turkish and English Ministers, with liveried outriders and beautiful women occupants, with the no less elegant establishments of American Senators, Members and citizens, swell the gay cavalcade on this truly splendid Corso.
Standing on the curb-stone, gazing on it with an expression which would have made Dickens wild till he had reproduced it, stands Beau Hickman, long a character of Washington. He is an old man, long and lean, with a face corrugated like a wizened apple and a complexion like parchment or an Egyptian mummy. His aspect is a strange compound of gentility and meanness. His stove-pipe hat, which evidently has survived many a battering, is carefully brushed; his standing collar is very stiff and very high. His vest is greyish white, his coat is dingy and shiny. His faded pantaloons have been darned, and need darning again. His toes are peering through his shoes, and they are down at the heels; yet he carries a foppish cane and wears his hat in a rakish manner. Beau Hickman was born a Virginia gentleman, insomuch as he still manages to live without labor, it being the pride of his heart that he never did anything useful in his life. He ekes out a wretched existence by filching small sums from friends and strangers for telling stories and relating experiences, for which he invariably demands a drink or a supper. One of the most miserable objects I ever beheld is Beau Hickman hungry, hobbling through the Senate restaurant, gazing at one table and then at another, at the comfortable people sitting by them, filling their stomachs, not one alas! asking him to partake.
Here with a sweep and swing, with head thrown back, and arms at rest, comes a man as supremely indifferent to all this show as the other is abjectly enthralled by it. This man, slowly swinging down the Avenue, is a “cosmos” in himself. Locks profuse and white, eyes big and blue, cheeks ruddy, throat bare, wide collar turned back, slouched felt hat punched in, a perfect lion apparently in muscle and vitality—this is Walt Whitman. Every sunshiny day he “loafs” and invites his soul on the Avenue, and there are other poets who do likewise. Here sometimes may be seen John James Piatt, now Librarian of the House of Representatives, with his blonde hair and brown-eyed wife, who is quite as much a poet as he is; and John Burrough the Thoreau of the Treasury Department, gentle as one of his own birds; and William O’Connor whose poetical fires burn undimmed within the same dim old walls; and, clad in mourning, Harriet Prescott Spofford, sweet poet and sweeter woman. Here of old were seen the gigantic forms of Charles Sumner and of Chief Justice Chase. When the Supreme Court is in session, at a certain hour, a company of immense gentlemen doff their long black silk gowns, and slowly and ponderously wend their way along the Avenue, in mild, dignified pursuit of exercise and dinner. Here, before the sun grows too hot, may be seen the moustached, gesticulating, voluble young attachés of the foreign embassies with the pretty girls of the West End, who they like to flirt with but rarely marry—which is fortunate for the girls.
I cannot divorce myself long enough from this divine day to write about men. There is not a man on the face of the earth that would not be tiresome if one had to think of him, to the exclusion of this weather. To think that there are any to be written about when I want to sit in the sun and do nothing, stirs up a perfect rumpus between desire and duty. I am not so fond of my duty that I always spell it with a big “D,” or in every emergency put it foremost. I would like to put it out of sight some times. Wouldn’t you? But then I cannot. “It’s too many for me,” as poor Tulliver said of his enemy. It won’t go out of sight, much less stay there. Something clever might have come to me about tedious men if I had not reached Lafayette Square this morning. There is that in this new bloom so tender, so unsullied, which makes politicians seem paltry, and all their outcry a mockery and an impertinence. To be sure, these green arcades in their outer bound touch another world. Beyond, and above them, floats the flag on the Arlington House. Below, the windows of Charles Sumner’s home hint of art and beauty within. The abodes of famous men and of beautiful women encircle all the square. On one side the white cornices of the Executive Mansion peer above the trees.
Almost within call are men and women whose names suggest histories and prophecies, all the tangled phenomena of individual life. Yet how easy to forget them all on these seats, which Gen. Babcock has made so restful—thank him. The long summer wave in the May grass; the low, swaying boughs, with their deep, mysterious murmur, that seems instinct with human pleading; the tender plaint of infant leaves; the music of birds; the depth of sky; the balm, the bloom, the virginity, the peace, the consciousness of life, new yet illimitable, are all here, just as perfectly as they are yonder in God’s solitude, untouched of man. If you need help to love a tree read the diary of Maurice de Guerin. No one else, not even Thoreau, (whose nature lacked in depth and breadth of tenderness perhaps in the deepest spiritual insight,) ever came so near or drew forth with such deep feeling the very soul of inanimate Nature. He felt the soul of the tree, heard it in the moaning of its voice as it stood with its roots bound in the earth and its arms outstretched with a never-ceasing sigh towards infinity. But why do I speak of him? He lived and died and never saw Washington.
CHAPTER XVIII.
FAIR WASHINGTON—A RAMBLE IN EARLY SPRING.
Washington Weather—Sky Scenery—Professor Tyndall Expresses an Opinion—A Picture of Beauty—“A City of Enchantment”—“My Own Washington”—Prejudiced Views—Birds of Rock Creek—The Parsonage—A Scene of Tranquil Beauty—A Washington May—Charms of the Season—Mowers at Work—The Public Parks—Frolics of the Little Ones—Strawberry Festivals—“Flower Gathering.”
The climate of Washington has a villainous reputation, and at certain times and seasons it deserves it Yet it tantalizes us with days which prelude Paradise. Under their azure arch, through their beguiling air, with reluctant steps we enter winter—the oozy, clammy, coughing winter, which waits us just the other side of the gate of January. But they linger long—the preluding days. They seem reluctant to yield us to our impending foes—society and wet weather.
These are the days of days, swathed in masses of lights and color unfathomable. It is one of the wonders of Washington too rarely noted—its sky-scenery. So few people take the trouble to look at the sky save to see if “it looks like rain.” All that New York can afford to give to tired mortals is a scanty slice of light through which to let a glimpse of glory down upon its palaces and catacombs of humanity. But across these banding hills, this broad amphitheatre of space, mass and sweep on, in the empyrean, wave on wave of polarized light, with a delicacy of tint, a depth of hue, an immensity of volume, which no words can portray. This vast sea of color (in its deeps of orange, purple and gold, which now transfigure the twilight sky, till the Virginia hills look like open gates to the city of gold) Professor Tyndall, in one of his lectures on light, in this city, said that he had never seen approached on the other side of the Atlantic, save by the intense refractions of light on the Alpine glaciers.