Washington is the sole American city which has monuments that can strike the European with admiration for their beauty. The Capitol, the Government buildings, the museums, built in the midst of handsome gardens, all arrest the eye of the visitor.
The Capitol, 751 feet long, built of white marble, with a superb dome and majestic flights of steps, is one of the grandest, most imposing-looking, edifices in the world. The souvenirs attached to it, and the treasures it contains, render it dear to the Americans: it is a monument which recalls to their minds the glories of the past, and keeps alight the flame of patriotism.
A general, who served through the great Civil War, told me he had seen strong men, soldiers brought up in remote States, sit down and weep with emotion at seeing the Capitol for the first time.
At one end of the building there is the House of Representatives; in the other wing, the Senate. As for the national treasures contained in the Capitol, I refer the reader to guide-books for them.
The Americans, determined for once to be beyond suspicion in employing an adjective in the superlative degree, followed by the traditional "in the world," have erected, to the memory of General Washington, an obelisk 555 feet high. It is therefore the highest in the world, without any inverted commas.
The town is prettily laid out, somewhat in the form of a spider's web. The streets are wide, the houses coquettish-looking, the gardens, especially the park of the Soldier's Home, extremely beautiful.
Washington is wholly given over to politics. When Congress is not sitting, it is dead; when Congress is sitting, it is delirious.
Little or no commerce is done.
No visitor leaves Washington without making a pilgrimage to Mount Vernon, where Washington is buried, and where everything speaks of him who was "first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen."