The gay description which an American would probably give of the Narrows,—the first spot of his native land seen after a tedious voyage,—would probably be in strong contrast with the impression it produces on the emigrant, who sees in it only the scene of his first difficult step in a land of exile. I remember noting this contrast with some emotion, on board the packet-ship in which I was not long ago a passenger from England. Among the crowd of emigrants in the steerage, was the family of a respectable and well-educated man, who had failed as a merchant in some small town in England, and was coming, with the wreck of his fortune, to try the back-woods of America. He had a wife, and eight or ten very fine children, the eldest of whom, a delicate and pretty girl of eighteen, had contributed to sustain the family under their misfortunes at home, by keeping a village school. The confinement had been too much for her, and she was struck with consumption—a disease which is peculiarly fatal in America. Soon after leaving the British Channel, the physician on board reported her to the captain as exceedingly ill, and suffering painfully from the close air of the steerage; and by the general consent of the cabin passengers, a bed was made up for her in the deck-house, where she received the kindest attention from the ladies on board; and with her gentle manners and grateful expressions of pleasure, soon made an interest in all hearts. As we made the land, the air became very close and hot; and our patient, perhaps from sympathy with the general excitement about her, grew feverish and worse, hourly. Her father, and a younger sister, sat by her, holding her hands and fanning her; and when we entered the Narrows with a fair wind, and every one on board, forgetting her in their admiration of the lovely scene, mounted to the upper deck, she was raised to the window, and stood with the bright red spot deepening on her cheek, watching the fresh green land without the slightest expression of pleasure. We dropped anchor, the boats were lowered, and as the steerage passengers were submitted to a quarantine, we attempted to take leave of her before going on shore. A fit of the most passionate tears, the paroxysms of which seemed almost to suffocate her, prevented her replying to us; and we left that poor girl surrounded with her weeping family, trying in vain to comfort her. Hers were feelings, probably, which are often associated with a remembrance of the Narrows.
VIEW OF THE CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON.
There are many favourable points of view for this fine structure, standing, as it does, higher than the general level of the country. Besides those presented in the different drawings in this work, there are views from the distant eminences, which are particularly fine, in which the broad bosom of the Potomac forms the back-ground. The effect of the building is also remarkably imposing when the snow is on the ground, and the whole structure, rising from a field of snow, with its dazzling whiteness, looks like some admirable creation of the frost. All architecture, however, is very much improved by the presence of a multitude of people, and the Capitol looks its best on the day of inauguration. The following description, written after viewing the ceremony of Mr. Van Buren’s induction into office, will give an idea of the effect of this solemnity on the architecture:—
“The sun shone out of heaven without a cloud on the inaugural morning. The air was cold, but clear and life-giving, and the broad avenues of Washington for once seemed not too large for the thronging population. The crowds who had been pouring in from every direction for several days before, ransacking the town for but a shelter from the night, were apparent on the spacious side walks, and the old campaigners of the winter seemed but a thin sprinkling among the thousands of new and strange faces. The sun shone alike on the friends and opponents of the new administration; and, as far as one might observe in a walk to the Capitol, all were made cheerful alike by its brightness. It was another augury, perhaps, and may foretell a more extended fusion under the light of the luminary new-risen. In a whole day, passed in a crowd composed of all classes and parties, I heard no remark that the president would have been unwilling to hear.
“I was at the Capitol a half-hour before the procession arrived, and had leisure to study a scene for which I was not at all prepared. The noble staircase of the east front of the building leaps over three arches; under one of which carriages pass to the basement door; and, as you approach from the gate, the eye cuts the ascent at right angles, and the sky, broken by a small spire at a short distance, is visible beneath. Broad stairs occur at equal distances, with corresponding projections, and from the upper platform rise the outer columns of the portico, with ranges of columns three deep extending back to the pilasters. I had often admired this front, with its many graceful columns and its superb flight of stairs, as one of the finest things I had seen in the world. Like the effect of the assembled population of Rome waiting to receive the blessing before the front of St. Peter’s, however, the assembled crowd on the steps and at the base of the Capitol, heightened inconceivably the grandeur of the design. They were piled up like the people on the temples of Babylon in one of Martin’s sublime pictures—every projection covered, and an inexpressible soul and character given by their presence to the architecture. Boys climbed about the bases of the columns, single figures stood on the posts of the surrounding railings in the boldest relief against the sky, and the whole thing was exactly what Paul Veronese would have delighted to draw.
“I was in the crowd thronging the opposite side of the court, and lost sight of the principal actors in this imposing drama till they returned from the Senate Chamber. A temporary platform had been laid and railed in on the broad stair which supports the portico, and, for all preparation for one of the most important and most meaning and solemn ceremonies on earth—for the inauguration of a chief magistrate over a republic of fifteen millions of freemen—the whole addition to the open air and the presence of the people, was a volume of Holy Writ. In comparing the impressive simplicity of this consummation of the wishes of a mighty people, with the ceremonial and hollow show which embarrass a corresponding event in other lands, it was impossible not to feel that the moral sublime was here—that a transaction so important, and of such extended and weighty import, could borrow nothing from drapery or decoration, and that the simple presence of the sacred volume, consecrating the act, spoke more thrillingly to the heart than the trumpets of a thousand heralds.
“The crowd of diplomatists and senators in the rear of the columns made way, and the ex-President and Mr. Van Buren advanced with uncovered heads. A murmur of feeling rose up from the moving mass below, and the infirm old man, emerged from a sick chamber which his physician had thought it impossible he should leave, bowed to the people, and, still uncovered in the cold air, took his seat beneath the portico. Mr. Van Buren then advanced, and with a voice remarkably distinct, and with great dignity, read his address to the people.