Bartram, an eminent botanist of Philadelphia, was a close friend of Washington. In the rear of the mansion is a fine lawn comprising a number of acres, around which winds a carriage drive bordered by grand old trees.
We thought of the truthfulness of Mrs. Sangster's words as we gazed in admiration at these lovely trees:
"Who plants a tree for fruit or shade,
In orchard fair, on verdant slope;
Who plants a tree a tryst has made
With future years, in faith and hope."
When visiting the palace of King Louis XIV of France at Versailles and the hundreds of rooms that accommodated his courtiers and their servants, also the two large wings which housed The State Ministers and contained their offices, you are greatly impressed at the Herculean labor and immense cost such magnificence must have required. Here the best artists of his time, by long years of patient toil, and money in profusion, were employed on this glorification of a man.
Here was laid out a vast and beautiful garden, filled with noble statues and marble basins, that extended its geometrical alleys and lines of symmetrical trees to a park around which spread the magnificent forest. You see the room in which our great and illustrious Franklin stayed and marvel at the glorious Hall of Mirrors where the Peace Conference met. Yet you are glad to get out and contemplate that wonderful avenue of European elms whose straight round trunks, bearing innumerable branches which divide again and again, form glorious fountain-like crests of verdure.
But with what a different feeling you look upon the home of Washington. Here, too, visitors find in the wonderful trees a symbol of something serene, protective, sacred, so like the man who once walked beneath them.
"The dawn of great events in which Washington was to play such an important part began to blow on the eastern horizon of New England." From the ocean-bordered shores were faint streaks of light that ere long began to deepen into hues of a sanguine color that seemed to presage a tempest. At first the sound was like the faint lisping murmur of pines along the shore or the sobbing surf as it retreated from the charge it made; but ere long it broke forth in loud, angry tones like the wailing of branches on a stormy night or the booming breakers on the stern rocks of her rugged coast, until the dwellers of the interior heard the ominous sound and made ready to defend those inalienable rights of man, liberty and justice.
The aeolian melodies of freedom were heard by the Master of Mount Vernon as he walked beneath his liberty loving trees. It was not easy to leave a charming home where happiness and love reigned supreme; yet when the call, that echoed from far New England's rugged shores, rebounded from fair Virginia's hills Washington sacrificed all the pleasures of love and home on the altar of Freedom.
We admired the picturesque seed house with its ivy covered walls and dormer windows, quite as much as the mansion itself. This was built for the storing of seed and the implements of horticulture.
We next visited the stately mansion, whose plan as well as that for all improvements made, were drawn by Washington. "Convenience and desirability he sought in his home," and last but not least, location. The mansion is built of pine. It contains two stories and is ninety-six feet long and thirty feet wide, having a piazza that is supported by sixteen square columns which are twenty-five feet in height. The width of the piazza is fifteen feet, having a balustrade of pleasing design around it; and in the center of the roof is a circular observatory from which a wonderful view of the Potomac may be had. The roof contains several dormer windows. There are six rooms on the ground floor and on entering the passage way that leads from east to west through it you are at once impressed with its wainscoting and large worked cornices which present to the eye the appearance of great solidity. The parlor, library and breakfast room are on the south side of the hall; while to the north are the reception room, parlor, and drawing room. All of the rooms are what you would expect, "tasteful and charming, yet simple."