The Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1837-1867, 1862-03-14

Ol. OOHNODOD n
matter which party tells the truth, while we
have the result in this tawdry, elemental, yet
egregiously ambitious city; ambitious in its
plans, but oh, how modest in its ful6llments.
If half of its visions had become realities, it
would now be one of the most beautiful cit
les of the world Its broad avenues are To-
Gated to correspond, and are named after the
different states of the Union. How grandly
broad they are !. But the fountained parks,
the equestrian, historic, itinery, naval COL
umns and statues, which were to have ad-
orned them-where are they? The capitol
grounds, beautiful but meagre, were to have
been enlarged. The dear old domiciles of
Capitol Hill were to have been swept away,
while the nations park, in sunny verdure
and outrageous aisles, reached away to the
Potomac. A superb avenue, four hundred
feet in breadth, was to run from the capitol
to the Washington monument; magnif-
cent drive bordered with shade trees and
gardens, lined with the palaces of the heads
of departments and foreign ministers, and
connecting with the park of the president in
imitation of the imperial garden between the
chamber of deputies and the Tuilleries in
Paris. Where is the grand national garden
of plants? Where the sublime national
Washington monument, that august panthe-
on of the nation, that was to be, with its
Egyptian obelisk six hundred feet in hight,
its D oric colonnade, its marbles from every
state,its colossal Washington,t thirty feet nigh,
in chariot driven by Victory9 Robert c.
Winthrop, at the laying of its corner stone,
exclaimed :-"Build it to the Skies" We
would be satisfied if it stood considerably
short OF them, if it lifted less naked and
less ugly looking shaft above the waters of
the Potomac, or if there was any prospect of
its ever being finished.
Instead of the fulfllment of these national
visions, we have the reality of broad, treeless,
dirty streets, lined with wretched or inditfer-
ent houses. Here and there quaint, COM
monplace, ancient abode suggests the rare
idea of Washington home; while, wedged
in among their shabby neighbors, hap haz-
ard, whenever they can stand, the mansion
of senator, or the residence of a minister
or mayhap of a wealthy citizen, looks down
lonesome and disdainful. The public build
ings stand apart in grand abstraction. In
tneir conception and execution, as far as they
are completed, they are worthy of any nation
Scarcely one is finished. Nothing in Wash
ington is finished it is all suggestion; it il
an abstraction-the most ditfusive, elusive
and intangible of cities, | might walk it:
s.rsasf-lt atmosphere the CONSCIOUSNESS 'i'
of sweet, healthful, happy home-lfe
o should know by the very face of It's streets
that 1t is one of the worlds stopping places
where strangers congregate for pleasure
power and gain. Its very air would repe
me with the antagon isms of colliding inter
ests and political strifes
f Yet know that it has home-like life ut
= terly its own. have met it in the shapes O
!, brocaded dowagers, lofty with the conscious
ness of old descent and imposing manners
= who nevertheless say "yer" instead of "here,
: and whose pronunciation betrays strang
affiliatlon with negro accent. These repre-
sentatives of Washington home-life frowl
at the word administration, and look th
t bitterness which they dare not utter, whel
:. they hear anything about crushing secession
: They take infinite pains to have it under
!. stood that their society is entirely made VI
t of the sold families y that they had little t
Il do with the transient population,' ant
: nothing now that it is entirely composed OF
a Yankees. | have met this home-life in tn
/ forms of negroes, comfortably clad, some
i times not-slaves as ignorant of their desti
f ny as immortal creatures as the soulles
n brute. catch gimpses of it in the graceful
= girls with long robes and floating plume,
e dashing down the Avenue on horseback
/ with their black footmen riding at respect
r. full distance behind them; see its effects il
=, young girls with transparent hands, and fail
IS dyspeptic faces, just tinged with green, VIII
!. read Byron and Bul@er in heated and dark
J. ened rooms, through the brief days whic
$ should be filled with the bright endeavor, tn
If music the sunshine of youth. This home
v life is just as much abstracted to me a
l Washington ITSELF If l were to live tvent
d thousand lives, it would never be "life" t
O me.
l forgot, Republican, that we were goiny
is to walk. We may as well start at the Whit
d House. The west end holds nothing beyon
6 to look at, unless it is the equestrian statu
:, of Jackson, whose horses tail looks as if
j. were being twisted off in the gale, and as
g Jackson and all were blowing away. Tn
o executive mansion was commenced in 179:
10 and modelled after the palace of the duke G