Evening star., 1899-03-04
Lacks ReDOSe.

SoluelIluS VI SO-Oy, III tIe plTdSeOiOSy
of the small boy. But for every day of the
year the Library is the main spectacle, If
the large and never-ceasng drift of travel
straight toward its portals is a matter
from which to judge.
The Library building has been done in
type inside and outside SO many times that
it is an old story. But, after the Library
has been "done"-and it may well be
said that that marvelously beautiful in
terror cannot be done within the short
hour or so which the average sightseer be-
slows upon 1.-THE people who visit it are
in themselves worth the study of a good
half day. Not the students, delivers writ
ers, time passers who read in the Library;
these, too, have been written about until
they no longer preserve their sometimes
queer personalities in mystery; but the
throngs who know that when they strike
Washington they have got to have look
at the Library of Congress on its outside,
or else go back to their homes in odium.
StylishIy Dressed Women.
Women readers will be interested to know
that on such clear, beautiful days such
blessed Washington during the early days of
this week, the walks leading up to the Libra
ry entrance present probably the best oppor-
tunity to view variety in feminine costum-
ing to be seen in Washington, not excepting
F street when the population is on parade
there during the late afternoon. Out-of
town women, who own fine clothes and
know how to wear them, don't know much
about the daily parade on F street, but
they do know about the Library, and that
is where they exhibit their best. The writ
er hereof doesn't profess to know much
about the details of feminine costumes, but
he is bound to say that during the couple
of hours he spent one morning early this
week, summing himself and watching the
crowds making their way into the Library
building, he noticed what appeared to his
purely masculine, and therefore perhaps
untrustworthy vision, more handsome gar
ments, adorning more handsome women,
than-well, than few. The dreadfully new
clothes of the palpable brides are not here
meant; that is, not entirely. OF course,
however, they must be included. The chief
characteristic of the bridal travelling dress
es appeared to be they We're, besides being
painfully new (and rich) springy-designed
for warm, balmy weather when, as mat
ter of fact, there was a nip in the air that
made the handsome, warm garments of the
complaisant matrons look much more COM
Portable
The World and His Wife.
Nor are all the visitors who throng up the
Library steps done up in purple and fine
linen. The Library is granite cosmopolis.
and therefore it is for the whole world and
his wife. Following the throngs through
the beautiful corridors and passages of the
building, the characteristics of the visitors
the degree of enjoyment they get out of
life, the extent of their previous travel, and
SO on, may perhaps be gauged by their
relative use of Obs and Abs In general 1t
is more fun to follow a little party of plain
people who haven't (by their demeanor)
been everywhere on the earth and seen
everything, and who find everything they see
beautiful and pleasing. This thought is
led up to by the fact that there is such an
abundance of critics within the Library all
during the visiting hours-people who know
all about art in an ostentatious sort of way,
although they don't look it. 1t would be
difficult to conceive of a more dismal ex-
perience than that of getting behind a
bunch of four or five American men and
women who may or may not have made
their tour to Europe. and who find
the whole shooting match, namely the
whole Interior Of the Library simply howl
ing farce and laughing stock, in no wise
comparable with the palace in Brussels"
or the ?, smoky old beauty of the Holyrood
castle, etc., etc. For penance, The Star
man got behind four such wiseacres. two
men and two women, the other morning II
was not until then that he ascertained what
a cheap anair the interior of the Library
really Is. From their mannerisms. the pair
OF men appeared to be of the stage. and
they certainly knew heap.
The Know-It-AIIs.
bad fawm, I should say, the whole
thing, eh, Orlando?" said one of the men
to the other, nodding in the direction of
the charming allegorical representation of
the Arts of War;
Nawsty-chromoish." replied the other
In sadly awry imitat ton of an English &C.
cent. Looks like what gyurl In board
Ing school. v knaw. might do on china
ware, don't you think" and he adjusted his
monocle and examined the picture with dis
dain. To be entirely just, 1t did appear as
If the two women accompanying the men
did rot concur in these views, and there
were two or three occasions during the pro-
gress of the tour through the building when
1t looked as If both of them ached to ele-
vate their eyes In the appealing feminine
fashion and exclaim, isn't that just too
bee-yu-ti-ful for anything in this worldi"
But neither of them did
A funny thing happened when these two