The mirror., 1922-06-29
INDEPENDENCE HALL

ing, rich in noble memories, yet touched
also with living sweetness; such is the
beautiful old State house in Philadelphia,
often referred to as independence hail.
And it stood here, and was even then
building of age and dignity, when Sir
Walter Scott said to Washington Irving
with a tolerant condescension which he
meant to be fattering, "The vast aborigi-
nal trees that have sheltered the Indians
before the intrusion of the white man, are
the monuments and antiquities of your
country" Scott was quite ignorant of the
fact that America had architecture; to
him, our country had merely trees, al
though this building and some other Amer
lean buildings, were richer in beauty and
in noble association than quite a number
of those in his own land of which he wrote
with such enthusiasm.
Scott was deeply impressed by the
thought of our illimitable forests. He
longed to see one, as Dickens longed to see
an American prairie. And had Scott come
over here, and had he seen not only for
est but this State house, his Imagination
would have been fired, and he might
have written a great novel about America
rich in details of the Revolutionary lea
ders, with the picturesque John Hancock,
in scarlet coat and cooked hat with black
cockade, entering this building to preside
at the signing of the Declaration. >.
The State house, independence Hail."
was planned in 1929 and completed, except
as to wing and tower, five years later;
quite old enough, one sees, to satisfy even
a Walter Scott But is must not be
thought that it is beautiful or interesting
principally on account of age. Age adds
to beautiful building the salt and SAVIOR
of time, the romantic patina, literal or
metaphorical that comes with the decades.
But this State house is beautiful in itself;
it was beautiful when it was young and
new; it will remain beautiful as long as
it stands, with its traditions growing more
interesting with time. After all, Phiadel-
phia was the largest and richest Colonial
city of Great Britain, and so it was ma
tural that a fine administration structure
should be built here. And it was put up
in the same period which saw the con-
structon of two other admirable state
houses, that of Boston (not the stately
pillared building of the present time, but
the delightful ancient state house), and
the charming State house of Annapolis. All
three are lessons in good taste, in positive
beauty. And the Philadelphia structure is
the finest of the three :. -.
alike in its mass effects and in its smallest
details, in the views of it from the exterior
or in rooms within. Its facade is exactly
centered, and similarly winged and ar
caded at right and left. 1t is beautiful
and it is balanced.
Seen from independence square, which
is a large open space, stone paved, with
intervening surfaces of grass and fair
sized trees, it is lowered building of
time mellowed brick, with white window
stones, with smallish pillared doorway be-
meath tower built outside the lines of
the main building, and, over this doorway,
a splendid Paladian window. Above are
cornicings, and a fetching, bulging, bow
fronted window, and above this clock
tower, square at the bottom and rising in
eight-sided diminutions to a six-sided mar
row pinace which is topped by trident
like weathervane of gilt.
Enter beneath the triple Paladian win
dow, with its heavy muntns, and pass
ing by the foot of the finest stairs in Amer
lea, you enter broad and brick-paved
central hail. and there comes the sense of
a glory of white, with touches of mahog-
any and darkish green.
The rooms are serenely beautiful; they
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