Page:Letters of Life.djvu/103

Rh of wondering gratitude. Whatever of interest could be found in our walks or rides, was carefully shown me. Hartford had then but about five thousand inhabitants, and though unable to boast of the edifices now so imposing, displayed the nucleus of a fair and prosperous city. I was taken to the Museum, where I gazed at coarse pictures and stiff wax figures, and relics without end. I took it upon me vastly to admire the antique State House, and thus endorse my impressions in my unsophisticated journal:

"The State House is a most elegant building of brick, with a lofty portico, commanding from its second story a grand prospect of the town, with its numerous abodes, its fertile back country, and the river with its shipping. The pavement, in diamond-shaped pieces of white and chocolate-colored marble, is fine, and the Council-chamber so large that we were as pigmies in it. There are the seats for the Governor and Council, but what most riveted my attention was a portrait of Washington rather larger than life, in a splendid frame, surrounded with curtains and festoons of crimson satin. The dignity and affability of that countenance I have never seen equalled. I felt as in the presence of a superior being. On retiring at night I was extremely well satisfied with my explorations during the day."

Those citizens who see this edifice as it now is, adorned by ranks of noble trees and a magnificent fountain; and are yet clamoring for another, better