Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/313

 I must, perforce, pass lightly over the details of our entertainment by Aslan and his charming daughters. We paid, of course, a visit to the local museum,—a spot, it may be mentioned, of world-wide fame. For there, under an immense dome of tinted ualin, stood, on its original foundation, the building consecrated by the memory of Washington. In spite of all care, the woodwork had begun to show signs of irreparable decay thousands of years before. But, by the suggestion and under the direction of a famous architect, facsimiles of ualin had been substituted for the more perishable material. The stonework, down to the smallest fragment, even the original mortar as far as possible, had been replaced with religious care in its former position, so as to preserve, for all time, an edifice consecrated by such memories.

A few miles off stood a monument of venerable antiquity, the third in succession, I was informed, it had been found necessary to raise there at intervals measured by chiliads. This marked the spot where the "Father of Liberty," as he was fondly styled by an admiring posterity, had risen to make that memorable address by which he quelled the treasonable murmurs of a, perhaps not unreasonably, dissatisfied soldiery.

"It was a crisis in which all turned on the character of one man," said Hulmar, as we turned away. "Fortunate it was for mankind, that man was Washington."