Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/74

Rh merely by its “yes” or “no.” Such an assembly is in its operation a grand dramatic scene, and there sometimes occur in it scenes and episodes of much more vital effect, than many a one which we witness on the stage.

Some such, at which I have been present here, I will mention to you. But first a word about the scene itself, that is to say, the Senate, because it has an especial interest for me, inasmuch as all the senators represent States, and the characteristic and poetic features of these present themselves to my imagination, in picturesque groups, in the men who represent them. Each State in the Union sends two senators to Congress. These stand up in the Senate and are addressed not as Mr. this or that, but as the Senator of Kentucky, or Massachusetts, or Mississippi, or Louisiana, and so on; and I then immediately see before me an image of Kentucky, or Massachusetts, or Mississippi, or Louisiana, according to what I know of the life and temperament of the States, as well in spirit as in natural scenery, even though the human representative may not answer to it; and the whole fashion and form of this hemisphere stands before me like a great drama, in which Massachusetts and Louisiana, Carolina and Pennsylvania, Ohio and Alabama, and many others, are acting powers with definite individuality. Individuality is again supplied by the surname, which chance, or the humour of the people, have given to some of the States, and according to which it would be easy to christen all. Thus I behold here the Emperor-State (New York), the Granite State (New Hampshire); the Key-stone State (Pennsylvania); the Wolverines (Michigan); and many other tilt and combat with the Giant State (Kentucky); with the Palmetto State (Carolina); the French State (Louisiana), and so on. And the warfare that goes on about the Gold State called also the Pacific State (California), calls forth all those marked features and circumstances which distinguish and