Page:The Ladies of the White House.djvu/733

Rh hand Jefferson holds a scroll of die Declaration of Independence, and in his right hand a pen, as though he had just finished that immortal instrument, and was anticipating the glorious results of its influence; the terror it would strike among the foes of freedom; the strength with which it would nerve the patriot's heart; the bitter opposition which it would meet with from some; the joy with which it would be hailed by more; and, if adopted, the high destinies which awaited Young America.

It now occupies an eligible position, and will long stand in honor alike of the great man it so faithfully represents, and of the noble spirit of patriotism that secured and presented it to the nation. It formerly stood in the Rotunda of the Capitol.

The Presidents' House, during Mr. Jefferson's administration, stood unenclosed, on a piece of waste and barren ground, separated from the Capitol by an almost impassable marsh. That building was not half completed, and standing as it did amidst the rough masses of stone and other materials collected for its construction, and half-hidden by the venerable oaks that still shaded their native soil, looked more like a ruin in the midst of its fallen fragments and coeval shades, than a new and rising edifice. The silence and solitude of the surrounding space were calculated to enforce this idea, for beyond the Capitol hill as far as the eye could reach, the city, as it was called, lay in a state of nature, covered with thick groves and forest-trees, wide and level