This
solemn fane we were permitted to enter only on convincing the porter
that we were not ministers of religion--an easy enough task for Mr.
Newton, who wears with grace the natural abandon of a Voltairean, but a
difficult one for me. Why Stephen Girard, the worthy "merchant and
mariner" who endowed this institution, was so suspicious of the cloth,
no matter what its cut, I do not know; no doubt he had his reasons; but
his prejudices are faithfully respected by his janitor, whose eye is a
very gimlet of suspicion. However, we got in and saw the
philanthropist's tomb and his household effects behind those massive
columns.
That evening I spent in Mr. Newton's library among Blake and Lamb and
Johnson autographs and MSS., breaking the Tenth Commandment with a
recklessness that would have satisfied and delighted Stephen Girard's
gatekeeper; and the next day we were off to Valley Forge to see with
what imaginative thoughtfulness the Government has been transforming
Washington's camp into a national park and restoring the old landmarks.
It was a fine spring day and the woods were flecked with the white and
pink blossoms of the dogwood--a tree which in England is only an
inconspicuous hedgerow bush but here has both charm and importance and
some of the unexpectedness of a tropical growth. I wish we could
acclimatise it.
The memorial chapel now in course of completion on one of the Valley
Forge eminences seemed to me a very admirable example not only of modern
Gothic but of votive piety.
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