ge of French; I had finished the _AEneid_; I
had read the tragedies of Shakespeare and could repeat from them many
striking passages; I had read the histories of Abbott and the works of
Washington Irving and certain of the essays of Carlyle and Macaulay. My
best asset was not mental but spiritual, if I may be allowed to say it,
in all modesty, for, therein I claim no special advantage, saving,
possibly, an unusual strength of character in my aunt and uncle. Those
days the candles were lighting the best trails of knowledge all over the
land. Never has the general spirit of this republic been so high and
admirable as then and a little later. It was to speak, presently, in
the immortal voices of Whittier, Emerson, Whitman, Greeley and Lincoln.
The dim glow of the candles had entered their souls and out of them came
a light that filled the land and was seen of all men. What became of
this mighty spirit of democracy? My friend, it broke down and came near
its death in a long, demoralizing war which gave to our young men a
thorough four-year course in the ancient school of infamy.

The railroads on which we traveled from Utica, the great cities through
which we passed, were a wonder and an inspiration to me. I was awed by
the grandeur of Washington itself. I took lodgings with the Senator and
his wife.

"Now, Bart," said he, when we had arrived, "I'm going to turn you loose
here for a little while before I put harness on you. Go about for a week
or so and get the lay of the land and the feel of it. Mrs. Wright will
be your guide until the general situation has worked its way into your
consciousness."

It seemed to me that there was not room enough in my consciousness for
the great public buildings and the pictures and the statues and the vast
machinery of the government. Beauty and magnitude have a wonderful
effect when they spring fresh upon the vision of a youth out of the back
country. I sang of the look of them in my letters and soon I began to
think about them and imperfectly to understand them. They had their
epic, lyric and dramatic stages in my consciousness.

One afternoon we went to hear Senator Wright speak. He was to answer
Calhoun on a detail of the banking laws. The floor and galleries were
filled. With what emotion I saw him rise and begin his argument as all
ears bent to hear him! He aimed not at popular sentiments in highly
finished rhetoric, as did Webster, to be quoted in the school-books and
repeated o