 | Randolph |  |
(CONTINUED.)
As this letter is the last, probably, that I shall
write in the form that you have directed, it would be a
pity to seal it, without the improvement, as they call the
application, or moral of a sermon, here, accompanying
it, like a subtilely distilled essence, with which you can
reanimate the earth that goes with it, whenever you
please.
The application, then, is,—is—really, I forget it
entirely; let me go back, for a moment—.
O—I have omitted, I see, to speak of several things
worthy of a traveller's notice in Baltimore. There is
the Exchange, the best contrived building, and, to my
taste, more entirely beautiful, of the kind, than any that
I have ever seen, except that at Berlin, (the new one, I
mean.) Yet, here is the same base, showy spirit, of
which I have before complained. It is plastered all over;
and this plaster is cunningly managed, by the application
of gray paint, to look like stone; nay, even the real
stone about it, is painted. Upon my word, I should
prefer the sober honesty of Dutch brick;—this is rouging,
with a vengeance. The publick authorities, and publick
edifices, paint and patch, and cheat; and how can they
have the face to scold the women for such things? Another
fault is, that, as you stand beneath the dome, you are
the pillars. They are massy—Dorick—and of beautiful
Italian marble, imported with their capitals; but they
rest upon the brick pavement. A slight expense would
remedy this. Let a few bricks be taken up, and a frame
of marble, of the same colour as the columns, be set in,
even with the pavement, and the sensation would never
return—at least to me; for, between ourselves, I shall,
probably, never see it again. Another fault, I discovered.
I am sure that it is one; the arch on the front side,
as you stand in the centre of the building, facing the
great entrance, goes beyond a semi-circle—and, unluckily,
begins to contract, before it unites with the pillars;
and then, it changes its direction. The sight was
painful to me—and mine is not an experienced eye.
There is a Medical College there, too, furnished, I am
told, with the best philosophical apparatus, in the country.
It may be so; but they are well supplied at Cambridge,
and in Philadelphia. However, there is one thing, at
which you will smile. At the Hospital, the students are
set to studying—not morbid anatomy—O, no—that
night shock and distress them—but dead people in wax
work—.[1]
There, Edward, I cannot go on—my travelling spirit
—my familiar has departed. Have I not caught the true
manner? Are not my decisions, just as off-hand and peremptory—my
tone, as pert and arrogant, as would befit a
publisher of travels. One of my countrymen, they say,
here; and, really, I am ready to believe it, for no one has
done justice to this noble, generous, boastful people,
was once making a book, at the rate of one hundred
miles a day. He came to a tavern. “Give me some bacon
and eggs,” said he. “We have none.” “What—no bacon
and eggs?” he repeated, whipped out his journal, and
entered “No pork this side of the Alleganies; bacon and
eggs, not to be had, for love or money.”
Farewell; once more, farewell---of one thing, only, I
can complain, in sincerity; and that is, of their too little
republican plainness, among this people. They have too
much deference for us; in fashion---opinion---literature
and the arts. This should not be. In literature, they are
particularly that of painting, they are, abundantly, our
superiours. And, in what others, have we a right to dispute?
What do we know of musick, or architecture, or
sculpture? Nothing---certainly, nothing of the latter,
and not more than they do, of the former.
Adieu, forever adieu, to journalising.
| Randolph | |