I was informed that they were intended for this position; but they, on the other band, are too good for such a place, and are also too numerous. This set of statues is by Crawford. Most of them are well known, and they are very fine. They now stand within the old chamber of the Representative House, and the pity is that, if elevated to such a position as that indicated, they can never be really seen. There are models of them all at West Point, and some of them I have seen at other places in marble. The Historical Society, at New York, has one or two of them. In and about the front of the Capitol there are other efforts of sculpture--imposing in their size, and assuming, if not affecting, much in the attitudes chosen. Statuary at Washington runs too much on two subjects, which are repeated perhaps almost ad nauseam: one is that of a stiff, steady-looking, healthy, but ugly individual, with a square jaw and big jowl, which represents the great general; he does not prepossess the beholder, because he appears to be thoroughly ill natured. And the other represents a melancholy, weak figure without any hair, but often covered with feathers, and is intended to typify the red Indian. The red Indian is generally supposed to be receiving comfort; but it is manifest that he never enjoys the comfort ministered to him. There is a gigantic statue of Washington, by Greenough, out in the grounds in front of the building. The figure is seated and holding up one of its arms toward the city. There is about it a kind of weighty magnificence; but it is stiff, ungainly, and altogether without life.
But the front of the original building is certainly grand. The architect who designed it must have had skill, taste, and nobility of conception; but even this is spoiled, or rather wasted, by the fact that the front is made to look upon nothing, and is turned from the city. It is as though, the facade of the London Post-office had been made to face the Goldsmiths' Hall. The Capitol stands upon the side of a hill, the front occupying a much higher position than the back; consequently they who enter it from the back--and everybody does so enter it--are first called on to rise to the level of the lower floor by a stiff ascent of exterior steps, which are in no way grand or imposing, and then, having entered by a mean back door, are instantly obliged to ascend again by another flight--by stairs sufficiently appropriate to a back entrance, but altogether unfitted for the chief approach to such a building. It may, of course, be said that persons who are particular in such matters should go in at the front door and not at the back; but one must take these things as one finds them. The entrance by which the Capitol is approached is such as I have described. There are mean little brick chimneys at the left hand as one walks in, attached to modern bakeries, which have been constructed in the basement for the use of the soldiers;and there is on the other hand the road by which wagons find their way to the underground region with fuel, stationery, and other matters desired by Senators and Representatives, and at present by bakers also.
In speaking of the front I have spoken of it as it was originally designed and built. Since that period very heavy wings have been added to the pile--wings so heavy that they are or seem to be much larger than the original structure itself. This, to my thinking, has destroyed the symmetry of the whole. The wings, which in themselves are by no means devoid of beauty, are joined to the center by passages so narrow that from exterior points of view the light can be seen through them. This robs the mass of all oneness, of all entirety as a whole, and gives a scattered, straggling appearance, where there should be a look of massiveness and integrity. The dome also has been raised--a double drum having been given to it. This is unfinished, and should not therefore yet be judged; but I cannot think that the increased height will be an improvement. This, again, to my eyes, appears to be straggling rather than massive. At a distance it commands attention; and to one journeying through the desert places of the city gives that idea of Palmyra which I have before mentioned.
Nevertheless, and in spite of all that I have said, I have had pleasure in walking backward and forward, and through the grounds which lie before the eastern front of the Capitol. The space for the view is ample, and the thing to be seen has points which are very grand. If the Capitol were finished and all Washington were built around it, no man would say that the house in which Congress sat disgraced the city.
