File:Homes of American statesmen- (1854) (14590881289).jpg

Identifier: homesofamericans01duke (find matches)
Title: Homes of American statesmen:
Year: 1854 (1850s)
Authors: Duke University. Library. Jantz Collection. German Americana
Subjects: Statesmen Historic buildings
Publisher: New York, G. P. Putnam and co. London, S. Low, son and co.
Contributing Library: Duke University Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Duke University Libraries

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ually have sent the shaft, and to themark, too, or we sneer at the attitude of triumph. If weerect a statue, no robe is confessed to be proper drapery butthe soiled and threadbare one of every-day life and toil. Noillusion—no poetry ! is the American maxim of our time.Bald, staring, naked literality for us ! He is the true philo-sopher who can Peep and botanizeUpon his mothers grave if the flowers required by science happen to grow there. All this may be very wise and knowing, yet as long as themachine called man has something within it which is not ex-actly a subject for mathematical measurement, there willremain some little doubt of the expediency of thus strippinglife of its poetry, and bringing all that is inspiring to the testof line and plummet. Just now, however, there is no hearingfor any argument on this side. What shall we think, then, of a character which, in asingle half century, has begun, even among us, to wear some-thing of a mythical splendor ? What must the man have
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Graenoujbs Statue of Washington WASHINGTON. 7 been, whom an age like this deliberately deifies ? Who butWashington has, in any age, secured for himself such a r>lacein the universal esteem and reverence of his countrymen, thatsimple description of him is all that can be tolerated, the pub-lic sense of his merits being such as makes praise impertinent,and blame impious ? Washington ! It were almost enough to grace our pageand our volume with this honored and beloved name. Thecommentary upon it is written in every heart. It is true themost anxious curiosity has been able to find but a small partof what it would fain know of the first man of all the earth,yet no doubt remains as to what he was, in every relation oflife. The minutiae may not be full, but the outline, in whichresides the expression, is perfect. It were too curious to in-quire how much of Washington would have been lost had therural life of which he was so fond, bounded his field of action.Providence made the stage ready

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