“Very well,” answered Dorothy. “Do you want your black wrap? I will get it. You sit here.”
“Yes, dear. The black one,” answered Aunt Betty, seating herself and waiting for Dorothy to return.
“Come Alfy,” called Dorothy, and the girls quickly disappeared down the long, brilliantly lighted corridor which was crowded with guests. They were gone but a few moments and returned with their wraps securely fastened and carrying Aunt Betty’s.
“Let me help you into it,” said a cheery voice behind them. Turning, they saw, much to their surprise, Mr. Dauntrey.
“Come with me. I have already secured a taxi, and it will just hold four. The others can follow.”
He took Mrs. Calvert’s arm and gallantly helped her into the taxicab, then Dorothy, and then Alfaretta, each with the same niceness of manner. He then quickly got in himself, taking the one vacant seat beside Dorothy. He closed the door and off they started.
The entrances to the library are in the front, facing the Capitol. A grand staircase leads up to the doorways of the central pavilion, giving access to the main floor. Up this staircase the quartette slowly climbed.
“Just look!” exclaimed Dorothy, when they had reached the top. “Just look around. See all the lights of the Capitol over there. Isn’t it all very beautiful?”
“And look down at the fountain!” cried Alfy. “See how the sea-creatures are blowing water from their mouths, and in the centre ‘Apollo.’”
“No, if I may correct you, that is Neptune,” said Mr. Dauntrey. “I have a guide book here. It is freely placed at your disposal, ladies.”
“I think every one that visits the Capitol should have a guide book,” said Aunt Betty. “It adds immeasurably to one’s pleasure. I have an old one at the hotel, and I have been looking it over. I read it through the last time I was here, not so many years ago. I do not recall the publisher’s name.”
“The one I have here is Rand, McNally Company’s,” said Mr. Dauntrey.
“And so was mine, I remember now, and it was fine, too,” replied Aunt Betty.
“Although that is not Apollo,” said Mr. Dauntrey, “your mention of the name reminds me of a western politician who once visited here. He had great wealth, but little education, and when someone in his presence spoke of a statue of Apollo, he said, ‘Oh, yes, I have one on my parlor mantle. On one end I have Apollo, and on the other, Appolinaris.’”
“An amusing anecdote, and I don’t doubt a real one,” said Aunt Betty, laughing with the others, “but isn’t that a wonderful old fountain? See the beautiful effects produced by the water as it is thrown in cross lines from all those miniature turtles, sea serpents and what not, that are supposed to populate ocean and stream.”
They stepped up the last tread and entered a long corridor, stretching along the front and forming an exaggerated vestibule. They gazed between piers of Italian marble supporting arches, an entrancing vista. In heavy brackets they noted pairs of figures, advanced somewhat from the walls, “Minerva in War,” armed with sword and torch, and “Minerva in Peace,” equipped with scroll and globe.
Before these, greatly admiring them, the girls stood, and Mrs. Calvert said, “Dorothy, those are the most admired ornaments in the whole building, but you can see them again as you pass out. Come, let’s go inside.”
“Yes, if you enjoy great art, Miss Dorothy,” spoke up Mr. Dauntrey, “I will be pleased to personally conduct you through the Art Museum. Art, too, is my one hobby. To be happy I must always have the beautiful, always the beautiful.”
Passing on through the screen of arches, they entered the main hall, in the centre of which ran a magnificent stairway leading to the second floor and rotunda gallery.
“Oh!” gasped Alfaretta. “Isn’t the floor lovely? All little colored marbles. I hate to step on it. What is that brass disk for?”
“Those little pieces of colored marbles are the essential materials for mosaic work, and the brass rayed disk is to show the points of the compass,” said Mr. Dauntrey, kindly looking at the girl with an amused expression.
“Look!” cried Dorothy, “over that way, way far back. See the carved figures?”
“Yes,” answered Aunt Betty. “The one thing the arch typifies is study. The youth eager to learn and the aged man contemplating the fruits of knowledge. It is a very famous group. I have a postcard picture of it that a relative sent me and I always remembered and liked it.”
“Here is something I always thought was interesting, on this side,” said Mr. Dauntrey, leading them to the other side of the hall. “These two boys sitting beside the map of Africa and America. The one in the feathered head-dress and other accoutrements represents the original inhabitants of our country, the American Indian, the other, showing the lack of dress and the war equipment of the ignorant African. Then those two opposite, the one typifying the Mongolian tribes of Asia, the other in classic gown, surrounded by types of civilization indicating the pre-eminence of the Caucasian race in all things, such, for instance, as your chosen profession, music.”
“That would be a good way to study geography,” said Alfy. “Then you would hardly ever fail if you had those interesting figures to look at.”
Aunt Betty then called their attention to the ceiling which was elaborately ornamented with carvings and stucco work with symbols of arts and sciences. The southern walls were full of rare and beautiful paintings, the most striking of these being, “Lyric Poetry,” painted by Walker. It represents Lyric Poetry in an encompassing forest, striking a lyre and surrounded by Pathos, Beauty, Truth, Devotion, and playful Mirth.
The east end of this hall which looks out on the reading rooms is reserved for Senators and members of the House of Representatives. It is decorated in subjects chosen from Greek mythology.
“Come in here,” said Dorothy, entering the periodical or public reading room. “See here, any one, no matter where he is from, can find one of his home papers.”
“Can any one stay here and read anything they want, and as long as they want?” inquired Alfy.
“Yes. It is free to anyone,” answered Mrs. Calvert.
Next they passed into an exhibition hall, where in cases of glass made like a table they saw a great number of rare and curious books representing the beginning time of printing and bookmaking. There were a great many early printed Bibles and specimens of famous special editions of Bibles. Some of them, so they learned, dated back to the fifteenth century and were of much value on account of their rarity. One table in this room especially interested Dorothy. It contained manuscripts, autographs and curious prints relating to the history of our United States.
The print room interested Alfy greatly. This room is devoted to an extensive exhibit of the art of making pictures mechanically. Here are a great series of prints illustrating the development of lithography, and the processes a lithograph goes through whether printed in one or in varied color. Also here are examples of every sort of engraving upon wood, copper and steel. About the walls hang examples of etchings and engravings.
They then entered the Rotunda Galleries. They paused for a moment to look at two paintings there, one of Joy and the other of Sadness.
“I like Joy the best by far,” exclaimed Alfy. Joy, here, was represented by a light-haired, cheerful woman, amid flowers and happy in the sunshine. She went nearer the picture and read out loud the beautiful words of Milton’s famous “L’Allegro.”
“Come thou goddess, fair and free,
In Heaven ycleped Euphroysine,
And by men, heart-easing Mirth.
Haste thee nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful jollity,
Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek.”
“I learned most of that poem by heart when I went to school at Oak Knowe,” said Dorothy.
“Indeed, and so did I,” answered Mr. Dauntrey, “at school but not at Oak Knowe,” he laughed. “But my favorite was the other poem, ‘Il Penserose.’”
“The other picture represents that,” said Mrs. Calvert.
“Listen while I recite to you the lines that inspired that picture,” said Mr. Dauntrey, and in a wonderful voice he brought out each shade of meaning:
“Hail, thou goddess, sage and holy!
Hail, divinest Melancholy!
Come; but keep thy wonted state,
With even step and musing gait,
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in their eyes,
There held in holy passion still
Forget thyself to marble…”
The stack rooms or apartments where the books are kept open out on each side of the rotunda. The cases rise way up to the roof and are filled with adjustable shelves. There are decks at intervals of every few feet from top to bottom by which the attendants reach the books.
Each of these stacks will hold eight hundred thousand books, and although they may be consulted by any one, very few are ever lost, for only members of Congress and about thirty other officials can take books out of the library.