Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/193

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built to commemorate heroes that were then unborn. In what was once the wilderness of "magnificent distances" are the palatial houses in brick and granite of men and women celebrated in letters, in art and in public life. In the galleries of the Capitol will be found the portraits and memorials of America's illustrious dead. In the State Department is to be seen the faded original of the Declaration of Independence.

The city that Washington founded has become one of venerable memories and matchless triumphs.

From the "Rome" of Francis Pope the visitor looks down Pennsylvania Avenue, the Via Sacra of the new world, whereon the men most illustrious in the annals of the Republic have walked and ridden to their public offices, and along whose historic thoroughfares the heroes of great wars have enjoyed their triumphs. Here Lafayette was received with joyous welcome when, in 1824, he returned to measure the majestic growth of the Republic during the fifty years that had passed since he and Washington were comrades in the fight for freedom. As, standing on the superb terraces on the west front of the Capitol, one views the