I wander'd through the long and rich corridors
and apartments under the Senate; an old habit of mine, former winters,
and now more satisfaction than ever. Not many persons down there,
occasionally a flitting figure in the distance.
THE INAUGURATION
_March 4th._--The President very quietly rode down to the capitol in
his own carriage, by himself, on a sharp trot, about noon, either
because he wish'd to be on hand to sign bills, or to get rid of
marching in line with the absurd procession, the muslin temple of
liberty and pasteboard monitor. I saw him on his return, at three
o'clock, after the performance was over. He was in his plain two-horse
barouche, and look'd very much worn and tired; the lines, indeed, of
vast responsibilities, intricate questions, and demands of life and
death, cut deeper than ever upon his dark brown face; yet all the old
goodness, tenderness, sadness, and canny shrewdness, underneath the
furrows. (I never see that man without feeling that he is one to
become personally attach'd to, for his combination of purest,
heartiest tenderness, and native western form of manliness.) By his
side sat his little boy, of ten years. There were no soldiers, only
a lot of civilians on horseback, with huge yellow scarfs over their
shoulders, riding around the carriage. (At the inauguration four years
ago, he rode down and back again surrounded by a dense mass of arm'd
cavalrymen eight deep, with drawn sabres; and there were sharpshooters
station'd at every corner on the route.
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