THE HOPE OF THE REPUBLIC
H. W. GRADY
I went to Washington the other day and I stood on the Capitol hill, and
my heart beat quick as I looked at the towering marble of my country's
Capitol, and a mist gathered in my eyes as I thought of its tremendous
significance, of the armies and the treasury, and the judges and the
President, and the Congress and the courts, and all that was gathered
there; and I felt that the sun in all its course could not look down on
a better sight than that majestic home of a Republic that had taught the
world its best lessons of liberty. And I felt that if honor and wisdom
and justice dwelt therein, the world would at last owe that great house,
in which the ark of the covenant of my country is lodged, its final
uplifting and its regeneration.
But a few days afterwards I went to visit a friend in the country, a
modest man, with a quiet country home. It was just a simple,
unpretentious house, set about with great trees and encircled in meadow
and field rich with the promise of harvest; the fragrance of the pink
and the hollyhock in the front yard was mingled with the aroma of the
orchard and the garden, and the resonant clucking of poultry and the hum
of bees.
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