Page:Republican Court by Rufus Griswold.djvu/360

the steps of the edifice, upon the upper platform of which he paused, and, turning half round, looked in the direction of a carriage which had followed the lead of his own. Thus he stood for a minute, distinctly seen by every body. He stood in all his civic dignity and moral grandeur, erect, serene, majestic. His costume was a full suit of black velvet; his hair, in itself blanched by time, powdered to snowy whiteness, a dress sword at his side, and his hat held in his hand. Thus he stood in silence; and what moments those were! Throughout the dense crowd profound stillness reigned. Not a word was heard, not a breath. Palpitations took the place of sounds. It was a feeling infinitely beyond that which vents itself in shouts. Every heart was full. In vain would any tongue have spoken. All were gazing, in mute unutterable admiration. Every eye was riveted on that form — the greatest, purest, most exalted of mortals. It might have seemed as if he stood in that position to gratify the assembled thousands with a full view of the father of their country. Not so. He had paused for his secretary, then, I believe, Mr. Dandridge or Colonel Lear, who got out of the other carriage, a chariot, decorated like his own. The secretary, ascending the steps, handed him a paper — probably a copy of the speech he was to deliver — when both entered the building. Then it was, and not until then, that the crowd sent up huzzas, loud, long, earnest, enthusiastic."

Of the simple manners of Washington and his family we have an interesting account in the Travels of Mr. Henry Wansey, F. S. A., an English manufacturer, who breakfasted with them on the morning of the eighth of June, 1794. "I confess," he says, "I was struck with awe and veneration, when I recollected that I was now in the presence of the great Washington; the noble and wise benefactor of the world, as Mirabeau styles him. ... When we look down from this truly illustrious character, on other public servants, we