212

BATTLE FLAG CORNER, BUCKINGHAM STATUE AND PUTNAM STONE.

THE SOUTH CORRIDOR.

214

The interest of all visitors naturally centers in the dome, from the time its first glitter is seen, perhaps from miles away, until the 212 steps from the elevator landing, or 275 from the ground floor, have been climbed and the magnificent view of the country for fifty miles in extent is spread before them. The dome is constructed of marble, like the rest of the building, is richly adorned with arcades, columns and galleries, and its area of 4,100 square feet was covered at time of building with 87,500 leaves of gold, 23 karets fine. In 1894 it was regilded. At each angle of its twelve sides is placed

a female figure, representing Force, Art,
Law, Commerce, Science and Agriculture,
One-half size models, ex-
two each.
quisitely graceful, are standing at the en-
trances of the gallery to the House on the
third floor. The large figure representing
the Genius of Connecticut surmounts the
cupola and holds two wreaths, one of
immortelles and one of laurel, and on its
head a crown of oak leaves.

May the influence of our tutelary Genius be for the good of the commonwealth, whose inhabitants show a just appreciation of their State Capitol.

The paragraph reproduced below, is taken from the editorial sheet of one of the great London Dailies; the subjoined paragraph to which it relates, appeared last year, in an American newspaper.

That

It

"IN one of his most tender and profound passages Lord Tennyson puts a question which has been asked, without any certain answer, in many a place and by many a generation: 'Of love,' he writes, which never found its earthly close, What sequel? streaming eyes and broken hearts? And all the same as if it had not been?' pathetic query of the poet, comes irresistibly to mind on reading the subjoined simple, but striking, paragraph in the columns of an American newspaper. Miss Lucinda Day died to-day at the age of ninety, in a quaint runs as follows: little brick house, where she had lived all her life. Seventy years ago Miss Day had a Her lover was a sailor, and on his departure for a voyage Miss Day love affair. promised to place every night a lighted candle in the window to greet him if he returned in the night. He has never since been heard from, but Miss Day has always refused to believe him dead. To-night was the first time for seventy years that a candle had not shone in the window.""

216

Apart from these, a slender, earnest girl
Stood with a proud, young sailor, silently,
Until a scattering in the little group-
An ominous hush, like prelude to a storm,
Warned them to part. And then she held her lips,
Sweet, trembling lips, to meet his lingering kiss,
Her fair cheek flushing like a rosy shell :-
"Yea, I will light the candle every night,
And put it in the casement till you come."
And he, seeing her eyes suffused for him,
The while she bravely struggled with a smile,
Leapt up the plank, and from the outbound deck
Looked back to see her kerchief's mute farewell,
And wave in answer, thinking how his eyes
Should strain to pierce the fog-bank and the dark,
And glimpse, beyond the waste of lapping seas,
Her beacon candle, flashing out its sign
Of happy welcome to her gentle arms.

That night a month, a ship in deadly plight,
Tortured from all old semblance of herself,
Trapped in the pitiless mountains of the sea,
And scourged by all the howling winds of heaven,
Turned like a harried, death-stricken wolf at bay,
And with one shudder of her hulk, went down,
Disgorging all her pallid, hapless crew
Into the boiling whirlpool of the deep.
One, with the lithe, clean sinews of his youth,
Made superhuman effort for his life;
Battling and praying with the merciless wave,
Clung to the futile plank that bore him still,
And felt his great heart bursting with the thought
Of home and peace, and raved to think of one

Who set a nightly beacon for her love.

Then the man's soul sent up so great a cry

It pierced the very tumult of the night;

But last he smiled, and 'twas the blessed thought

Of his dear maiden's trustful, radiant face,

That set such beauty on his carven lips.