The child looked dretful impetuous and eager, and ready to start off any
minute, a good deal as our country does, and I presoom wherever the
child wuz a-startin' for it will git there.
A noble statute. Mr. Bitters did first rate.
But when I git started on pictures and statutes--I don't know where or
when to stop.
But time hastens, and to resoom.
As I reluctantly tore myself away from the glory and grandeur inside,
and passed through the buildin' to the outside, and a full view of the
Court of Honor busted on to our bewildered vision, I did--I actually
did feel weak as a cat.
Never agin--never agin will such a seen glow and grow before mine eyes,
till the streets of the New Jerusalem open before my vision.
Beyend that wide Plaza, that long basin of clear sparklin' water, dotted
all over its glowin' bosom with fairy-like gondolas, and gondolers,
dressed in all the colors of the rainbow, or picturesque launches, with
their gay freight of happy sightseers. And here and there, jest where
they wuz needed, to look the best, wuz statutes and banners and the most
gorgeous fountain that ever dripped water.
Then the broad flights of snowy marble steps risin' from the water to
the green flowery terraces, and then above them the magnificent white
wonders of the different buildin's.
And standin' up aginst the sky, and the blue waters of the lake, the
tall ivory columns of the Perestyle stood, like a immense beautiful
screen, to guard this White City of magic splendor.
And risin' from the blue waters of the Basin stands the grand figure of
the Republic, towerin' up a hundred feet high, lookin' jest as she ort
to look. Calm, stately, but knowin' in her heart jest what she had done,
and jest what she hadn't done, knowin' jest what she had to be proud
on, if she only let her mind run on't.
But there wuz no high-headedness, no tostin' of her neck. No, fair and
stately and serene as a dream Queen, she stood a fittin' centre for the
onspeakable beauty of her surroundin's.
It wuz all perfect, everything--no flaw in the perfect harmony of the
seen. No limit to its onapproachable beauty. Yes, the glory of that seen
as it bust onto my raptured vision will go with me through life, and
won't never be outdone and replaced by anything more perfect, till that
rapt hour when the mortal puts on immortality, and the glory that no eye
hath seen busts on my glorified vision.
And as we wended onwards and got still further views of the matchless
wonders of the Columbus World's Fair--wall, I gin in, and felt and said,
that I spozed I had had emotions all my life, and sights of 'em; why, I
have had 'em as high as from 70 to 80 a minute right along for a hour on
a stretch--sometimes when I have been rousted up about sunthin'.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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