Phidias created the Parthenon. Beneath his eyes it slowly blossomed, the consummated flower of Hellenic art. It has never been granted to another one man to create a perfect building which should be at once the marvel and the model of all time. Many architects have wrought upon the American Capitol, and there are discrepancies in its proportions wherein we trace the conflict of their opposing idiosyncrasies. We see places where their contending tastes met and did not mingle, where the harmony and sublimity which each sought was lost. We see frescoed fancies and gilded traceries which tell no story; we see paintings which mean nothing but glare. But a human interest attaches itself to every form of noble building. Its very defects the more endear it to us, for, above all else, these are human. We love our Capitol, not that it is perfect, but because, being faulty, it still is great, and worthy of our reverence. Its wondrous possibilities, its inadequate fulfilment, its very incompleteness, but make it nearer kin to ourselves. Like the friend tantalizingly and delightfully faulty, its many shaded humanity is full of varied charm. It has all the secret ways of a profound nature. We fancy that we know it altogether, that we could never be lost in its labyrinths; yet we are constantly finding passages that we dreamed not of, and confronting shut and silent doors which we may not enter. But the deeper we penetrate into its recesses, the more positively we are pervaded by its nobleness, and the more conscious we become of its magnitude and its magnificence. No matter how we condemn certain proportions of the Capitol, it grows upon the soul and imagination more and more, as does every great object in art or nature. Beside, the Capitol is vastly more than an object of mere personal attachment to be measured by a narrow individual standard. To every American citizen it is the majestic symbol of the majesty of his land. You may be lowly and poor. You may not own the cottage which shelters you, nor the scanty acres which you till. Your power may not cross your own door-step; yet these historic statues and paintings, these marble corridors, these soaring walls, this mighty dome, are yours. The highest man in the nation owns nothing here which does not belong equally to you. The Goddess of Liberty, gazing down from her shield, bestows no right upon the lofty which she does not extend equally to the lowliest of her sons.