Vice-President Wilson, without an atom of parliamentary experience, has already won the hearts and improved the manners of the Senate by simply giving attention to its debates. No matter how tiresome, he steadfastly looks and listens. The humblest speaker—seeing that he has one pair of eyes fixed upon him, one direct immovable point toward which he may direct his remarks—takes heart, and in spite of himself makes a better speech than would be possible were he beating a vacuum, and speaking to nobody in particular. Even his listening constituency and the next day’s _Globe_ is not such an incentive to present inspiration as two steadfast eyes and one pair of good listening ears. We leave the Senate Chamber by the western gallery. Here in the niche at the foot of the staircase, corresponding to Franklin’s on the opposite side, stands the noble figure of John Hancock. The stairs are of polished white marble and the painting above them leading to the gentlemen’s gallery of the Senate, in its setting of maroon cloth represents the battle of Chapultapec in all the ardor of its fiery action. We saunter on along the breezy corridors through whose open windows we catch delicious glimpses of the garden city, the gliding river and the distant hills, past the Supreme Court room into the great rotunda. [Illustration: THE SENATE CHAMBER. INSIDE THE CAPITOL.—WASHINGTON. ] The rotunda is ninety-five feet in diameter, three hundred feet in circumference and over one hundred and eighty feet in height. Its dome contains over eight millions eight hundred thousand pounds of iron, presenting the most finished specimen of iron architecture in the world. The panels of the rotunda are set with paintings of life-size, painted by Vanderlyn, Trumbull and others. The Declaration of Independence; the surrender of Burgoyne; surrender of the British Army, commanded by Lord Cornwallis, at Yorktown, Virginia, October 19, 1781; resignation of General Washington at Annapolis, December 23, 1783, all by Colonel Trumbull; the baptism of Pocahontas by Chapman; landing of Columbus by Vanderlyn; De Soto’s discovery of the Mississippi, by Powell. Like most works of genius these paintings have many merits and many defects. Perhaps the favorite of all is the Embarcation of the Pilgrims in the Speedwell at Delft Haven, by Robert W. Weir. Its figures and the fabrics of its costumes are wonderfully painted; so, too, is the face of the hoary Pilgrim who is giving thanks to God for their safe passage across stormy seas to the land of deliverance; but the enchantment of the picture is the face of Rose Standish. If I were a man, I would marry such a face out of all the faces on the earth, for the being which it represents. These eyes, blue as heaven and as true, would never fail you. No matter how low _you_ might fall, you could see only in them purity, faith, devotion, tenderness, and unutterable love—and all for you.