or from Ohio. One of the great geniuses of the age,
and one of the finest fellows that ever breathed."

"Do you know him?" says I.

"Yes," says he. "I got acquainted with him in Florence, years ago, when
Elizabeth and I went to Europe on our wedding trip. He was then a rising
man, hard at work on the art that he has since done much to ennoble. I
am glad to see his great genius embodied here, where it will live as
long as the marble on the walls. The country has honored itself in this
almost as much as it has disgraced itself in placing some of the vilest
attempts that ever parodied art in conspicuous places here."

Cousin Dempster's face turned red as he spoke--red with shame, I could
see.

"It is enough to make an American, who understands what real art is,
ashamed of his country," says he.

"But what do they do it for?" says I.

"Because two-thirds of the members sent here do not know a picture from
a handsaw! but impudence can persuade, and ignorance can vote. Why, I
once heard a Member of Congress speak of the statues in the Vatican as
coarse and clumsy compared with the attempts of a female woman who could
not, out of her own talent, have moulded an apple-dumpling into
roundness."

Cousin Dempster had got into dead earnest now. He knew what he was
talking about, and I couldn't help feeling for him.

"Some day, Cousin Phoemie," says he, "I will take you round and show
you the abominations which have been set up in this building--a disgrace
both to the taste and integrity of the nation. You will understand the
impudent pretension for which our people have been taxed in order that
the National Capitol may be made a laughing-stock for foreigners, and
those Americans who are compelled to blush for what they cannot help."

"Cousin Dempster," says I, "why don't the press take these things up and
expose them?"

"That is exactly what I want," says he. "It is for that very purpose I
want you to go around among these distorted marbles and things. Your
Reports may do some good."

"But I don't quite understand them myself," says I, blushing a little.

"Trust genius to discover genius," says he. "You could not fail to see
faults or merits where they existed. All the arts are kindred. Poetry,
painting, sculpture, go hand-in-hand. You understood the beauty that
lies in these doors at a glance."

"One must be blind not to see that," says I.

"Of course; well, cousin, we will give a day to these things before we
go