et, to his splendid mansion at Providence, or the Club House of the
Secretary of State, to his place at Auburn. Washington has power, but it
cannot attract. It is the solitary monarch, at whose feet all kneel, but
by none beloved. Strangers repair to it, grow rich, and quit it with
their earnings. Government works nobly to imitate the Palaces of the
Caesars, and the public edifices leave our municipal structures far
beneath, but these marble and granite piles seem to mock the littleness
of individual ambition. Two hotels have been built during the war, both
of the caravansary class, but the city, for four years, has been
miserably incompetent to entertain its guests, or to command their
respect.

Washington, to be a city, lacks three elements--commerce,
representation, health; the environs are picturesque, and the new forts
on the hill-tops little injure the landscape.

But the question is not premature, whether Washington city will ever
answer the purposes of a stable seat of government, and reflect the
enterprise, patriotism, and taste of the American people.

I have sometimes thought that these huge public buildings,--now
inadequate to accommodate the machinery of the Government,--would, at
some future day, be the nucleus of a great _lycee_, and that Washington
would become the Padua of the Republic, its University and Louvre, while
legislation and administration, despairing of giving dignity to the
place, would depart for a more congenial locality.

At any rate, the old Federal theory of a sylvan seat of government has
failed.

For a sequestered and virtuous retreat of legislation, we have
corruption augmented by dirt, and business stagnation aggravated by
disease. There are virtues in the town; but these must be searched for,
and the vices are obvious.

CHAPTER XXIX.

FIVE FORKS.

I commence my account on the battle-field, but must soon make the long
and lonely ride to Humphrey's Station, where I shall continue it.

I am sitting by Sheridan's camp-fire, on the spot he has just signalized
by the most individual and complete victory of the war. All his veterans
are around him, stooping by knots over the bright fagots, to talk
together, or stretched upon the leaves of the forest, asleep, with the
stains of powder yet upon their faces. There are dark masses of horses
blackened into the gray background, and ambulances are creaking to and
fro. I hear the sobs and howls of the weary, and note, afar off,