“ Suffice it to say here, that readers and frequenters of the Library who are surrounded with such architectural and artistic attractions, will find rich suggestions on every hand, as they pursue their several aims. What more inspiring adjuncts to study or contemplation can exist than the sumptuous marble arches, the statues of illustrious authors, the graphic paintings and sculptured emblems illustrative of science, literature, and art, and the many inscriptions drawn from the writings of the great scholars of the world? ”

“ Age seems to have dimmed them. There is a patina of green rust upon the ivory ceiling, the tender touch of time upon the owls and lamps, that hints at the antiquity of thought. Compare with this the robustness of the design of the ceiling in the Pavilion of the Seals. The first impression is of a turbulence of gorgeous clouds veiled in a golden haze. Gradually the details of form and color grow, and we discover an elaborate harmony in which the great Seal of the United States and the American flag, are predominating features. ”

“ Above them, the Unattainable Ideal, a figure holding aloft in mockery the palm branch of complete achievement, rides through the air on a great winged horse. In front is Fame, grasping the horse’s bridle with one hand, and turning to those below to sound a derisive note on her trumpet. The figures on the mountain top are involved in a scene of mad confusion; some for the moment are distracted by crime or lust, or cynical contempt, but most reach out their arms in ineffectual eagerness to attain the glorious vision above them. ”

“ To this wreath of form the artist has imparted a suffused bloom, tenderly iridescent; giving quiet distinction to each figure and a satisfying harmony to the whole composition. His intellectuality reveals itself, not only in the technical solution of his problem, but also in the depth and comprehensiveness with which he has interpreted his theme. It matters not which figures one selects; all are beautiful and richly suggestive. Compare the representation of Religion and of Philosophy; the yearning of the one for outside strength and light with the calm, passionless scrutiny of the other ”

“ The geniuses at the ends of the decoration are dancing for jollity. The background is a smiling and luxuriant summer landscape, the fruits of which, the peach, the plum, the pear, the grape and the rest, are displayed in the great garlands which the central figure holds up with outstretched arms. The bronze columns support baskets of fruit, and on the accompanying standards are perched magnificent peacocks. The border of the decoration includes masks, urns and lions, the last emblematic of the subject of the decoration. ”

“ As the only Government library of comprehensive range, every year of its existence should be marked by incessant progress toward completeness in every department. In the new and splendid home for the Nation’s books provided by the far-sighted liberality of Congress, readers whose pursuits are endlessly varied should be assured of finding the best literature of all lands. It is a fact pregnant with meaning that the nations which possess the most extensive libraries maintain the foremost rank in civilization. ”

“ The spectator’s mind is not bewildered by a jumble of elaboration, but passes quietly from one impression to another. On entering the Entrance Hall, for instance, marble is beneath our feet and on all sides of us. The impression is instantaneous, irresistible, and entirely undistracted. In the adjoining halls, the prevailing theme is varied by the colors of the marble mosaic vaults, which assert their own beauty at the same time that they modestly bring the painted compositions of the tympanums into color-relation with the grey-white marble walls. ”

“ To the left a poet sits with his head bowed in thought, perhaps in despair that his verses have not received their due meed of applause; but Fame stands behind him holding out the wreath of laurel with which, after many years, she means to crown him. Further on is another poet, who, as he reclines half dreaming on the ground, is suddenly inspired with the rapture of the Muse. In the corner is a bust of Homer, with a pile of books for pedestal.
In Music, Apollo, as the God of Song and Harmony, is seated in the centre of a long marble bench playing upon a lyre. ”

“ Blue is The Light of Truth. The Spirit of Truth crushes the dragon of Ignorance and Falsehood under foot, and reaches to heaven for a ray of light with which to inflict the final wound. The blue of the background is the blue of daylight,—light from darkness. The cherubs hold the level, the plumb, and the Bible, each considered as an agent in indicating the presence of a universal law. ”

“ Vedder’s paintings, Mr. Blashfield was almost necessarily drawn to select some such subject as he has here chosen—the Evolution of Civilization, the records of which it is the function of a great library to gather and preserve.
The ceiling of the Lantern is sky and air, against which, as a background, floats the beautiful female figure representing the Human Understanding, [72] lifting her veil and looking upward from Finite Intellectual Achievement (typified in the circle of figures in the collar) to that which is beyond; in a word, Intellectual Progress looking upward and forward. ”

“ Literature shows a varied group of male and female figures sitting or standing. The scene is along the steps of an old Greek temple. The God of Letters—or Apollo, if one wishes—sits in the foreground holding an open book. Behind him is a company of maidens reading in an ancient scroll, which they unroll from hand to hand. To the right, a woman is instructing two children in the rudiments of learning. Comedy, a nude and easy figure, is looking at the ludicrous features of a comic mask, and Tragedy stands in an attitude of recitation, lifting her arms in an emphasizing gesture. ”

“ One man blows a trumpet, but none of the dogged faces kindles. Only the hounds show eagerness, and they are straining at the leash to get home. The religious procession is in its way just as strong. It is entirely unsentimental. These simple folk are entering naturally into what is merely a part of their life and thought.
A great deal of the charm of Mr. McEwen’s panels is due to the landscapes, which are instinct with poetical imagination. The artist has given them an atmosphere which sets them back in the past, when the world was in its youth and full of promise rather than fulfilment. ”

“ A splendid peacock, the emblem of beauty and pride in beauty, is introduced beside her. Smell is represented seated beside a bank of lilies and roses. From this mass of flowers she has selected a great white rose, which she presses to her nose. Hearing holds a large sea-shell to her ear, and dreamily listens to its roaring. Touch is delightedly observing a butterfly which has alighted on her bare outstretched arm—the touch of its tiny feet as it walks over her flesh imparting an unaccustomed sensation to her nerves. ”

“ The figure is that of a winged woman standing on a globe, and holding out the laurel-wreath and palm-branch to the victors. In the sky the clouds of disaster and discouragement are rolled away and about to disappear, while the sun of reappearing prosperity sends its rays into every quarter of the land. Although her shield and helmet have been laid upon the ground, the Goddess [57] still retains the Ægis, and holds, in one hand, like a staff, her long, two-headed spear, showing that she never relaxes her vigilance against the enemies of the country which she protects. ”

“ On the right is a youth who casts his ballot into an urn. He carries some books under his arm, showing that education should be the basis of the suffrage. To the left is another voting-urn, into which a young girl is winnowing wheat, so that the good grains fall into its mouth while the chaff is scattered by the wind—an action symbolical of the care with which a people should choose its public servants. In the background is a field of wheat, a last touch in this picture of intelligence and virtue, and, in itself, symbolical of prosperous and careful toil. ”

“ In the second panel, Corrupt Legislation is represented by a woman with a beautiful but depraved face sitting in an abandoned attitude on a throne the arms of which are cornucopias overflowing with the coin which is the revenue of the State. But this revenue is represented not as flowing outward, for the use and good of the people, but all directed toward the woman herself. The artist’s idea was that when revenue is so abundant, as here depicted, that it greatly exceeds the needs of government, then government becomes a temptation to all kinds of corrupt practices. ”

“ Martiny. The coil of babies and garlands is irresistibly fascinating. Bold in line and generous in massing of light and shade, as befits the grandeur of the construction, the design has, besides, much daintiness of detail. Joined to an exquisite fancy, playful without grotesqueness, are a fluency and certainty of technique in the best sense French. In somewhat the same vein is Mr. Adams’s tympanum over the Senate Reading Room door. The main masses have an exuberance, boldly contrasting with the delicate details that overspread the entire panel. ”

“ Blashfield’s Paintings.—The position of Mr. Blashfield’s decorations in the Collar and Lantern of the dome is the noblest and most inspiring in the Library. They are literally and obviously the crowning glory of the building, and put the final touch of completion on the whole decorative scheme of the interior. The visitor will see how, without them, not a painting in the building would seem to remain solidly and easily in its place, for they occupy not only the highest, but the exact central point of the Library, to which, in a sense, every other is merely relative. ”

“ The materials thus furnished to the politician, the historical writer, or the student of literature, are of great and incalculable value. A National Library is not for one generation alone, but for all time. So much the more important is its function of handing down to the readers and students of the future a full and authentic mirror of each age in its progressive growth, to be found most vividly in the pages of the daily and weekly journals, and the magazines and reviews of every class. These periodicals furnish the best impress of the times which can be derived from any single source. ”

“ In front of them is the seated figure of a poet, with a bandage over his eyes to indicate the abstraction and ideality of his thought. Further on, a man flings out both arms in a mad appeal, and on the moment is grasped in the arms of a woman, who drags him back to the level of her own baseness. ”

“ Everything counts, and the artist’s thought is brought close to us. The composition varies with the subjects. In Peace, Mr. Melchers has relied on smooth masses balanced athwart a pleasing leafy background. Movement is suspended. War, however, shows the vigorous construction of moving forms: solid masses and a tangle of gnarled limbs displayed naked against a harsh landscape. We have muscular and mental tension. We see only the horror and hideousness of war, and none of its pomp and circumstance. Laurel, indeed, crowns the leader’s head, but his son is stretched a corpse upon the rude bier. ”

“ Entering by either of the doors at the head of the staircase, the visitor at once steps out upon an embayed gallery, affording a spacious and uninterrupted view of the great domed Reading Room, or Rotunda, which, in every sense, is the central and most important portion of the Library. As such, it is marked by a magnificence of architecture and decoration nowhere else to be found in the building. Outside, from whatever direction one approaches, the gilded dome which forms its outer shell is the first thing to catch the eye ”