Chapter V: Part 5

=Lighting.=--No point was more carefully studied in the construction of the stacks than the lighting. Preliminary plans requiring an immense amount of labor were made, showing the amount of direct sunlight which any portion of the three arms would receive at any hour of the day, any month in the year. Skylights along the line of the corridors help light the upper tiers. The walls are honeycombed with windows from top to bottom. In the north and south stacks there are no less than three hundred and sixty. They occur at the ends of the passageways between the ranges, being placed at the intersections of the decks, so that each may diffuse direct light into two tiers at once. In this way there can be no perceptible difference in the amount of light cast into the upper and lower portions of the tiers. At the end of each passageway the window is fitted with a seat for the use of the readers admitted to the stacks, or attendants. Ground glass is employed for the windows on the east side of the south stack, where the sunlight is so abundant and continuous that it would be inconvenient if admitted, besides being likely to cause the bindings of the books to fade; everywhere else the clear open plates invite the entrance of all the illumination which can be obtained. Each window consists of a single piece of polished plate glass three feet wide, and permanently sealed, so that no dust or moisture can ever penetrate it. In order to wash the glass from the outside the wall is fitted at convenient intervals with skeleton galleries. The courts themselves give an abundance of full, bright light; and that none of it may be wasted, and in order that it may be evenly distributed through the tiers, both at the bottom and top of the stacks, the walls of the courts are constructed of yellow enamelled brick, which makes an admirable reflector, on rainy as well as on sunny days. Inside, the marble decks are highly polished, so that they, too, serve as efficient reflectors, casting the light which they receive into every nook and cranny of the stack. Evenings, the light is furnished by incandescent lamps, with which the passages and corridors are abundantly equipped, and here again the polished decks serve a most useful purpose in diffusing the brilliant illumination throughout the whole system of shelving. Altogether, it may be very confidently stated that no great collection of books was ever before so thoroughly and conveniently lighted, whether in the day or at night.

THE LANTERN.

Before leaving the Rotunda it should be added that it is possible to ascend into the Lantern by taking either of the winding iron staircases in the piers on the left and right of the west gallery. The staircases in all the piers carry one up into the space between the two shells of the dome, where it will be necessary from time to time for workmen to go in order to paint the iron framing and thus preserve it from rust and decay, but only these two are open to the public. On the way up one has a chance to observe the interesting construction of the dome; and in the Lantern, which is left unfinished except in the portions seen from below, one may look over the parapet and down into the Rotunda.

By taking the staircase to the right, moreover--to the right as one originally enters the gallery from the Entrance Hall, that is--one reaches a door through which one may pass out to a little gallery encircling the Rotunda in the open air and affording a beautiful view of Washington and the surrounding country.

Or, if one chooses to defer this little expedition, it is possible to make the trip without retracing one’s steps by taking the elevator on the first story of the Entrance Hall and getting out on the attic floor, from which one may enter either of the two stairways just described.

THE RECTANGLE.

In going through the various galleries and pavilions of the Rectangle it is perhaps more logical to begin on the library floor, but supposing the visitor to be about to leave the Rotunda by the way in which he has come, it will save a little time to take the second story first. Both are alike, so far as the arrangement of rooms is concerned, except that on the first story one leaves the Entrance Hall by a narrow corridor, while above one enters the galleries directly. The arrangement is very simple, as will be seen by looking at the plan of the building. The pavilions are connected by long galleries, two on the west and east sides, where the Rectangle is interrupted by the centre pavilions, and one each on the north and south sides. The corner pavilions of both floors contain octagonal-shaped rooms, which, in the second story, have domed ceilings and mosaic floors, and are richly embellished with paintings and sculpture and relief decoration in stucco. The East Pavilion contains a small staircase and a good sized but plainly finished room on both stories.

The rooms on the second story are intended for the most part as exhibition halls for the display of works of art which have come into the possession of the Library through the operation of the copyright law, or of books and manuscripts of special interest on account of their rarity and curiosity. One room, for example, is intended to contain a collection of early printed books and, in general, such volumes as best illustrate the history of printing; another room is for books relating to the early history of America. The North Gallery is the Map Room; the South Gallery is the Print Room, for engravings, lithographs, etchings, photographs, etc., illustrating the progress and development of the reproductive arts.

There is space here to speak only of the more richly decorated of these rooms--the corner pavilions and the two galleries on the west side. The others, as the visitor will see in walking through them, require no special description. The walls are decorated in broad masses of plain color, with deep friezes of simple but interesting patterns. The decoration varies from room to room, but all are united in a single intelligent harmony of color. Each contains a long skylight surrounded by a stucco border left plain in most of the galleries, but in the Print Room enriched by coffering decorated with gilt “cherubs’ wings.” The skylights are ornamented with a simple design of stained glass. The chief colors employed are purple and pale green and yellow, and the design includes the names of men distinguished in American history and in art, letters, and science.[11]

SOUTHWEST GALLERY.

The chief decorations of the gallery into which one goes from the South Corridor of the Entrance Hall are two large tympanums by Mr. Kenyon Cox, one at each end of the room over the triple doors by which one enters or leaves. For the rest, the room is lighted, like the other galleries, on both sides, so that one may look out toward the Capitol, or, on the east, into one of the interior courts. The ceiling is an elliptical barrel vault, rising to a height of twenty-nine feet. It is set with square coffers in blue and gold, and divided by double ribs which spring from the paired pilasters. Between the pilasters a bright-colored arabesque is introduced, in which blue is the prevailing color. It is continued in the ceiling by an arabesque in relief, the most conspicuous features of which are seated cherubs, and medallions with the letters “C. L.”--standing for “Congressional Library.” The floor is Vermont, Italian, and Georgia marble, laid in square panels, so as to reflect, in a way, the pattern of the coffers in the ceiling above.

=Mr. Cox’s Paintings.=--Mr. Cox’s tympanums are thirty-four feet long and nine and a half feet high. At the south end of the room the subject of the decoration is _The Sciences_, and at the north end, _The Arts_. The panels are similar in composition, occupying as they do exactly corresponding positions. On each the design is drawn together by a low marble balustrade, at the centre of which is a semicircular recess enclosing a kind of throne or high marble seat. At either end of the recess, so as to come directly over a pilaster occurring between the doors, is a post bearing a tripod on which incense is burning. The effect is to carry the lines of the architecture below up into the painting.

In the panel of _The Arts_, the central throne is occupied by the figure of Poetry, represented as a young and beautiful woman crowned with laurel and bearing an antique lyre. She is seated in an attitude of immediate inspiration, the fold of her garment blowing in the wind, her left hand raised from the chord which she has just struck upon the lyre, and her lips parted in a burst of song. On the steps of her throne are two little geniuses, one writing down her words on a tablet, and the other raising his arms in sympathy as he joins in the rhythmical swing of her song. The first may be taken as personifying the more strictly literary and reflective side of poetry, and the other as standing for its feeling for harmony and music, or, in general, the lyrical element in poetry. In the left-hand portion of the decoration are Architecture and Music, and to the right, Sculpture and Painting--all typified by female figures bearing some appropriate object identifying the art which they represent. Architecture is conceived as the sternest and most dignified of the arts, as shown by her expression of proud abstraction and the severe lines of her drapery. She holds a miniature marble column, and her head is crowned with a circlet of battlements. Music is playing upon a violin, and looking the while upon the pages of a great music-book which a kneeling genius holds open before her. Beside her is a violoncello. Sculpture holds a statuette of a nude female figure, and talks with Painting, who has a palette and brushes. The latter, as representing the gentler and more luxurious art, is shown partly nude, and leaning her head affectionately upon the shoulder of her companion. In the corner of the picture are a vase and two large plates in different styles of decorated pottery--standing for the minor decorative arts.

In the tympanum of _The Sciences_ the central figure is Astronomy. She holds a pair of compasses, and leans forward on her throne to make measurements upon the celestial globe which a genius holds up before her. Another genius to the right looks through a telescope. To the left of the panel are Physics and Mathematics. Physics holds an instrument designed to show the law of the balance of different weights at different distances from the point of support. Mathematics has an abacus, or counting-frame, with which she is instructing a little genius in the elements of figures. The beads of the abacus are so placed that they give the date, “1896”--the year the picture was painted. Beside her, in the extreme left-hand corner, are various figures illustrating plane and solid geometry. The former kind are so arranged, as the visitor will see by looking carefully, that they form all the letters of the artist’s name--KENYON COX. On the other side of the throne are Botany, bearing a young oak tree, and wearing a green and white figured gown; and Zoölogy, a nude figure holding out her hand to caress a magnificent peacock perched on the coping of the balustrade. In the corner are a shell and various kinds of minerals, for Conchology, Mineralogy, Geology, and so forth.

On tablets over the doors and windows are the names of men distinguished in Science and Art. Those representing Art are Wagner, Mozart, Homer, Milton, Raphael, Rubens, Vitruvius, Mansard, Phidias, and Michael Angelo. The Scientists are Leibnitz, Galileo, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Dalton, Hipparchus, Herschel, Kepler, La Marck, and Helmholtz.

THE PAVILION OF THE DISCOVERERS.

The Southwest Pavilion--or the Pavilion of the Discoverers, as it may better be called, from the subject of the paintings with which it is ornamented--opens immediately from the Southwest Gallery. The domed ceiling is richly coffered and profusely ornamented with gilding, except for a large central space in the form of a disc, which contains a painted decoration. Below the dome are four tympanums, also occupied by paintings. The walls are ornamented with paired pilasters, bearing a narrow frieze decorated with lions’ heads and festoons of garlands.

=Mr. Pratt’s Bas-Reliefs.=--In the pendentives is a series of four large circular plaques in relief, representing _The Seasons_. The series, which is repeated in each of the other three pavilions, is the work of Mr. Bela L. Pratt. _Spring_ is the figure of a girl sowing the seed, her garment blown into graceful swirls by the early winds of March. _Summer_ is a maturer figure, sitting, quiet and thoughtful, in a field of poppies. _Autumn_ is a mother nursing a baby. An older child--a little boy--stands beside her, and the abundance and fruitfulness of the season are still further typified in the ripe bunches of grapes which hang from the vine. _Winter_ is an old woman gathering faggots for the hearth. Behind her is a leafless tree, on which is perched an owl. A garland appropriate to the season hangs over each of the four plaques--fruits for _Spring_ and _Summer_, grains for _Autumn_, and oak leaves and acorns for _Winter_.

=Mr. Maynard’s Paintings.=--The paintings in the tympanums and the disc are the work of Mr. George W. Maynard, whose panels in the Main Entrance Hall have already been described. In the tympanums the sequence of Mr. Maynard’s subjects begins on the east side and continues to the right, as follows: _Adventure_, _Discovery_, _Conquest_, _Civilization_--the bold roving spirit of _Adventure_ leading to _Discovery_, which in turn results in _Conquest_, bringing at last a settled occupation of the land and final _Civilization_. In the disc of the ceiling, Mr. Maynard has depicted the four qualities most appropriate to these four stages of a country’s development--Courage, Valor, Fortitude, and Achievement.

Since the tympanums are the same in shape and of the same size, measuring each thirty-one feet by six, and since all stand in the same relation toward the whole room, Mr. Maynard has followed throughout a single method of arrangement. Each tympanum is over three doors or three windows, as the case may be. In accordance, therefore, with this exactly balanced architectural scheme, a pyramidal group of three female figures--pyramidal because any other form would have looked top-heavy--is placed above the central opening. Balancing or, so to say, subsidiary figures, which, if only from their position at the diminishing ends of the tympanum, are necessarily of less importance, are placed over the doors or windows to the side. Thus the decoration is poised in complete accordance with the disposition of the wall which it crowns. The figures at the ends, it will be noticed, are of two sorts, mermaids and emblazoned shields; but since they alternate in pairs from tympanum to tympanum, the shields occurring in the east and west and the mermaids in the north and south, this variety serves very well to accentuate the unity of the composition of the four paintings. The ornament, also, is the same in its more important features: the throne in the centre, flanked by cornucopias; the arabesque border with its dolphins, suggestive of seafaring; and the lists of names of discoverers and colonizers which occupy the spaces to the right and left of the central group, and serve to draw together the whole composition.

It would be well if the visitor were to hold in mind these points, for in the two following pavilions on this floor, where the conditions governing the painter are exactly the same as in the present room, it will be seen that the artists employed have followed in their work the same orderly and logical plan of arrangement which Mr. Maynard has here adopted.

In the first tympanum, Adventure, seated on her throne, holds in her right hand a drawn sword, in instant readiness for the combat; her left hand rests upon an upright caduceus, the emblem of Mercury, the god of the traveller, merchant, and thief, and fit, therefore, to be the patron of the restless adventurers who sailed westward in the sixteenth century, impelled as well by a desire for booty as for legitimate trade. To the right and left are seated female figures, representing respectively Spanish and English adventure--the two countries which furnished America with the largest part of its early buccaneers and adventurers. Like the central figure, the two are clad in rich and elaborate armor, accurately copied, as is that in the other tympanums, from authentic sixteenth-century models. The figure to the left, typifying England, holds a cutlass in her right hand, while her left hand buries itself in a heap of pieces-of-eight, the pirate and buccaneering coin _par excellence_. The companion figure to the right holds a battle-axe in her right hand, and in her left one of the little figurines, or miniature idols of gold, which the Spaniards in Peru sought so eagerly, and with so much cruelty, to secure from the natives. At either side of the throne is a shield, on which an old Norse Viking ship, propelled by oars and sail, is depicted. At either end of the tympanum is a shield, that to the right bearing the arms of Spain, and that to the left those of England. On the Spanish side of the decoration is the following list of names of Spanish adventurers: Diaz, Narvaez, Coello, Cabeza, Verrazano, Bastidas. On the other side is the English list: Drake, Cavendish, Raleigh, Smith, Frobisher, Gilbert. Each group of names is surmounted by the heraldic form of the naval crown, ornamented with alternate sterns and squaresails of ships, which was given by the Romans to a successful naval commander, or to the sailor who first boarded an enemy’s ship. In either corner of the tympanum still another emblem of sea-power, the trident, is introduced.

In the second tympanum, Discovery, crowned with a laurel wreath of gold and wearing a leather jerkin, sits on her throne, holding a ship’s rudder in her right hand, and with her left upon a globe of the earth, which is supported on her knee. The rude map of America, which appears on it, is copied from a portion of a mappemonde, or chart of the world, which was discovered a few years ago in England, and which has been ascribed to Leonardo da Vinci. It dates from the second decade of the sixteenth century.[12] The two seated figures to the right and left are clad in armor; the first holds a sword and “Jacob’s staff,” or cross staff, a device used by the early navigators instead of a quadrant or sextant to determine the altitude of the sun and stars. The figure to the left, with paddle and chart, points towards the distance with outstretched arm, and turns to her companions to beckon them onwards. The two shields at the foot of the throne bear an astrolabe, an obsolete instrument used for the same purpose as the cross staff. At either end of the tympanum, a mermaid, with a seashell for cap, and with seaweed twined about her body, invites the voyagers with strings of pearls and coral. Lists of names occur at the left and right, surmounted, as before, with the naval crown. The first list is: Solis, Orellana, Van Horn, Oieda, Columbus, Pinzon; the second, Cabot, Magellan, Hudson, Behring, Vespucius, Balboa.

In the third tympanum, that of _Conquest_, the idea expressed in the central group is that of the proud tranquillity which follows triumph in battle. The figures carry the insignia of victory. The one seated upon the throne has pushed back her casque and lets her left hand hang idly over the crosspiece of the sword. But there is still danger of a renewal of the struggle; the right hand rests clenched upon an arm of the throne, the armor has not yet been laid aside, and the sword not yet sheathed. The figures to the left and right are in a like attitude of readiness, though they carry in addition to their swords the emblems of peace--the first, representing Southern Conquests, a sheaf of palms; and the second, representing Northern Conquests, chaplets of oak-leaves, which wreathe her casque and sword. The two shields bear a heraldic representation of the Pillars of Hercules, with the motto _Ne plus ultra_ twined about them, and between them, in the distance, the setting sun--perhaps an ironical allusion to the ancient idea which set the limits of the earth at the Straits of Gibraltar, or perhaps simply an adaptation and extension of it to the new conditions of knowledge. At the ends of the tympanum the arms of England and Spain are again introduced, as significant of the general division of North and South America into English and Spanish territory. The names to the left are: Pizarro, Alvarado, Almagro, Hutten, Frontenac, De Soto; to the right, Cortes, Standish, Winslow, Phipps, Velasquez, De Leon. Over each group is the battlemented mural crown given by the Romans to the soldier who first succeeded in planting a standard upon the wall of a besieged city.

The fourth tympanum, _Civilization_, is the flowering of the other three. The armor has been laid aside, and the three figures in the centre are clad simply in classic garments. Civilization, crowned with laurel and seated on her throne, holds up the torch of learning, or enlightenment, and displays the opened page of a book--an idea which is repeated in the lamp and book which compose the device on the two shields below. To the left is _Agriculture_, crowned with wheat, and holding a scythe and a sheaf of wheat. To the right is _Manufactures_ with distaff and spindle, twisting the thread. The mermaids at the ends of the decoration hold up, one an ear of corn, and the other a branch of the cotton-plant bearing both the flower and the boll--the two chief products respectively of the northern and the southern portions of our country. The names are: to the left, Eliot, Calvert, Marquette, Joliet, Ogelthorpe, Las Casas; and to the right, Penn, Winthrop, Motolinia, Yeardley, La Salle. Over each list is a wreath of laurel.

Mr. Maynard has represented in the ceiling the four qualities most pertinent to the character of his four tympanums. All four are shown as female figures, displayed against a background of arabesque. The first, Courage--a brute, animal courage--is clad in a coat of coarse scale-armor, over which a lion’s skin is drawn, the head of the beast serving her for a cap. She is armed with a war-club and a shield. The next, Valor, is a nobler figure, more beautiful and wearing more beautiful armor. Her right hand holds a sword, and her left is pressed to her breast. The third, Fortitude, is unarmed. In her left arm she carries an architectural column, the emblem of stability. Achievement, the last, is clad in armor, but is without offensive weapon. She wears a laurel crown, and in her left hand she carries the Roman standard, surmounted by its eagle and laurel wreath, the symbol of a strong and just government. In the order named, therefore, it will readily be seen how these figures may be said to typify the successive tympanums of _Adventure_, _Discovery_, _Conquest_, and _Civilization_.

THE PAVILION OF THE ELEMENTS.

In the same way that the room decorated by Mr. Maynard has been called the Pavilion of the Discoverers, so the Southeast Pavilion may be called the Pavilion of the Elements, from the subject of the paintings ornamenting the tympanums and the disc. The tympanums are by Mr. Robert L. Dodge, and the disc by Mr. Garnsey and Mr. Dodge working in conjunction, the former making the ornamental design and the latter designing and carrying out the figure-work.

=Mr. R. L. Dodge’s Paintings.=--Each of the four tympanums is devoted to a single Element: the east tympanum to _Earth_, the north to _Air_, the west to _Fire_, and the south to _Water_. The composition, which is very simple, is uniform throughout. In the middle of the tympanum is a group of three figures typifying the subject of the decoration--the central figure standing and the other two seated. The latter are of women, but to prevent monotony, the standing figures are alternately male and female--male in the tympanums of _Earth_ and _Fire_, and female in those of _Air_ and _Water_. The central figure holds up in either hand an end of a heavy garland of flowers, which, stretching in a single festoon to the extremity of the tympanum, is there caught up by a little boy or genius. In the middle of each half of the picture, and in each tympanum the same on both sides, is an ornamental bronze column flanked on either hand by a bronze standard or tripod, all three united by floating streamers or ribands into a single group, and each serving as a pedestal on which to place some emblems of the Element represented.

In the tympanum of _Earth_ the idea is the fertility and bounteousness of the soil. In the central group the figure to the right leans her arm upon an amphora or ancient wine-jar, and holds in her hand a rose. The figure to the left is that of a reaper, with a wreath of grains on her head and a bundle of wheat by her side, and holding in her hand a sickle. 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.

The central figure in the decoration typifying _Air_ stands upon a bank of clouds; she is winged, and a large star blazes on her forehead. Of the figures to her right and left, the first is winged and the second carries the caduceus. The festoons are of morning glories, upheld at the further ends by flying geniuses. The background is sky and clouds. The central standards carry astrolabes, as being the typical astronomical instrument of a few centuries ago, and eagles are perched on those to the side. In the border, winged griffins are substituted for lions.

The background of the third tympanum, _Fire_, is a mountainous and volcanic region, its peaks touched with lurid light from constant eruptions. The festoons are composed of sunflowers, and the seated figures in the centre carry each a flaming torch. The columns to the right and left bear flaming globes, while the flanking standards support the fiery nest of the phœnix--the bird which was fabled by the ancients to live, sole of its species, five hundred years, at the end of which time it repaired to the desert and built a funeral pyre, in the flames of which it was consumed. From its ashes as a nest a new phœnix arose, as here depicted. In the border of the decoration are salamanders, which, according to the old superstition, lived in the midst of fire.

In the last tympanum, _Water_, the central figure, clad in green, holds festoons of seaweed and water-lilies--flowers, buds and pads. On either side is a mermaid, one of them with a seashell. The background is the open sea. The standards are in the form of rostral columns (such as the Romans erected in honor of their victorious admirals) ornamented with garlands of laurel and the beaks and sterns of captured ships. On top is set a galley, with oars and sails. Over each of the standards to the side hovers a sea gull. The geniuses at the end of the picture have tails like mermaids, and in the border are dolphins.

The disc of the ceiling repeats in another form the general idea of the decorations of the tympanums. In the centre is the sun, across which the sun-god, Apollo, drives his four-horse chariot. The sun, however, is still the sun, and not a yellow background; the dusky picture outlined against it is to be taken as a vision, so to say, of its attributes.

Around the sun as a centre, is painted a chain of alternate medallions and cartouches--four of each, or eight in all--which typify the Four Elements represented in the tympanums below. A medallion and a cartouche are devoted to each. The former sort are painted so as to suggest a cameo design. The first of them, which occurs, like the other three, on the side nearest the tympanum of the corresponding subject, typifies _Earth_, a female figure reclined amidst a summer landscape. In her hand is a scythe, and behind her is a plow, standing in the midst of a wheat field. _Water_ is a mermaid riding off a rocky shore on the back of a dolphin. In her hand she holds an oar. _Fire_ is a woman watching the smoke which floats away from the flame of a little brazier at her side. Behind her is a tripod on which incense is burning. In the distance is Mt. Vesuvius, sending out a steady cloud of smoke, and in the plain beneath are the ruins of Pompeii. _Air_ is a female figure clad in flowing drapery, and floating among the clouds on the outstretched wings of an eagle.

The cartouches are more simply designed. That of _Earth_ contains a tortoise, on the back of which, according to the Hindoo mythology, the earth is ultimately supported. _Air_ is typified by a swan; _Fire_, by a lamp; and _Water_ by two intertwined dolphins. Finally the whole decoration is surrounded by a broad band of arabesque ornament, in which are placed the signs of the Zodiac.

THE PAVILION OF THE SEALS.

The third of the second-story pavilions is the Pavilion of the Seals, at the northeast corner of the building. The walls in this room, it may be noted, are treated differently from those of the other three pavilions. Instead of the frieze and the paired pilasters, one has wall-surfaces covered with gilding and ornamented with painted laurel-bands arranged in regular patterns recalling the designs of the parterres of an old-fashioned garden.

The paintings in the tympanums are by Mr. W. B. Van Ingen, and illustrate the seals of the various Executive Departments of the United States Government. The disc of the domed ceiling was designed by Mr. Garnsey, and shows the Great Seal of the United States surrounded by allegorical emblems.

=Mr. Van Ingen’s Paintings.=--As in the previous pavilions on this floor, the general arrangement of the decoration is the same in all four tympanums. In each the artist has introduced a low terrace or wall of masonry running from end to end, thus serving both to ballast the picture, as it were, and to bind its parts more strongly together. A recess in the centre of the terrace allows space for a circular tablet, painted to represent wood, about six feet in diameter, or nearly the height of the tympanum. On this are inscribed, as if in raised letters, one or more quotations from the writings or speeches of great American statesmen. These were selected by the Librarian, Mr. Spofford, mainly for their general patriotic application, but, of course, as far as possible with some special reference to the subject of the decoration. The border of each tablet, as of the decoration itself, is a band of laurel-leaves, suggested by the laurel-roll which outlines the disc of the ceiling.

On either side of the tablet is a female figure, seated against the terrace, personifying a Department of the Government, in token of which she supports a shield or cartouche on which the seal of that Department is conspicuously displayed. The visitor will notice that these figures (in this respect like Mr. Reid’s in the Entrance Hall) illustrate the American type of woman, and wear modern gowns and not conventional Greek or Roman drapery.

The two figures and the tablet between form the necessary central pyramidal composition. For a limit and balance to the decoration the artist has painted, at either end, a cypress-tree and, in all but one of the tympanums, one or two nude children or geniuses, usually engaged in some action which shall be useful in explaining the purport of the picture, the meaning of which is still further brought out, in most cases, by introducing into the background a well known monument or building, or some conventional object, suggestive of the functions of the Department represented.

The west tympanum is devoted to the Department of the Treasury and the Department of State; the north tympanum to the Department of Justice and the Post-Office Department; the east tympanum to the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior; and the south tympanum to the War and Navy Departments.

Half a tympanum is devoted to each. The Department of the Treasury--to begin with the one first named in the above list--is sufficiently indicated by the introduction of the Treasury Building in the background. Two children are playing on the parapet, one of them with his foot on a strong-box. The background of the other portion of the tympanum--illustrating the Department of State--exhibits the dome and west front of the Capitol and, to the right, the Washington Monument. The vital thing about a nation--that which it is the first business of a Department of State to help preserve--is its independence. The Monument may be taken, therefore, as standing for the establishment of that independence, and the Capitol for its maintenance. A dog, typical of fidelity, lies in the foreground. The cypress trees, it may be noted before passing to the next tympanum, are introduced purely for their decorative effect, and are without any symbolical meaning. In all the decorations they are set in jars copied from Zuñi originals in the National Museum.

In the north tympanum, the figure of Justice is clad in ermine. On the terrace is a high bronze standard, carrying a pair of evenly balanced scales. The genius at the left holds a measuring rod, for exact justice. In the other half of the painting, devoted to the Post-Office Department, the genius is represented with a pair of compasses marking out mail routes on a globe. Mercury was the Messenger of the Gods, according to classic mythology, and a bronze statue of him with his winged sandals, staff, and cap, is appropriately set upon the stone terrace to typify the dispatch and celerity of the Department.

Agriculture, in the next tympanum, is symbolized solely in the fertile and well cultivated landscape which forms the background of her portion of the decoration. The chief duty of the Department of the Interior--to protect and control the Indians--is indicated in the background of the other half of the picture by a representation of the curious method of burial, if one may use the word, which prevails among certain of the western tribes--the body, lashed to a few poles for a bier, being laid away in the branches of a tree.

In the last tympanum, that of War and the Navy, the terrace is nicked and shattered by the bullets of the enemy. The figure to the left, representing the Department of War, holds a regulation army sword, and the figure to the right a naval sword. To the left the two children are engaged in combat; one is falling, stained with blood, while the other presses upon him with a falchion, or Roman sword. The corresponding composition to the right is much the same; the chief difference being the trident which the victor aims at his opponent’s breast. War is accompanied by a Roman standard adapted to an American use by altering the old initials “S.P.Q.R.”--“The Senate and People of Rome”--to “U.S.A.” In the background is Bunker Hill Monument in Boston. On the other side are the masts of the recently constructed battleship _Indiana_, and a rostral column of the same sort as those used in the tympanum representing _Water_ in the Pavilion of the Elements, but in this case copied exactly from the one erected in honor of Commodore Decatur and afterwards removed to Annapolis, where it is now. The inscriptions on the tablets in the four tympanums may most conveniently be inserted here. In the west tympanum, that of the State and Treasury Departments, the quotations are as follows:--

’Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with
any portion of the foreign world.--WASHINGTON.

Let our object be our country, our whole country, and nothing but
our country.--WEBSTER.

Thank God I also am an American.--WEBSTER.

In the north tympanum:--

Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or
persuasion, religious or political: peace, commerce and
honest friendship with all nations--entangling alliance with
none.--THOMAS JEFFERSON.

In the west tympanum:--

The agricultural interest of the country is connected with every
other, and superior in importance to them all.--ANDREW JACKSON.

Let us have peace.--U. S. GRANT.

In the south tympanum:--

The aggregate happiness of society is, or ought to be, the end of
all government.--WASHINGTON.

To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of
preserving peace.--WASHINGTON.

=Mr. Garnsey’s Ceiling Painting.=--The disc of the dome contains one of the most interesting and ingeniously arranged of the purely conventional decorations which ornament the Library. In the centre is the great seal of the United States, which puts the final touch of significance upon the series of paintings in the tympanums. Surrounding it is a circular band containing forty-eight stars, one for each State and Territory. On the diagonal axes of the room are four medallions containing heads symbolizing the Four Winds--North, South, East and West--each blowing a gale from his mouth, as in the classical representations. They stand, of course, for the four great natural divisions of the country. Below each medallion is a garland of fruits or grains, festooned from bunches of eagles’ feathers which spring from the central panel of the decoration, and indicating the nature of the products of each section. The garland under the medallion of the North Wind, for example, is composed of apples, pears, peaches, and similar fruits; that under the East Wind, of various vegetables and berries; under the West Wind, grains, as wheat, oats, and maize; and under the South Wind, bananas, pomegranates, oranges, lemons, and so forth.

Other emblematic objects introduced into the decoration are lyres, each flanked on either side by a horn of plenty filled with fruits; and flaming torches, set between a pair of dolphins. There are thus two sorts of groups, each of which occurs four times in the decoration in accordance with the standard fixed by the four medallions of the Winds. The four different objects depicted signify four of the great interests of the country--the lyre, the Fine Arts; the cornucopia, Agriculture; the torch, Learning and Education; and the dolphin, Maritime Commerce. Finally the composition is united by American flags festooned from the lyres to the garlands of fruit which underhang the medallions of the Winds. And around the whole is a narrow border, on which are inscribed the following words from Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, used also, in part, by Mr. Vedder in his decorations in the Entrance Hall:--

That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom;
that government of the people, by the people, for the people,
shall not perish from the earth.

THE PAVILION OF ART AND SCIENCE.

The entablature and paired pilasters which decorate the walls of the two pavilions to the south, are resumed in the Northwest Pavilion, or Pavilion of Art and Science, if one choose to name it, as the three corresponding rooms on this floor were named, from the subject of the paintings which it contains.

=Mr. W. de L. Dodge’s Paintings.=--These paintings, both in the tympanums and in the ceiling disc, are the work of Mr. William de Leftwich Dodge. The subjects are as follows: in the west tympanum, _Literature_; north tympanum, _Music_; east tympanum, _Science_; south tympanum, _Art_; and in the ceiling disc, _Ambition_, considered as the incentive of all human effort, whether in art, science, or affairs. Comparing them with the other decorations in the Library, the visitor will be struck with the unusually large number of figures which Mr. Dodge has introduced into his canvases, all, of course, helping to illustrate some phase of the subject under which they are grouped. Throughout, however, the meaning is unusually clear, the special significance of every figure being indicated either by some expressive attitude or action, or by the introduction of some appropriate and typical object.

_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. In the corner is a little boy working over an ancient hand-press. 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. Other figures, variously disposed throughout the panel, play upon a number of different musical instruments, illustrating at once the development and present scope of the art. One plays a violin, two others are blowing trumpets, a fourth has the double pipes, another a mandolin--and so on.

The central figure of _Science_--the background of which is again the columns and marble steps of a temple--is a winged female figure descending through the air to crown the inventor of the phonograph, who kneels on the steps before her with a simple electrical instrument beside him. More broadly considered, the group typifies the triumphs of modern electrical science, summed up indeed, in the invention of the phonograph, but including as well the electric telegraph and the telephone. To the right is a man holding the model of a propeller steamship, and further on a husbandman with his team of horses, gathering the fruits of Agriculture. To the left is a table, on which are set two alembics for Physics, and around which is gathered a group of scientists, one holding a human skull, which forms the subject of their discussion. The group may be taken to represent the various medical and surgical sciences, such as Physiology, Anatomy, and so forth. Further to the left is a figure looking at a kite lying on the ground--a reminder of Benjamin Franklin’s famous electrical experiment with the kite and the key. In the background is a little camp-fire over which a tea-kettle is suspended, for Watt’s celebrated discovery of the power of steam.

_Art_ shows a student sketching a nude model. Behind him is his instructor criticizing his work. Sculpture is symbolized to the left, and, to the right, a young woman is painting a design upon a great Greek vase. Behind her are the capitals of a number of the more familiar orders of Architecture, as the Egyptian and the Doric.

In the painting of _Ambition_ in the ceiling, the scene is supposed to be the top of a high mountain, but only the marble terrace which marks the summit is actually visible in the painting. Here is gathered a group which has toiled along a weary path up the mountain side to comparative success; but none is satisfied. 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. They have leapt to the top of the terrace in their fierce desire to gain the slightest advantage. To the left, a murderer shrinks back in horror from the body of the miser whom he has just slain; as he starts away, aghast at his crime, he topples over a flaming tripod which had been set on a post of the terrace. Conspicuous figures in the mad struggle for success are a warrior, with sword, greaves, and helmet, and a sculptor, bearing a statuette of the Venus of Milo. 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. A jester, one of Shakespeare’s fools, in his cap and parti-colored coat, stands near by, holding a bauble surmounted by a skull in one hand, and a statuette of Victory in the other. That fame comes only after death, and that the promptings of personal ambition are but a hollow mockery, is the moral that he preaches.

NORTHWEST GALLERY.

From Mr. Dodge’s Pavilion, one goes into the Northwest Gallery, which leads directly into the Main Entrance Hall once more. In dimensions, arrangement, and general architectural scheme it corresponds to the Southwest Gallery, with which the visitor began his tour through the Rectangle. The prevailing color, however, is red, and not blue, both in the walls and in the coffers of the vaulted ceiling.

=Mr. Melchers’s Paintings.=--At either end, occupying the same position as Mr. Cox’s decorations, and of the same size and shape, is a painting by Mr. Gari Melchers, illustrating, at the north, _War_, and at the south, _Peace_. The same subjects, it is interesting to note, and as many readers will remember, were chosen by Mr. Melchers for his decorations at the World’s Fair in Chicago. The present paintings may be taken, therefore, as representing the development and completion of a favorite idea of the artist.

In the panel of _War_, the scene represented is that of a chieftain of some primitive tribe returning home with his clansmen across a desolate tract of open country from a successful battle. He is crowned with a wreath of laurel, and sits proudly astride a magnificent white horse. A second horseman rides beside him, and another a little behind. Three men carry a roughly constructed bier on which they are bringing home the dead body of a warrior for burial in his native soil. In the right-hand corner a woman kneels to care for a wounded man who has just sunk exhausted to the ground. Behind, a trumpeter sounds his horn, exulting in this dearly bought victory. To the left two foot-soldiers carry shields emblazoned with devices of primitive heraldry. One of them holds in a leash two straining bloodhounds, eager for their kennels, and leading the way toward home.

Mr. Melchers’s other painting, _Peace_, represents an early religious procession. The inhabitants of some little village, perhaps in prehistoric Greece, have come to the border of a grove bearing the image of their tutelar goddess, a small seated figure set on a little platform covered with an embroidered cloth. The procession has halted, and the priest is reading from a paper which he holds in his hand, containing, very likely, a blessing in the name of the goddess upon the fields and orchards of the villagers. Various objects, one of them the model of a ship, are carried in the procession to be offered up as memorials in the temple of the goddess, and in the rear a boy leads to the sacrifice a bull wreathed with garlands.

The following names--forming a list of the world’s most famous generals and admirals--are inscribed in tablets above the doors and windows of the gallery: Cyrus, Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, Charles Martel, William the Conqueror, Frederick the Great, Charlemagne, Eugene, Marlborough, Napoleon, Wellington, Nelson, Washington, Jackson, Scott, Grant, Farragut, Sherman, and Sheridan.

THE RECTANGLE: FIRST FLOOR CORRIDORS.

The only rooms on the first story of the Rectangle which require a special description are the galleries and pavilions stretching from the Main Entrance Hall along the west front of the building. As has been said before, entrance to these is through two corridors, leading to the north and south. The corridors look out upon the interior courts; the floors are of mosaic, and the walls are painted in simple tones of color with pilasters of Vermont marble polished to a peculiarly soft and waxy surface. The ceiling is a succession of small domes in white and gold. In the centre of each is a large gilt rosette. Around it are hexagonal coffers, or panels ornamented with painted figures. The broad arches between are decorated with coffers and panels in relief, and, finally, the tympanums beneath the domes (one at either end of the corridor, and seven along the west wall) are occupied with panels representing, in the corridor to the south, which the visitor is now supposed to have entered, _The Greek Heroes_.

=Mr. McEwen’s Paintings.=--The series is the work of Mr. Walter McEwen. The special subjects are incidents, as related in Greek mythology, in the lives of the following heroes, taking the paintings in order from north to south: _Paris_, _Jason_, _Bellerophon_, _Orpheus_, _Perseus_, _Prometheus_, _Theseus_, _Achilles_, and _Hercules_.

Paris, son of Priam, King of Troy, was brought up as a shepherd on Mt. Ida. When a dispute arose among the three goddesses, Juno, Minerva and Venus, as to who should possess a golden apple inscribed “To the Fairest,” which Eris (Strife) had flung in the midst of an assembly of the deities, Paris was selected by Jupiter to decide their quarrel. He awarded the apple to Venus, who promised him the most beautiful woman in the world to be his bride. Hearing of the charms of Helen, wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta, Paris sailed to Greece, and by the aid of Venus carried her away to Troy--thus provoking the expedition of the Grecian chiefs, and the ten years’ siege of Troy. Mr. McEwen’s painting shows Paris at the court of Sparta, conversing with Menelaus, while Helen sits listening beside her husband.

Pelias, King of Iolchos in Thessaly, was warned by the oracle to beware of his nephew Jason. He therefore sent him in search of the Golden Fleece. This had belonged to a ram which had miraculously carried Phryxus and Helle, a brother and sister in danger of their lives through the cruelty of a stepmother, across the sea to Colchis. Here, when the ram died, Phryxus hung up its fleece in the grove of Mars, where it was guarded by a sleepless dragon. Jason accepted the quest, and is here shown inviting the Grecian heroes to join in the voyage which he is to make to Colchis in the ship Argo--to enroll themselves in the famous band of the “Argonauts.”

The third painting shows Bellerophon receiving from Minerva a golden bridle with which he may guide the winged horse, Pegasus. The hero had incurred the dislike of his kinsman, Proteus, King of Argos, who sent him with a sealed message to Iobates, King of Lycia. The message desired Iobates to cause Bellerophon to be slain. Being unwilling to do this directly, Iobates sent him to encounter the Chimæra, a horrible monster, part lion, part goat, and part serpent, which was devastating his domains, and which had overpowered all who had ventured to attack it. By the help of Minerva and the winged horse, Bellerophon was successful.

Orpheus, who charmed with his song the rocks, the trees, the wild beasts, and even the infernal powers, incurred the wrath of Bacchus, whose divinity he refused to worship. Bacchus therefore inflamed his priestesses, the Mœnads, or Bacchantes, against the poet, who was slain, as here represented by Mr. McEwen, in one of their orgies.