It is an elegant chamber to look at, but a
singularly bad one for all purposes of hearing. The Senate, which
is smaller, is free from this objection, and is exceedingly well
adapted to the uses for which it is designed. The sittings, I need
hardly add, take place in the day; and the parliamentary forms are
modelled on those of the old country.
I was sometimes asked, in my progress through other places, whether
I had not been very much impressed by the HEADS of the lawmakers at
Washington; meaning not their chiefs and leaders, but literally
their individual and personal heads, whereon their hair grew, and
whereby the phrenological character of each legislator was
expressed: and I almost as often struck my questioner dumb with
indignant consternation by answering 'No, that I didn't remember
being at all overcome.' As I must, at whatever hazard, repeat the
avowal here, I will follow it up by relating my impressions on this
subject in as few words as possible.
In the first place - it may be from some imperfect development of
my organ of veneration - I do not remember having ever fainted
away, or having even been moved to tears of joyful pride, at sight
of any legislative body.
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