Then the broad flights of snowy marble steps risin’ from the water to the green flowery terraces, and then above them the magnificent white wonders of the different buildin’s.

And standin’ up aginst the sky, and the blue waters of the lake, the tall ivory columns of the Perestyle stood, like a immense beautiful screen, to guard this White City of magic splendor.

And risin’ from the blue waters of the Basin stands the grand figure of the Republic, towerin’ up a hundred feet high, lookin’ jest as she ort to look.  Calm, stately, but knowin’ in her heart jest what she had done, and jest what she hadn’t done, knowin’ jest what she had to be proud on, if she only let her mind run on’t.

But there wuz no high-headedness, no tostin’ of her neck.  No, fair and stately and serene as a dream Queen, she stood a fittin’ centre for the onspeakable beauty of her surroundin’s.

It wuz all perfect, everything—­no flaw in the perfect harmony of the seen.  No limit to its onapproachable beauty.  Yes, the glory of that seen as it bust onto my raptured vision will go with me through life, and won’t never be outdone and replaced by anything more perfect, till that rapt hour when the mortal puts on immortality, and the glory that no eye hath seen busts on my glorified vision.

And as we wended onwards and got still further views of the matchless wonders of the Columbus World’s Fair—­wall, I gin in, and felt and said, that I spozed I had had emotions all my life, and sights of ’em; why, I have had ’em as high as from 70 to 80 a minute right along for a hour on a stretch—­sometimes when I have been rousted up about sunthin’.

But when I stood stun still in my tracts, and the full glory and beauty of that seen of wonder and enchantment broke onto my almost enraptured vision, I gin up that I never had had a emotion in my hull life, not one, nothin’ but plain, common breathin’s and sithes.

When I see these snowy palaces, vast and beautiful and dreamlike, risin’ up from the blue waters, and their pure white columns and statuary reflected into the mirrow below, and the green beauty of the Wooded Island, and the tall trees a-dottin’ them here and there—­

And when I see the lagoon a-windin’ along, and arched over with bridges, like the best of the beauty of Venice born agin, perfect and fresh in the heart of the New World—­

When I beheld the immense quantity of shrubs and flowers of every kind known to the world—­

And all along the blue waters of the Grand Basin, surrounded by the magnificence and glory of these beautiful palaces—­the fountains a-sprayin’ up, and waters a-flashin’, and banners a-flyin’, and the tall white statutes a-standin’ on every side of us a-watchin’ us with their still eyes, to see how we took in the transcendent seen, and how we appeared under the display—­wall, I stood, as I say, stun still in my tracts, and sez to myself—­

“It would be jest as easy to comprehend the wonder of this Exposition by readin’ about it, as it would be for any one to try to judge Niagara by lookin’ at a pan of dishwater.”