VI.

AT THE EXECUTIVE MANSION.

The Executive Mansion, more commonly called the White House, has gained for itself a world-wide reputation in a century's existence. George Washington was present at the laying of the corner-stone in 1792, in what then was simply David Burns' old fields stretching down to the Potomac (for this was the first public building to be erected), but John Adams was the first President to live in the building (1800), which was still so new and damp that his wife was obliged to have a literal house-warming to dry the interior sufficiently for safety to health. Its cost, up to that time, had been about $250,000.

The architect, James Hoban, who had won reputation by building some of the fine houses on the Battery in Charleston, took his idea of the mansion from the house of the Irish Duke of Leinster, in Dublin, who had, in turn, copied the Italian style. The material is Virginia sandstone, the length is 170 feet, and the width 86 feet. The house stands squarely north and south, is of two stories and a basement, has a heavy balustrade along the eaves, a semicircular colonnade on the south side (facing the river and finest grounds), and a grand portico and porte-cochère on the northern front, added in Jackson's time. Its cost, to the present, exceeds $1,500,000. In 1814 the British set fire to the building, but heavy rains extinguished the conflagration before it had greatly injured the walls. Three years later the house had been restored, and the whole was then painted white, to cover the ravages of fire on its freestone walls, a color which has been kept ever since, and is likely to remain as long as the old house does, not only because of the tradition, but because it is really effective among the green foliage in which the mansion is ensconced. It was reopened for the New Year's Day reception of President Monroe in 1818.

The President's Grounds consist of some eighty acres sloping down to the Potomac Flats. The immediate gardens were early attended to, as is shown by the age and size of the noble trees; but only lately has the more distant part of the grounds been set in order. This part, as also the park nearer the house, is open freely to the public, under the eye of policemen; and here, in warm weather, the Marine Band gives out-door concerts in the afternoon, and the people come to enjoy them. At such times fashion gathers in its carriages upon the winding roads south of the mansion, and assumes the formal parade of Rotten Row or the Bois de Boulogne. It is here, too, on the sloping terrace just behind the White House, that the children of the city gather on Easter Day to roll their colored eggs a pretty custom that is purely local and the origin of which has been quite forgotten. Lafayette Square (p. 122) ought also to be included as practically a part of the President's grounds.

Admission to certain parts of the White House is almost as free to everybody as it is to any other of the people's buildings in their capital. Coming from Pennsylvania Avenue by the principal approach, along the semicircular carriage drive that leads up from the open gates, the visitor enters the stately vestibule through the front portico, from whose middle upper window Lincoln made so many impromptu but memorable addresses during the war. Here will be found doorkeepers, without livery or other distinguishing mark save a badge, who direct callers upon the President up the staircase to the offices (p. 83), and form visitors, who wish to see the public rooms of the mansion, into little parties, who are conducted under their guidance. The first public apartment visited is that on the left as you enter, occupying the eastern wing of the building and called

The East Room. This, which was originally designed for a banquet hall, and so used until 1827, is now the state reception room. It is 80 feet in length, 40 feet wide, and 22 feet high, and has eight beautiful marble mantels surmounted by tall mirrors. Its embellishments are renewed every eight or ten years, reflecting the changing fashion in decoration; but the crystal chandeliers, which depend from each of the three great panels of the ceiling (dating, with their supporting pillars, from Grant's time), are never changed; and whatever the style, the profusion of gilding and mirrors gives a brilliant background for the gorgeously arrayed assemblages that gather here on state occasions, when the hall is a blaze of light and