holiday faces.

And now I have to introduce a new character that never said a word nor

wagged a finger, and yet shaped my whole subsequent career. You have

crossed the States, so that in all likelihood you have seen the head

of it, parcel-gilt and curiously fluted, rising among trees from a wide

plain; for this new character was no other than the State capitol of

Muskegon, then first projected. My father had embraced the idea with a

mixture of patriotism and commercial greed both perfectly genuine. He

was of all the committees, he had subscribed a great deal of money, and

he was making arrangements to have a finger in most of the contracts.

Competitive plans had been sent in; at the time of my return from

college my father was deep in their consideration; and as the idea

entirely occupied his mind, the first evening did not pass away before

he had called me into council. Here was a subject at last into which I

could throw myself with pleasurable zeal. Architecture was new to me,

indeed; but it was at least an art; and for all the arts I had a taste

naturally classical and that capacity to take delighted pains which some

famous idiot has supposed to be synonymous with genius. I threw myself

headlong into my father's work, acquainted myself with all the plans,

their merits and defects, read besides in special books, made myself

a master of the theory of strains, studied the current prices

of materials, and (in one word) "devilled" the whole business so

thoroughly, that when the plans came up for consideration, Big Head Dodd

was supposed to have earned fresh laurels. His arguments carried the

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