OCR Output

THE POTOMAC AND RAPPAHANNOCK

“From a porch which preserves the grace and beauty of
Georgian architecture, one enters a wide hall extending through the
house, as was usual in Virginia houses of its class. The first room
on the right is finished with white woodwork delicately carved in
Chinese-Chippendale fashion. The second and communicating
room has still more elaborately carved woodwork, worked out with
pilasters, and with broken pediments above the doors, the mantel
place and the closet alcoves. Here, the mellow color of the pine
walls, once covered with silken hangings, gives unusual beauty and
dignity to the apartment.

“The first room to the left of the central hall was George
Mason’s study, where, often confined by his inveterate enemy, gout,
he thought out and wrote out those documents which rank him
among the founders of the government. Here Mr. Hertle has had
a large photographic copy of the Bill of Rights placed as an over¬
mantel, thus linking up the place and the man. The dining-room
looks out upon the gardens, the river and the distant hills. A staitr¬
way protected by a mahogany-trimmed baluster, delightful in
design and delicately carved, leads to the chambers. The charac¬
teristic ornament of Gunston Hall, found on gateways without,
over the stairway and on pediments within, is the pineapple,
symbol of hospitality, a quality now as ever the outstanding feature
of the place.

“Tf Gunston walls had tongues as well as ears, what conversa¬
tions around open fires they might report; Washington and Mason
discussing the Fairfax Resolves, that threw down the gauntlet of
independence; Patrick Henry getting from the cool and philosoph¬
ical Mason the fuel for the fires in his eloquence; Richard Henry
and Arthur Lee talking of the French Alliance; Rochambeau and
LaFayette journeying north after the victory at Yorktown; Jetter¬
son and Madison, coming straight from Mount Vernon to get
Mason’s views as to the location of the nation’s Capital. These
early exchanges of opinion have been paralleled during the World
War by the long discussions between Arthur J. Balfour and Secre¬

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