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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 overmantel, thus linking up the place and the man. The dining-room looks out upon the gardens, the river and the distant hills. A staitrway protected by a mahogany-trimmed baluster, delightful in design and delicately carved, leads to the chambers. The characteristic 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 conversations 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 philosophical 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; Jetterson 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 SecreP2081 2
