CHAPTER XV.
Wall, this mornin' I said that I would go to see the Palace of Art if I had to go on my hands and knees.
And Josiah sez, "I guess you'd need a new pair of knees by the time you got there." And I do spoze it wuz milds and milds from where I wuz.
But I only wanted to let Josiah Allen know my cast-iron determination to not be put off another minute in payin' my devours to Art.
He see it writ in my mean and didn't make no moves towards breakin' it up.
Only he muttered sunthin' about not carin' so much about ile paintin's as he did for lots of other things.
But I heeded him not, and sez I, "We will go early in the mornin' before any one gits there." But I guess that several hundred thousand other folks must have laid on the same plans overnight, for we found the rooms full and runnin' over when we got there.
Before we got to the Art Palace, you'd know you wuz in its neighborhood by the beautiful statutes and groups of figgers you'd see all round you.
The buildin' itself is a gem of art, if you can call anything a gem that is acres and acres big of itself, and then has immense annexes connected with it by broad, handsome corridors on either side.
It is Greek in style, and the dome rises one hundred and twenty-five feet and is surmounted by Martiny's wonderful winged Victory.
Another female is depictered standin' on top of the globe with wreaths in her outstretched hands.
Wall, I hope the figger is symbolical, and I believe in my soul she is! You enter this palace by four great portals, beautiful with sculptured figgers and ornaments, and as you go on in the colonnade you see beautiful paintin's illustratin' the rise and progress of Art.
And way up on the outside, on what they call the freeze of the buildin' (and good land! I don't see what they wuz a-thinkin' on, for I wuz jest a-meltin' down where I wuz, and it must have been hotter up there).
But that's their way.
Wall, way up there and on the pediment of the principal entrances are sculptures and portraits of the ancient masters of Art in relief.
In relief?
That's what they called it, and I spoze them old men must felt real relieved and contented to be sot down there in such a grand place, and so riz up like.

You could see plain by their liniments how glad and proud they wuz to be in Chicago, a-lookin' down on that seen of beauty all round 'em.

Lookin' down on the terraces richly ornamented with balustrades--down over the immense flight of steps down into the blue water, with its flocks of steam lanches, and gondolas, like gay birds of passage, settled down there ready for flight.
All the light in this buildin' comes down through immense skylights.
There is no danger of folks a-fallin' out of the winders or havin' anybody peek in unless it is the man in the moon.
All round this vast room is a gallery forty feet wide, where you could lock arms and promenade, and talk about hens.
But you wouldn't want to, I don't believe.

You'd want to spend every minute a-feastin' your eyes on the Best of the World.
All along the floors of the nave and transepts are displayed the most beautiful sculptures that wuz ever sculped in any part of the world, while the walls are covered with paintin's and sculptured panels in relief.
That's what they call 'em, because it's such a relief for folks to set down and look at 'em.
Between the promenades and naves and transepts are the smaller rooms, where the private collections of picters are kep and the works of the different Art Schools, and the four corners are filled with smaller picter galleries.
Why, to go through jest one of them annexes, let alone the palace itself, would take a week if you examined 'em as you ort to.

Josiah told me that mornin', with a encouraged look onto his face-- "Samantha, after we've seen all the ile paintin's we'll go somewhere, and have a good time." "But good land! see all the ile paintin's!" Why, as I told him after we'd wandered through there for hours and hours, sez I, "If we spent every minute of the hull summer we couldn't do justice to 'em all." And we couldn't.