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 stair- 

 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. 



"If 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; Jeffer- 

 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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