Читать книгу Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXVI, July 1852, Vol. V - Various - Страница 3

On reaching the summit of the ascent, the visitor finds himself upon an extended plain, with streets of beautiful rural residences on every hand, and in the centre a vast public square occupied and surrounded by the buildings of the Armory. These buildings are spacious and elegant in their construction, and are arranged in a very picturesque and symmetrical manner within the square, and along the streets that surround it. The grounds are shaded with trees; the dwellings are adorned with gardens and shrubbery. Broad and neatly-kept walks, some graveled, others paved, extend across the green or along the line of the buildings, opening charming vistas in every direction. All is quiet and still. Here and there a solitary pedestrian is seen moving at a distance upon the sidewalk, or disappearing among the trees at the end of an avenue; and perhaps the carriage of some party of strangers stands waiting at a gate. The visitor who comes upon this scene on a calm summer morning, is enchanted by the rural beauty that surrounds him, and by the air of silence and repose which reigns over it all. He hears the distant barking of a dog, the voices of children at play, or the subdued thundering of the railway-train crossing the river over its wooden viaduct, far down the valley – and other similar rural sounds coming from a distance through the calm morning air – but all around him and near him is still. Can it be possible, he asks, that such a scene of tranquillity and loveliness can be the outward form and embodiment of a vast machinery incessantly employed in the production of engines of carnage and death?

It is, however, after all, perhaps scarcely proper to call the arms that are manufactured by the American government, and stored in their various arsenals, as engines of carnage and destruction. They ought, perhaps, to be considered rather as instruments of security and peace; for their destination is, as it would seem, not to be employed in active service in the performance of the function for which they are so carefully prepared; but to be consigned, when once finished, to eternal quiescence and repose. They protect by their existence, and not by their action; but in order that this, their simple existence, should be efficient as protection, it is necessary that the instruments themselves should be fitted for their work in the surest and most perfect manner. And thus we have the very singular and extraordinary operation going on, of manufacturing with the greatest care, and with the highest possible degree of scientific and mechanical skill, a vast system of machinery, which, when completed, all parties concerned most sincerely hope and believe will, in a great majority of cases, remain in their depositories undisturbed forever. They fulfill their vast function by their simple existence – and thus, though in the highest degree useful, are never to be used.