| Existing comment:
Nathaniel Hawthorne declared that the Willard Lobby "may be much more justly called the centre of Washington and the Union that either the Capitol, the White House, or the State Department. Everybody may be seen there... You exchange nods with governors of sovereign states, you elbow illustrious men, and tread of the toes of generals, you hear statesmen and orators speaking in their familiar tones. You are mixed up with office-seekers, wire-pullers, inventors, artists, poets, prosers, (including editors, army-correspondents, attaches of foreign journals, and long-winded talkers), clerks, diplomats, mail contractors, railway directors, until your own identify is lost among them." |