A Mount Vernon Place Moment in Early Spring...

A Mount Vernon Place Moment in Early Spring...

...from 'Bummeln durch Baltimore' (Strolling through Baltimore)

It is probably quite appropriate that the statue of Baltimore lawyer, politician, poet and writer Severn Teackle Wallis, in the eastern quadrant of the Mount Vernon Place parks, is facing east, as one of his great interests was Spain, of which he wrote two books.

It is also appropriate that, while they face in opposite directions, Wallis’ statue shares this quadrant of park with that of philanthropist George Peabody, situated across from an entrance to the Peabody Institute music conservatory; Wallis also wrote a volume on Peabody.

While Wallis stands, possibly contemplating his next voyage east to Spain, Peabody is seated, with a fine view of the monument to George Washington, the Mount Vernon parks’ centerpiece, perhaps imagining in the sunshine of this spring afternoon a favorite piece of music being performed by an ensemble of student musicians of the conservatory he endowed, just across the greensward to his left.

©2017 Steve Ember