From this distance, Dag could barely make out the line a third of the way up that showed where construction was halted and later resumed with a different shade of marble. Twenty-three years the delays had lasted. Twenty-three years of insufficient funding, infighting over control of the commissioning society, and of course, the chaos resulting from the Civil War. It was Dag’s favorite symbol of America, a country that always fumbled but never quit trying to outdo the rest of the world.
