Some Cities San Fran. Resurgam | Page 6

were as gods and the gods very like the men. Encircling the Acropolis hill-most ancient cities had their central hill-the city owes its grandeur to the many temples dedicated to the Olympian deities by the men who made them, made both deities and temples, that long line of philosophers the sublimity of whose thoughts civilization fed on and found expression in the genius of now and then a Pericles or a Phidias.
Twenty times Rome suffered, each time worse than ever befell an American city, the debris of destruction overspreading her sacred soil some fathoms deep, yet all the while mistress of the world.
The Moors in Spain reconstructed and embellished many cities, and built many entire. To them Spain owes her finest specimens of art and architecture, as Seville, Cordova, and the Alhambra. In Naples the mediaeval still overshadows the modern. The city needs cleansing, though she flourishes in her filth and volcanic belchings. Nice, like Paris, plans to please her guests. Berlin was a little late with her reconstructive work; the town walls were not removed till 1866. Though dating from 1190, Glasgow is practically modern, having been several times renovated by fire. Antwerp, burned in 1871, was quickly rebuilt. The Hague is charming as the city of peace. Munich, on the Isar, is every day drifting into the beautiful, not to say aesthetical.
Pekin is a city sui generis, with its Kin-Ching, or prohibited city, sacred to royalty; its Hwang-Ching, or imperial city, exclusively for court officials; its Tartar division and Chinese division, all completed according to the grand khan and Confucius. Happy Celestials! There is nothing more to be done, nothing to reconstruct, nothing to improve; it stands alone, the only city in all the world that is absolutely finished and perfect. But of a truth our public works sink into insignificance beside those of the ancient barbarians, the great wall and canal of China, the pyramids of Egypt, and the brilliant cities of Assyria and Palmyra.
The cities of Australia-Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide-in common with all those of the British colonies, are laid out along liberal lines, with broad streets, parks, public squares, and beautiful modern buildings, requiring little change for many years to come. The English part of Calcutta is a city of palaces, built from the spoils of subjugation. Yokohama was a small fishing station when Commodore Perry called there in 1854.
In the New World as in the Old, from John Cotton to Joseph Smith, religion with cupidity inspires. One William Blaxton in 1630 lived where Boston now is, and invited thither Winthrop and his colonists. When banished from Massachusetts, Roger Williams stepped ashore on the bank of the Seekonk, on a rock where is now Providence. The French built a fort where Marquette camped in 1673, and there is now Chicago. Buffalo was a military post in 1812. St. Paul was an Indian trading station prior to 1838. The building of Fort Washington was followed by settlers and Cincinnati was begun. Henry Hudson touched at Manhattan island in 1609, and the Dutch following, New York was the result. Brigham Young, journeying westward, came to the Great Salt Lake, where, as he told his followers, he was instructed by divine revelation to plant the City of the Saints. It proved more permanent than might have been expected, as zion-cities usually are quite ephemeral affairs.
Boston, the beneficial, swept by fires, smallpox, witchcraft, quakerism, snowstorms, earthquakes, and proslavery riots, still lives to meditate upon her own superiority and to instruct mankind. Much attention has been given of late in Boston and suburban towns to artistic effect in street architecture. Until recently New York has given but little thought to pleasing effects. Broadway was not broad, and Fifth Avenue was not striking. Of late, however, the city has become imperial, houses parks and driveways being among the finest in the world. New Orleans has survived at least a dozen great yellow-fever crises since 1812, population meanwhile increasing twentyfold. After the enforced construction of the levee, the idea came to some one that the top of it would make a fine driveway, which in due time was extended from the river and bayous to the lake, thus becoming the most attractive feature of the place. Though not without natural attractions, Chicago was not made by or for her things of beauty. Beginning with low wooden houses along dirty streets, transformations were continued until systems of parks and boulevards with elegant edifices came into view,-which shows that, however material the beginning of American towns may be, if prosperity comes the aesthetical is sure to come with it. A contrast to Chicago may be found in St. Louis, for a long time trading-post town and city, which would be of more importance now were her people of a different quality. Even her chronic calamities,