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of life escapes you. The many miles of scrub and underwood are diversified chiefly by crude advertisements. you are asked to purchase Duke's Mixture; there Castoria Toilet Powder is thrust upon your unwilling notice. In the few cities which you approach the frame-houses and plank-walks preserve the memory of the backwoods. In vain you look for the village church, which in Europe is never far away. In vain you look for the incidents which in our land lighten the tedium of a day's journey. All is barren and bleak monotony. The thin line of railway seems a hundred miles from the life of man. one station I caught sight of an "Exposition Car," which bore the legend, "Cuba on Wheels," and was surprised as at a miracle. Outside Niles, a little country town, a battered leather-covered shay was waiting to take wayfarers to the Michigan Inn; and the impression made by so simple a spectacle is the best proof of the railroad's isolation. There is but one interlude in the desolate expanse-Niagara.

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Before he reaches the station called Niagara Falls, the tourist has a foretaste of what is in store for him. is assailed in the train by touts, who would inveigle him into a hotel or let him a carriage, and to touts he is an unwilling prey so long as he remains within sight or hearing of the rapids. The trim little town which has grown up about the falls, and may be said to hang upon the water, has a holiday aspect. The sightseers, the little carriages, the summer-hotels, all wear the same garb of gaiety and leisure. There is a look of contented curiosity on the faces of all who are not busy defacing the landscape with mills and power-stations, as of those about to contemplate a supreme wonder. And yet the sight of it brings the same sense of disappointment which the colossal masterpieces of nature always inspire. Not to be amazed at it would be absurd.

To pretend to appreciate it is absurd also. "The Thunder of the Waters" can neither be painted upon canvas nor described in words. It is composed on a scale too large for human understanding. A giant might find some amusement in its friendly contemplation. A man can but stand aghast at its sound and size, as at some monstrous accident. He may compare the Fall on the American side with the Horse-shoe on the Canadian. He has no other standard of comparison, since Niagara not only transcends all other phenomena of its kind, but also our human vision When you see the and imagination. far-tossed spray lit up with a flash of iridescence, you catch at something which makes a definite impression; and you feel the same relief that a man may feel when he finds a friend in To heap up epia mob of strangers. thets upon this mysterious force is the idlest sport. Are you nearer to it when you have called it "deliberate. vast, and fascinating"? You might as well measure its breadth and height, or estimate the number of gallons which descend daily from the broad swirling river above. A distinguished playwright once complained of Sophocles that he lacked human interest, and the charge may be brought with greater It is only justice against Niagara. through daring and danger that you can connect it with the human race: and you find yourself wondering where it was that Captain Webb was hurled to his death, or by what route the gal lant little "Maid of the Mist" shot the rapids to escape the curiosity of the excise officer.

Nothing is more curious in the history of taste than the changed view which is taken to-day of natural scenery. Time was when the hand and mind of man were deemed necessary for a beautiful effect: a wild immensity of mountain or water was thought a mere form of ugliness; a garden was a

word of excuse can be found for the outskirts, for the Italian and Chinese quarters, for the crude, new districts which fasten like limpets upon the formless mass. of Chicago? These, to an enduring ugliness add a spice of cruelty and debauch, which are separate and of themselves.

In its suggestion of horror Chicago is democratic. The rich and the poor alike suffer from the prevailing lack of taste. The proud "residences" on the Lake Shore are no pleasanter to gaze upon

than the sulky sky-scrapers. Some of them look like prisons; some make a sad attempt at gaiety; all are amazingly unlike the dwelling-houses of men and women. Yet their owners are very wealthy. To them nothing is denied that money can buy, and it is thus that they prefer to express themselves and their ambitions. What, then, is tolerable in Chicago? Lincoln Park, which the smoke and fog of the city have not obscured, and the noble lake, whose fresh splendor no villainy of man can ever deface. And at one moment of the day, when a dark cloud hung over the lake, and the sun set in a red glory behind the sky-scrapers, each black, and blacker for its encircling smoke, Chicago rose superior to herself and her surroundings.

After ugliness, the worst foe of Chicago is dirt. A thick, black, sooty dust lies upon everything. It is at the peril of filthy hands that you attempt to open a window. In the room that was allotted to me in a gigantic hotel I found a pair of ancient side-spring boots, once the property, no doubt, of a prominent citizen, and their apparition intensified the impression of uncleanness. The streets are as untidy as the houses; garbage is dumped in the unfinished roadways; and in or out of your hotel you will seek comfort in vain. The citizens of Chicago themselves are far too busy to think whether their city is spruce or untidy. Money

is their quest, and it matters not in what circumstances they pursue it. The avid type is universal and insistent. The energy of New York is said to be mere leisure compared to the hustling of Chicago. Wherever you go

you are conscious of the universal search after gold. The vestibule of the hotel is packed with people chattering, calculating, and telephoning. The click of the machine which registers the latest quotations never ceases. In the street every one is hurrying that he may not miss a lucrative bargain, until the industry and ambition of Chicago culminate in the Board of Trade.

The dial of the Board of Trade, or the Pit as it is called, is the magnet which attracts all the eyes of Chicago, for on its face is marked the shifting. changing price of wheat. And there on the floor, below the Strangers' Gallery, the gamblers of the West play for the fortunes and lives of men. They stand between the farmers, whose wav ing cornfields they have never seen. and the peasants of Europe, whose taste for bread they do not share. But it is more keenly exciting to bet upon the future crop of wheat than upon the speed of a horse; and far larger sums may be hazarded in the Pit than on a racecourse. And so the livelong day the Bulls and Bears confront one another, gesticulating fiercely, and shouting at the top of their raucous voices.

If on the one hand they ruin the farmer, or on the other starve the peasant, it matters not to them. They have enjoyed the excitement, and made perchance a vast fortune at another's expense. They are, indeed, the true parasites of commerce; and in spite of their intense voices and rapid gestures, there is an air of unreality about all their transactions. As I watched the fury of the combatants, I found my self wondering why samples of corn were thrown upon the floor. Perhaps they serve to feed the pigeons.

Materialism, then, is the frank end and aim of Chicago. Its citizens desire to get rich as quickly and easily as possible. The means are indifferent to them. It is the pace alone which is important. All they want is "a business proposition" and "found money." And when they are rich, they have no other desire than to grow richer. Their money is useless to them, except to breed more money. The inevitable result is a savagery of thought and habit. If we may believe the newspapers of Chicago, peaceful men of business are "held up" at noon in crowded streets. The revolver is still a potent instrument in this city of the backwoods. But savagery is never without its reaction.

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to the West; and there is no reason why he should not found a school.

One

Yet with all its faults and absurdities upon its face, Chicago is the happiest city in America. It is protected by the triple brass of pride against all the assaults of its enemies. Never in history was so sublime a vanity revealed; and it is hard for a stranger to understand upon what it is based. Chicago is Chicago-that is what its citizens say, with a flattered smile, which makes argument useless. Its dirt and dust do not disconcert its selfesteem. The oversized ugliness of its buildings are no disappointment to its candid soul, and if its peculiar virtue escape your observation, so much the worse for you. "The marvelous city of There has seldom been a the West"-that is its own name, and nity of barbarians which did not find it lives up to it without an effort. Its relief in an extravagant sentimentality, history, as composed by its own citiand Chicago, in its hours of ease, is an zens, is one long pæan of praise. enthusiastic patron of the higher life. chronicler, to whose unconscious humor In culture it is fast outstripping Bos- I am infinitely indebted, dedicates his ton itself. It boasts more societies work to "the children of Chicago, who, whose object is "the promotion of se- if the Lord spares them until they shall rious thought upon art, science, and lit- have attained the alloted span of life, erature" than any other city in the will see this city the greatest metropoworld. The clubs which it has estab- lis on the globe." That is a modest lished for the proper study of Ibsen estimate, and it makes us feel the inand Browning are without number. It adequacy of our poor speech to hymn is as eager for the enlightenment of the glories of Chicago. And if you women as for sending up or down the suggest a fault, its panegyrists are alprice of corn. The craze, which is the ways ready with a counterstroke. mark of a crude society, will pass like Having no taste for slaughter, I did not many others, and, though it may apvisit Packing Town, but, without adpear sincere while it lasts, it is not mitting all the grave charges brought characteristic. The one triumph of against Chicago's noblest industry, one Chicago is its slang. It has invented might have supposed that the sudden a lingo more various and fuller of translation of herds of cattle into fancy than any known to man, and if it potted meat was not unattended with will forget Ibsen and exercise its inven- some inconvenience. This suspicion, tion after its own fashion, why should you are told, is an insult to the city. it not invent a new literature? Mr. What might disgust the traveller elseGeorge Ade, the Shakespeare of Chi- where has no terrors in Chicago. cago, has already shown us what can "This Packing-Town odor," we are

be done with the new speech in his masterly "Fables in Slang," to read which is almost as good as a journey

told by a zealot, "has been unjustly criticized. To any one accustomed to it there is only a pleasant suggestion of