New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-11-04
THE REsUSClTAuON> or CITES.

The fiery Hebrew prophet cried, in awful
warning: "Behold Damascus is taken away
" from being a city, and it shall be ruinOus
"beop.p But the human race has outlived
certain of its old conditions, and among other
things, the permanent ruin of great cities
seems to have become impossible. There APP
pears now to be no thought of the abandon
ment of fixed and cOmmOdlous sites; and we
are not likely to furnish material for the
musings of the Volneys or the Gibbons
of the next century, or for the
spades and picks of future Layards.
We seem to have reached point at which
there. is no probability of shifting of the
great centers of trade, and wars have so far
been modified in their methods that even If
we could have o new Caius Marlus, he would
look in vain for q Carthage. Our charac-
teristic is one of impetus and not of retrOces-
sion. Paradoxical as it may seem, our rapid
locomotion has rendered men, If not races of
men, sedentary. We go, but we return. We
are cast down, but we rise up again. VS.
itors tell us that Paris is fast assuming its old
elories, aud that the first business OF French
men was to put temporarily out of sight, by
supdry ingenious expedients, all signs of Prus-
alan violence OF of Commune vandalism.
picturesaueness was well enough in BaalDec
or Ninevah; fair outside, and complete
ness in show at least, were better for shop
keeping Paris. But we have examples of
restless recuperation nearer home. Chicago
gave us the first great example OF the Amer
lean impotence of ruin. The livery tears,
which her fiery fate drew even from foreign
ewes, were hardly dry before she had
recovered enough of her queenly state to show
that her future would not fear comparison
with her past.
But of vigor, pluck, persistence, endurance,
and a stanch heart, we have had still another
exhibition. It is announced that the work of
rebuilding the City of Boston, SO cruelly
smitten by two great confagrations, Is about
10 be suspended for the Winter. We may
take occasion Of the pause to express our
wonder and admiration at the energy, almost
unprecedented, with which this work has been
carried on in our sister city. When the Sum-
mer oDened there was more than one point at
which a man might stand in Boston, and see
nothing but ruin before him and upon either
side. But for the hum of traffic in his ears, a
person of reasonably warm imagination might
have supposed himself gazing upon the havoc
if not the glories of the East. Yistas had
been opened such as had been scanned by no
human eye for more than century. The
Boston artists had little need of visiting
Greece or Italy in search of studies; if they
had gone to the ends of the Garth they would
have found no truer types of ruin than
were furnished them close by the shops in which
they bought their pencils. II was something
of q privilege which the strangers lifetime
may not afford him again, to contemplate the
scene, to mark the effect of broken lines of
shivcred columns, of long reaches OF debris,
and, Of the contrast between what remained
and the tokens of what had been taken away.
The very atmosphere seemed changed, and to
some extent was indeed so. The general inn
preston was of visiting foreign city hereto
fore unseen. Ten steps brought one back to
old, familiar Boston, State House, Common,