Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-11-06
An Englishman's Opinion of Wash
ington as a Capital.
LONDON, he SAYS, is PROVINCIAL
European Cities Are Too Old for
Real Symmetry.
HIGH PRAISE FOR CHICAGO
W. Stevens in the London Daily Mall

g. W. Stevens in the London Daily Mall
London's children-such of them as have
not sharpered their impulse to comparison
by travel among other capitals-are won't
TO conceive OF their mother city as hideous,
but monstrously impressive. Those who
nave Travelled and compared will usually tell
you the exact opposite. A few years ago
Mr.. Grant Allen labeled London "a squalid
village" and Instituted an elaborate com.
parison. to London's humiliation, with
Brussels. 1t was hard to bear, but fl was
largely true. Where Mr.. Grant Allen was
unjust. II / remember him right was in
denying London, not only form and comeli-
ness. but beauty altogether 1 should urge
against him that London is the most beau
tiful and at the same time the most pro-
vincial, of all the capital cities of the earth.
Some capitals were born: some were
made; London grew. In the task Of look
ing like capitals. the cities which we e born
start naturally with huge advantage. 10
look like a capital city wants order.
unity of plane. the impression OF stately
completeness. You see IL best. where you
would least expect IL. in the United States.
Washington is the best example. the men
who laid it off, as their expressive phrase
is, put the Capitol on an eminence I'm the
middle, and grouped everything SYM
metrically round il. The streets were ar
ranged in the national gridlron. with the
Capitol as center; the Mormon layers-o1 of
Salt Lake City did the same with their
temple. In Washington they relieved the
monotony of this plan by broad avenues
cutting the gridiron diagonally. The result
is that Washington is Enthusiastically one
city. as much complete and artistic whole
as is a play of Sophocles or a symphony
of Mozart. All the parts relate one to an
ether. Washington has grown out of its
complete symmetry, it is true: Il has
spread, cities will. more on one side than
on another. But IL remains a coherent
whole; when you are in one part you carry
the locality of all other parts in your head,
and all its architectural jewels are present.
ed In the openest and most advantageous
setting.
Lack Deliberate Symmetry.
The European capitals are too old for this
deliberate symmetry. Mostly they come in
to the class of cities that were made. Paris
was carved into cohesion by Haussmann
with its circle Of boulevards and system OF
avenues. Chicago, which is really a cap
ital also, is following the example with a
difference: the magnificent avenues and
gardens on the blue front of Lake
Michigan are at its base. and IL has butt
tressed its ring of boulevards with noble
parks.
Vienna transformed itself from a cramp-
ed medieval town to a capital by leveling
its Notifications into the ring-a circlet of
palaces and parliaments, museums gall
leries and courts, opera and university,
without an equal for imperial stateliness
other cities, less successful in grouping
their features, have aligned themselves
along great street. Inter den Linden is
one example, with two palaces two mu-
seums, opera and university and a dozen
statues in length of a mile. with trium-
phal arch at one end and a square with
palace, gallery and cathedral at the other.
The Rue Royale, at Brussels, is another
lined with public buildings, with a panOr-
anna of the whole city breaking away from
side and the alenh Of
tice blocking it at the end.
London is Disappointing.
After all these take the night boat home
and run in at a sunshiny dawn upon cur
dear London. You will have seen nothing
in all your journeying more beautiful than
the morning sheen, half mist, half smoke,
that gilds the endless ocean of roofs so
tenderly. But when you SET yourself down
at Charing-crCss, our dear London does not
look like a capital. You are in the heart
or II; what do you see? There Is Nelson
welcoming you back, certainly-he too you
recall, was seasick on a small boat-and
the National Gallery. But the government
offices are best seen from st. James Park,
and the royal palaces, dotted about by
themselves, are best not seen at all; the
cathedral is a couple of miles away, lock-
ing out on to the narrow alleys of Cheap
side and Ludgate-hill, as the Palace of
Justice coops in the narrow alley of Fleet
street; the Opera is tucked up i'm a yege-
table market, and. for that matter, is not
open; the houses of parliament are in u
corner to themselves, carefully posted
where they destroy the view of West-
minister Abbey: the abbey has fortified its
one visible side with absurd st. Margarct's,
the university has no students and the
municipal buildings do not even pretend
to exist at all. Poor Londoni 1t has no
center and no shape; it is all parts ard no
whole.
The Summary OF Nation.
The best way to impress a foreign visitor
to London is to take him to the front OF
the Royal Exchange, tell him that the
Mansion House is a charity school and the
Bank of England debtors prison-he Will
readily believe both falsehoois-and then
divert his attention to tie people. That
boiling whirlpool of men is the real sight
of London. And, after all somebody will
say, 1t is men that make a great city. So
II is in one sense, yet not in all: else ED
som Downs on Derby day is a great city.
A capital, to strike the eye and get home
to the imagination. ought visibly and sue
cinctly 10 summarize the whole activity Of
a nation. Vienna does this in a walk
round The ring. There is the emperor, the
impe rial family, the great mobiles, Austrian
drama and music and painting, the anti
semitic question, The question Of German
VS.. Slav, the Catholic Church, the army
and the stock eXchaGge-all represented
in architecture. You may search
London till your legs ache for any such
VI IShSitHa, iDl 10 speak OF the
British empire, in walk OF an hour Lon
don not only fails TO look national it goes
out of its way to look provincial.
London is my hatiNe city, and 1 love
every smut of it. Ii has the gift of an
air which NANTES it twice daily in MATCH
less beauty. 1t has river which is truly
a hNiEg river-not carefully preserved
ditch like the Spree or Wien. or a toy like
the Seine-but highway of ships ard
vista of endless mystery and grandeur
Steam up Ii at evening in the red eye Of
the sun, see the smoky majesty of London
rise luridly up to heaven, and you will
never call it anything but the most won-
derful and awful of all cities. 1t is really
the heart of the world. But inside IL does