Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1897-12-04
BEAUTIFUL WASHINGTON.
The Verdict Of an Intelligent EnaIishman.

London's children--such of them As
comparison by travel among other
capitals-are wont to conceive Of their
mother city as hideous, but mon
strously impressive. Those who have
travelled and compared will usually tell
you the exact opposite. A few years
ago Grant Allen labelled London "a
squalid village" and instituted an
elaborate comparison, to London's hui
initiation, with-Brussels. 1t was hard
TO bear, but it was largely true. Where
Grant Allen was unjust, if remember
MIN right, was in denying London not
only form and loneliness, but beauty
altogether. l should urge against him
mat London is the most beautiful and
at the same time the most provincial of
all the capital cities of the earth.
Some capitals were born; some were
made; London grew. In the task of
looking like capitals, the cities which
were born start naturally with a huge
advantage. To look like a capital a
city wants order, unity of plane, the
impression of stately completeness. You
see it best, where you would least ex-
pect it, in the United States. Wash
ington is the best example; the men
VINO laid it off, as their expressive
phrase is, put the Capitol on an emf
nence in the middle, and grouped every
thing symmetrically round it, The
streets were arranged in the National
grldiron, with the Capitol as centre;
the Mormon layers-off 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 a complete and artistic
whole as is play of Sophocles or a
symphony of Mozart. All the parts re-
late one to another. Washington has
grown out of it's complete symmetry.
IT is true; it has spread, as cities will,
more on one side than on another. But
1t remains coherent whole; when you
are IN one part you carry the locality
or all other parts in your head, and all
Its architectural jewels are presented
in the openest and most advantageous
setting.
The European capitals are too old for
this deliberate symmetry. Mostly they
come into the class of cities that were
made. Paris was carved into cohesion
by Haussmann, with it's circle of
boulevards and system of avenues,
Chicago. which is really a capital also.
is following the example with a differ
enee; the magnificent avenues and
gardens on the blue sea front of Lake
Michigan are at its base, and it has
buttressed its ring of boulevards with
noble parks.
Vienna transformed itself from o
cramped medieval town to a capital
by levelling its Notifications into the
rinG-a circlet of palaces and parlid-
ments, museums. galleries and courts.
opera and university, without an equal
for imperial stateliness. Other cities,
less successful in grouping their fea-
lures, have aligned themselves along
great street. Inter den Linden is
one example, with two palaces, two
museums, opera and university and a
dozen statues in length of a mile.
with triumphal 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 panorama
of the whole city breaking away from
one side and the elephantine Palace of
Justice blocking it at the end.
LONDON is DISAPPOINTING.
After all these, take the night boat
home and run in at sunshiny dawn
upon our 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 DIT
Charing Cross, our dear London does
not look like capital. You are in the
heart of it; what do you see? There
is Nelson welcoming you back. GER
too, you recall, was seasick
on a small boat-and the national gall
lery. 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, looking out on to the narrow
alleys of Cheapside and Ludgate hill,
as. the Palace of Justice cOopS in the
narrow alley of Fleet street; the opera
is tucked up in a vegetable market
and. for that matter, is not open; the
Houses of Parliament are in a corner
to themselves, carefully posted where
they destroy the view of Westminster
Abbey; the abbey has fortified it's one
visible side with absurd st. Margaret's.
the university has no students and the |
buildings do not even pre-
tend to exist at all. Poor London! It
has no center and no shape; it is all |
parts and no whole.
THE SUMMARY OF A 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 a |
debtors prison-he will readily believe |
both falsehoods-and then divert his |
attention to the people. That boiling |
whirlpool of men is the real sight of |
And, after all, somebody will |
say it is men that make great city. |
So it is in one sense, yet not in all; else !
EPSON Downs on Derby day is a great |