The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1900-07-29
A Town with a Soul.

A Town With Soul.
The enterprising. Industrious and. on
the whole. well-meaning town OF Chi
cago has been getting some hard hits
OF late.
First there was Dean Stubs, the
English historian. who requited his
lavish entertainment by saying that
town was "a clanking wilderness Of
endless streets, monotonous. unpictur-
esque. untidy. dirty. foul" also, "the
most hatefully uniovely city I ever was
in"
The dean might, perhaps. be forgiven,
for. after all, he was nothing but a Wis
are proverbiaiiy unable to see the kinds
OF merit to which their eyes are un-
accustomed, and who consider that the
obligations of guest are best fulfilled
by plain and vigorous language about
the deficiencies OF the hosts possess
sions.
But It is different with Mr.. Robert
Herrick, who has been drawing an as
sistant professors salary in the Uni
versity Of Chicago for the last seven
years. and had. accordingly. had ample
opportunity to know something about
the merits as well as the defects OF the
city by the lake. Prof. Herrick has
written a novel entitled 1.-THE Web OF
Life" which betrays disordered d.
gestion and a Jaundiced eye. He calls
the street cars 'fnfernai public char
lots; he throws sixteen fts when he
considers Cottage Grove avenue, with
Its combination of "tawdriness, slack
ness, dirt. vulgarity." and the general
physical unloveliness OF the town makes
him shudder expressively through
many pages.
OF course Chicago Is ugly. But It Is
also beautiful And II Is doing its pref
test to increase ifs beauty and dimin-
ish its ugliness. Notwithstanding It's
hideousness. II is pre-eminently . town
with q soul. A cultivated New York
woman who went there to live once
expressed II as her deliberate opinion
that the inhabitants OF Chicago were
more open to the perception OF the
ideal aspects of life than those OF any
other city in the United States. 1t n
their search for the ideal that makes
them the victims Of chariatans and fad
dists and causes all kinds of spiritual
quaekery to flourish there as IL does
not flourish even In Boston. But this
is only a phase OF development. Any
body who knows the Chicago churches.
art galleries. parks. concerts. book
shops. clubs. phiianthropies. knows
what Chicago II trying to do for the
higher life OF body and mind. and
knows that the town furnishes an arti-
Gle OF mental stimulus better. because
more concentrated, than that offered
even BY New York.
One reason why we sympathixs 80
keeniy with Chicago Is that Seattle is
IN something of the same box. A town
that grows with great rapldity 10 as
awkward. ungainiy and unfinished as a
boy or girl who developes in the same
way. The process Of making a great
city out Of nothing Is not particularly
pretty one. but IL Is important. and II
is dIgnified by this importance. even In
its most squaiId aspects. II the aes-
thesic senslhiiities are too violently
shocked during the process, then the
aesthetic sensibilities must go under
cover and remain until the town has
reached that stage OF deyelopment--as
inevitable because as natural as any
Of the preceding stages-where II
reaches out for beauty as strenuously
as II has previously reached out for
wealth and power.
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