The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-10-06
 The Belle of Old Paris

Froc Victor Hugo's 'Notre Dafhe ue
 Paris'
 However admirable you may think the present Paris, reconstrust in your ina gination the Paris of the fifteenth century. Look at the sky through that surrpising forest of spires, towers ana steeples--spread out amidst the vast city. tear asunder at the points or the islands and fold round the piers or tne bridges. the Seine, with it's broad green and yellow flakes, more variegateo than the skin of serpent-proJect distinctly upon horlzon oi azure .ne Gothic profile of that old Paris-make it's outline float in wintry mist chns- ing to it's innumerable chimneys- plunge 1t in deep night and observe the fantastic display of the darkness and the lights in that gloomy lap- rinth of buildings-cast upon 1t ray of moonlight, showing it in glimmer- ing vagueness, with It's towers llt- ing their great heads. from that fog gy sea-or draw that dark veil aside, cast into shade the thousand sharp angles of it's spires and it's gables and exhibit it all fantastically in- dented upon the glowing western sky at srndown and then compare.
 And it you would receive from the old city an impression which the mod ern one is quite incapable of giving Ou, holiday. at sunrise on Easter or Whit sunday to some elevated point from which your eye can command the whole capital and attend the awak- ening of the chimes. Behold. al signal from heaven-for it is the sun that gives it.--those thousand churches starting from their sleep. At first you hear only scattered tinkhngs, go ing from church to church, as when musicians are giving one another no- tice to begin Then. all on sudden, behold. for there are moments when the ear itself seems to see--behold. as- cending at the same moment from every steeple a column of sound. as 1t were a cloud of harmony. At first the vibration of each bell mounts up direct. clear and. as it were isolated from the rest into the splendid morn ing sky Then by degrees as they expand. they mingle. unite, are lost in each other and confounded in one mag nificent concert Then it is all one mass of sonorous vibrations, inces- santly sent forth from the innumera- ble steeples--floating. undulating. bouuding and eddying over the town, and extending far beyond the horizon the deafening circle of it's oscilla- tions.
 Yet that sea of harmony is not chaos. Wide and deep as it is, it has not lost it's transparency: you perceive the winding of each group of notes that escapes from the several rings; you can follow the dialogues by turns grave and clamorous. of the crecelle and the bourbon: you perceive the octaves leaning from one s'eeple to another: you observe them sprineins aloft. winged. light. and whistllng from the beu of silver. falling broken and limping from the Aell of wood. You admire among them the rich gamut in cessantlv descending and reascending the seven bells of Sainte Eustache; and you sec clear and rapid notes run nins across. as 1t were. in three or four luminous zigzags. and vanishing like flashes of lightning.
 Down there you see Saint Martins Abbey. a shrill and broken voiced songstress; here Is the sinister and sullen voice of tho Rastille: and at the other end Is the great tower of the Louvre with It's counsertenor. The royal chime of the Paiais increasingly casts on every side resplendent trill- ings upon which fall at regular in-