The Washington times., 1921-04-10

OCSh hotSus
Thus heard a thousand things
about Jerusalem before / ever SOW
IT: had heard rhapsodies and dis.
paragements OF every description
rationalistic critics. with
consistency. had planned
II for it's accumulated rubbish and It's
modern restoration, for it's antiquat"l
and its up-to-date vu'-
garity. But somehow the one inn
preston that had never pierced
through their description was tie
simple and single impression of a
city on a hill, with walls coming 20
the very edge of slopes tina. were
almost as steep as walls; the tLr
shaped hill in so many medievi.
landscapes.
INSTALLATION UNREAL.
One would suppose that this was
at once the plainest and most pic
turesque of all the facts; yet somehow
in my reading ] had always lost II
amid a mass of minor facts that were
merely details. We know that a city
that Is set upon a hill cannot be hid.
and yet II would seem tina. II is
exactly the hill that Is hid, tho lsf
perhaps IL is only hid from the WISE
and the understanding.
l had q similar and simple impress
sion when i discovered America.
cannot void the phrase; for IL would
really seem that each man discovers
1t for himself.
Thus, / had heard a great deal,
before l saw them, about the tall and
dominant buildings Of New York. ]
agree that that they have an instant
effect on the Imagination, which |
think Is increased by the situation in
which they stand. and out of which
they arose. They are all the more i'm
pressive because the building. while
IT Is vertically so vast, is horizontally
almost narrow.
New York is an island. and has
all the intensive romance of an island.
II Is a thing OF almost Infinite height
upon very finite foundations. 1t is al
most like a lofty lighthouse upon a
lonely rock. But this story OF the
skyscrappers which l had often heard
would by itself give a curiousy false
impression of the freshest and most
curious characteristic OF American
architecture.
LIkENS n. Y. TO BABYLON.
Told only in terms OF these great
towers of stone and brick in the big
industrial cities. the story would tend
hing cold and colossal like the monu-
ments OF Asia. II would suggest a
modern Babylon altogether too Baby
lonian. 1t would imply that the man
OF the New world was a sort of new
Pharaoh, who built not so much a
pyramid as a pagoda OF pyramids. IL
would suggest houses built by man.
moths out OF mountains, the cities
reared by elephants in their own
elephantine school OF architecture.
And New York does recall the most
famous of all skyscrapers, the Tower
OF Babel IT recalls IT none the less
because there is no doubt about the
confusion OF tongues.
But in truth the very reverse is
true OF most OF the buildings in
America. had no sooner passed out
into the suburbs Of New York on the
way to Boston than ] began TO see
something else quite contrary and far
more curious. saw forests of small
houses stretching away to the hort
zon as literal forests do: villages and
towns and cities. And they were, in
another sense, literally like forestc
They were all made OF wood.
1t was almost as fantastic to sn
Englishman as IL they had been mad.
Of cardboard. I had long outlived
the silly old joke that referred Il
Americans as IL they all lived in the
backwoods. But, in sense, IL they do
not live in the woods. they are not
yet out Of the wood.
do not say this in any sense as
a criticism. AS II happens | am par
ticularly fond of wood. or all the
superstitions which our fathers took
lightly enough to love, the most na,'
ural seems to me the notion that il
Is lucky to touch wood.
SCOUTS SUPERSTITION THEORIES
Some OF them affect me the less
as superstition because l feel them
as symbols. If humanity had really
thought Friday unlucky II would
have talked about bad Friday in
stead of Good Friday. And, while
feel the thrill of thirteen at a
table, ! am not so sure that 1t is
the most miserable OF all human