Evening star., 1925-11-01
AROUND THE CITY
BY MAMIE LANCASTER.

! proper thrill-at least, it would. eX.
/ cept for "A sense of value that makes
| one prefer handmade lace to ma
/ chine; genuine painting to a chrome
! and SO on.
| Take. say, the Forum at Rome
! with its few. lonesome marble pillars
! uplifted. as if deplorinS annihilation
You VIII find yourself so at home
/ among these ruins of a pagan past as
to need no guide to lead the way. You
| have been there before. via the
/ movies. 1t is the same at Pompeii
/ You walk its eNcavated streets with a
/ familiar eye for this standing wall of
/ freScoeS that broken arch. those up
! rising supports of a roof forever
! falleu-eVery last little reVealment of
fireSides that were-all of which you
have seen time and time again. in the
movies. And when your guide has
walked you back to your bus, step
ping over buried thousands as un.
concernedly as if il were everyday
ground. say. like Seventh Street-you
WhZ off with a sense of deprivation
You have not seen the bronze and
marble treasures dug up from both
Pompeii and Herculaneum. now plac
ed in the museum at Naples, but
which lecturers display in illustration
of the splendor of those buried cities,
IL
in your tour, you wiil have TO depend
on its catalogue to even up with the
screen.
You must go to ShrineS that are too
dim-liGhted to photograph well, or that
forbid a camera lens. to feel that
inscrutahle something that an avera se
tongue cannot put in words. In Italy
st. Peters at Rome will transcend in
its maGnitcenCe of art-sculpture,
paintings, freSCoeS. moSaics. carvings
any Splendor that YOU or | or any
body could work out in oul" aSina
tions. MichaelanGeio. Raphael and
like immortals stand forth in the
glory of achievement. hut because
YOU have always known about them
and are human-you take their great
ness rs a matter of course. II is the
assembled wonderment of unnamed
works of art-the total background of
unknown genius eVerYWhere-every-
wherein that vast place, that sort
of visions for you the men of way
back centuries who created everlast-
ing beauty and then died-the Smiths
and JoneseS of humanity who do most
of the great work in this world and
seldom wear the laurels their brows
have earned.
You will find the first authentic
seeds of knowledge in those gal
leries of the Natican-but. even there
YOU will see familiar figures-stone
gods of mythology and sculptured
early Romans, whose duplicates smile
or frown at YOU from about every art
gallery YOU come across in the line
of Your travels.
The same emotions keep YOU COM
pany in the Cathedral of st. Paul-not
only for its austere splendor, seeing
that the supremacy of art asserts it.
self in most of the ancient cathedrals
Of the Old Worid-but because of a tiny
stream of water that flows in its mar
BILE bed beneath the tiled tagging of
the fioor-the stream beside which st.
Paul was beheaded-on the site or
which the church was built. The
camera has caught the Cloistered cor
ridor that belts the court garden with
its frescoed outer walls, hut the
church itself is too dim in its time
mellowed light to photograph we'll
hence its thrill for those tourists not
pa articularly interested in an apostle
who died so long and long ago.
The stairway that led to Pilates
court is now shrined in a Roman set
ting. The movies picture the en-
trance, but the camera can do nothing
with the dim perspective Of steps that
lead up and up into shadow. 1t may
be the novelty of seeing men and
women-Well dressed. intelligent men
and women-ClimbinG those steps on
their knees-the movie has never pic
tured it, 50 far as yon know. Then.
gain, it may come To YOU that those
men and women are following in faith
the way OF one who asCended that
stairway near 1000 years ago TO he
condemned to death on a cross And
you get your thrill.
60.
try has to show, whether for it's scenic
beauty, historic value or legendary
charm-so long as the camera can TO
Gus it-you can stay home and see it
in the movies. The only difference
between the two is the difference be
tween, say, handmade lace and ma
chine.