eretricious
element in it, which I plead guilty to finding very enjoyable. From the
moral, and even from the loftily aesthetic point of view, this gaudy,
glittering Vanity Fair is no doubt open to criticism. What reconciles me
to it aesthetically is the gemlike transparency of its colouring. Garish
it is, no doubt, but not in the least stifling, smoky, or lurid. The
application of electricity--light divorced from smoke and heat--to the
beautifying of city life is as yet in its infancy. Even the Americans
have scarcely got beyond the point of making lavish use of the raw
material. But the raw material is beautiful in itself, and in this
pellucid air (the point to which one always returns) it produces magical
effects.

The other night, at a restaurant, I sat at the next table to Mr. Edison,
and could not but look with interest and admiration at his furrowed,
anxious, typically American and truly beautiful face. Here, if you like,
was an example of nervous overstrain; but the soft and yet brilliant
light of the restaurant was in itself a sufficient reminder that the
overstrain had not been incurred for nothing. Electricity is the true
"white magic" of the future; and here, with his pallid face and silver
hair, sat the master magician--one of the great light-givers of the
world. A light-giver, I think, in more than a merely material sense. The
moral influence of the electric lamp, its effect upon the hygiene of the
soul, has not yet been duly estimated. But even in a merely material
sense, what has not the Edison movement, as it may be called, done for
this city of New York! Its influence is felt on every hand, in comfort,
convenience, and beauty. The lavish use of electricity, both as an
illuminant and as a motive power, combines with its climate, its
situation, and its architecture to make New York one of the most
fascinating cities in the world. Why, good Americans, when they die,
should go to Paris, is a theological enigma which more and more puzzles
me.

POSTSCRIPT.--Since my return to England, I have carefully reconsidered
my impression that the rush, whirl, and clamour of street life is
greater in London than in New York. Every day confirms it. On our main
thoroughfares, the stream of omnibuses is quite as unbroken as the
stream of electric and cable cars in New York; our van traffic is at
least as heavy; and we have in addition the host of creeping "growlers"
and darting hansoms, which is almost without counterp