treet has no more dignity than a tin
soldier. And as the skyscraper makes houses of a common size ridiculous,
so it loses its splendour when it stands alone. Nothing can surpass in
ugliness the twenty storeys of thin horror that is called the Flat-iron;
and it is ugly because it is isolated in Madison Square, a place of
reasonable dimensions. It is continuity which imparts a dignity to these
mammoths. The vast masses which frown upon Wall Street and Broadway are
austere, like the Pyramids. They seem the works of giants, not of men.
They might be a vast phenomenon of nature, which was before the flood,
and which has survived the shocks of earthquake and the passage of the
years. And when their summits are lit by the declining sun, when their
white walls look like marble in the glow of the reddening sky, they
present such a spectacle as many a strenuous American crosses the ocean
to see in Switzerland, and crosses it in vain.

New York, in truth, is a city of many beauties, and with a reckless
prodigality she has done her best to obscure them all. Driven by a vain
love of swift traffic, she assails your ear with an incessant din and
your eye with the unsightliest railroad that human ingenuity has ever
contrived. She has sacrificed the amenity of her streets and the dignity
of her buildings to the false god of Speed. Why men worship Speed, a
demon who lies in wait to destroy them, it is impossible to understand.
It would be as wise and as profitable to worship Sloth. However, the men
of New York, as they tell you with an insistent and ingenuous pride, are
"hustlers." They must ever be moving, and moving fast. The "hustling,"
probably, leads to little enough. Haste and industry are not synonymous.
To run up and down is but a form of busy idleness. The captains of
industry who do the work of the world sit still, surrounded by bells and
telephones. Such heroes as J. Pierpont Morgan and John D. Rockefeller
are never surprised on train or trolley. They show themselves furtively
behind vast expanses of plate-glass, and move only to eat or sleep.
It is the common citizen of New York who is never quiet. He finds
it irksome to stay long in the same place. Though his house may be
comfortable, even luxurious, he is in a fever to leave it. And so it
comes about that what he is wont to call "transportation" seems the most
important thing in his life. We give the word another signification.
To New York it means the many methods of convey