xample, the repeated reconstruction and adornment
of the national capital by Congress are priceless to the whole United
States, the government therein bearing witness to the value of the
beautiful. And if of value on the Potomac, is it not equally so at the
portal of the Pacific?

A few other cities there have been which have arisen at the command of
man, potentate or pirate, besides those of the quaker Penn and the tzar
Peter--Alexandria, the old and the new, with Constantinople between; the
first by order of the poor world conqueror, at the hand of the architect
Dinocrates, two or three centuries before Caesar, Cleopatra, and Antony,
but made fit for them and their chariots by streets a hundred feet wide.

The Danube is the mother of many cities, directing the destiny of
nations, from the Iron Gate to the Golden Horn. Vienna has been made
brilliantly modern since 1858. Beside the sufferings of Constantinople
our little calamity seems tame. Seven times during the last half
century the city has been swept by fire, not to mention earthquakes, or
pestilence, which on one occasion took with it three hundred thousand
lives. Yet all the while it grows in magnificence faster than the
invisible enemies of Mohammed can destroy it. But for these purifying
fires the city would still be one of narrow, filthy streets and vile
smells, reeking with malaria. The Golden Horn of the Bosporus possesses
no greater natural advantages than the Golden Gate of San Francisco, nor
even so great. The industrial potentialities of the former are not to be
compared with those of the latter, while for healthful airs and charming
environment we have all that earth can give, and therewith should be
content.

Cities have been made as the marquis of Bute made Cardiff, by
constructing a dock, and ship canal, and converting the ancient castle
into a modern palace. Many towns have been started as railway stations,
but few of them attained importance. Steamboat landings have been more
fortunate. Some cities owe their origin to war, some to commerce, and
not a few to manufactures. Fanaticism has played a part, as in India and
parts of Africa, where are nestings of half-savage humanity with a touch
of the heavenly in the air. Less disciplined are these than zion--towns,
but nearer the happiness of insensibility--the white--marbled and
jeweled Taj Mahal, Agra on the Jumna, and Delhi, making immortal
Jehan the builder, with his pearl mosque and palace housing