and
gleamed with jets of light from every point. The Old Schloss showed
continuous lines of illumination in the windows of its four stories,
along its front of six hundred and fifty feet, while the majestic dome
caught and reflected rays of light from every point of the horizon. On
the opposite side of the Lustgarten, the Doric portico of the National
Gallery glowed with rose-colored light from massive Grecian lamps,
while the arched entrance beneath its superb staircase gleamed with a
pale sea-green radiance like the entrance to some ocean cave. The
incomparable architecture of the Old Museum was set in strong relief
by white light, which flooded its immense Ionic colonnade and brought
out the high colors of the colossal frescos along the three hundred
feet of its magnificent portico. The front of the palace of the Crown
Prince was thrown, by innumerable jets, into a blaze of crimson. The
Roman Catholic Church of St. Hedwig, with its dome in imitation of the
Pantheon, its Latin cross and window arches beaming in pale yellow,
made a fine background for the only unilluminated building, the palace
of the Emperor. From the Opera House, the Arsenal, and the University,
crowns and elaborate designs were burning, yet unconsumed. Most
elaborately decorated of all Berlin buildings was the Academy of Arts
and Sciences, opposite the Imperial Palace, with colossal warriors in
bronze keeping guard at its portals, and the Angel of Peace laying a
laurel wreath on the altar of Fatherland as its decorative
centre-piece. No high meaning of all its symbols was more touching
and significant than the appropriate texts of Scripture written for
the Kaiser's eye, underneath its elaborate frescos. But of what avail
would be an attempt to describe two miles of most beautiful
decorations along Unter den Linden, each one a study in itself, and
having nothing in common with the others, except the eagles and the
Emperor's monogram; and the innumerable points of light, massed in a
world of various forms, and in all the colors of the rainbow! This
glow of splendor surrounded by the dense darkness covered the city,
and the dazzling coronals of its lofty towers and domes and spires
must have been visible to a great distance across the plains of
Brandenburg.

Slowly the triple line of carriages and the surging throng pressed
onward, past the palaces and diplomatic residences of the Pariser
Platz; some diverging down the Wilhelm Strasse, where streaming