lled,
that Florence became fair and Siena superb. I should not object to a New
York of demolished sky-scrapers. They would make fine ruins; I would
like to see them as ruins. In fact, now I think of it, 'The Heart of New
York' reminded me of the Roman Forum. I wonder I didn't think of that
before. But if you want sublimity, the distinguishing quality of New
York, as I feel it more and more, while I talk of it, you must take that
stretch of Fifth Avenue from a motor-bus top."

"But that stretch of Fifth Avenue abounds in sky-scrapers!" we lamented
the man's inconsistency.

"Sky-scrapers in subordination, yes. There is one to every other block.
There is that supreme sky-scraper, the Flatiron. But just as the
Flatiron, since the newspapers have ceased to celebrate its pranks with
men's umbrellas, and the feathers and flounces and 'tempestuous
petticoats' of the women, has sunk back into a measurable inconspicuity,
so all the other tall buildings have somehow harmonized themselves with
the prospect and no longer form the barbarous architectural chaos of
lower New York. I don't object to their being mainly business houses and
hotels; I think that it is much more respectable than being palaces or
war-like eminences, Guelf or Ghibelline; and as I ride up-town in my
motor-bus, I thrill with their grandeur and glow with their
condescension. Yes, they condescend; and although their tall white
flanks climb in the distance, they seem to sink on nearer approach, and
amiably decline to disfigure the line of progress, or to dwarf the
adjacent edifices. Down-town, in the heart of New York, poor old Trinity
looks driven into the ground by the surrounding heights and bulks; but
along my sublime upper Fifth Avenue there is spire after spire that does
not unduly dwindle, but looks as if tenderly, reverently, protected by
the neighboring giants. They are very good and kind giants, apparently.
But the acme of the sublimity, the quality in which I find my fancy
insisting more and more, is in those two stately hostelries, the Gog and
Magog of that giant company, which guard the approach to the Park like
mighty pillars, the posts of vast city gates folded back from them."

"Come!" we said. "This is beginning to be something like."

"In November," our friend said, taking breath for a fresh spurt of
praise, "there were a good many sympathetic afternoons which lent
themselves to motor-bus progress up that magnificent avenue, and if you
mounted