are the epithets of the seventeenth century,--"horrible," "hideous,"
"outrageous," "dismal." Now take the modern view, eloquently expressed
in 1879 by the United States Commissioners, whose noble object was to
preserve the Falls untouched for ever. "The value of Niagara to the
world," they wrote, "and that which has obtained for it the homage of
so many men whom the world reveres, lies in its power of appeal to the
higher emotional and imaginative faculties, and this power is drawn
from qualities and conditions too subtle to be known through verbal
description. To a proper apprehension of these, something more than
passing observation is necessary; to an enjoyment of them, something
more than an instantaneous act of will." It is the old dispute between
beauty and wonder, between classic and romantic. Who is in the right
of it, the old priest or the modern commissioners? Each man will answer
according to his temperament. For my part, I am on the side of Father
Hennepin.

Niagara is not an inappropriate introduction to Chicago. For Chicago
also is beyond the scale of human comprehension and endeavour. In mere
size both are monstrous; it is in size alone that they are comparable.
Long before he reaches "the grey city," as its inhabitants fondly call
it, the traveller is prepared for the worst. At Pullman a thick pall
already hangs over everything. The nearer the train approaches Chicago
the drearier becomes the aspect. You are hauled through mile after mile
of rubbish and scrap-heap. You receive an impression of sharp-edged
flints and broken bottles. When you pass the "City Limits" you believe
yourself at your journey's end. You have arrived only at the boundary of
Chicago's ambition, and Chicago is forty minutes' distant. The station,
which bears the name "102nd St.," is still in the prairies.

A little more patience and you catch a first glimpse of the lake--vast,
smooth, and grey in the morning light. A jolt, and you are descending,
grip in hand, upon the platform.

The first impression of Chicago, and the last, is of an unfinished
monstrosity. It might be a vast railway station, built for men and women
twenty feet high. The sky-scrapers, in which it cherishes an inordinate
pride, shut out the few rays of sunlight which penetrate its dusky
atmosphere. They have not the excuse of narrow space which their rivals
in New York may plead. They are built in mere wantonness, for within
the City Limits, whose distance from t