rred as on the wharves? From here even the
narrowest fancy reaches out to the four watery corners of the earth.
No nose is so green and country-bred that it doesn't sniff the spices
of India. Great ships lie in the channel camouflaged with war. If we
could forget the terror of the submarine, would not these lines and
stars and colors appear to us as symbols of the strange mystery of the
far-off seas?

"Or if it is a day of sailing, there are a thousand barrels, oil
maybe, ranged upon the wharf, standing at fat attention to go aboard.
Except for numbers it might appear--although I am rusty at the
legend--that in these barrels Ali Baba has hid his forty thieves for
roguery when the ship is out to sea. Doubtless if one knocked upon a
top and put his ear close upon a barrel, he would hear a villain's
guttural voice inside, asking if the time were come.

"Then there are the theatres and parks, great caverns where a subway
is being built. There are geraniums on window-sills, wash hanging on
dizzy lines (cotton gymnasts practicing for a circus), a roar of
traffic and shrill whistles, men and women eating--always eating.
There has been nothing like this in all the ages. Babylon and Nineveh
were only villages. Carthage was a crossroads. It is as though all the
cities of antiquity had packed their bags and moved here to a common
spot."

"Please, Flint," this from Colum, "but you forget that the faces of
those who live in the country are happier. That's all that counts."

"Not happier--less alert, that's all--duller. For contentment, I'll
wager against any farmhand the old woman who sells apples at the
corner. She polishes them on her apron with--with spit. There is an
Italian who peddles ice from a handcart on our street, and he never
sees me without a grin. The folk who run our grocery, a man and his
wife, seem happy all the day. No! we misjudge the city and we have
done so since the days of Wordsworth. If we prized the city rightly,
we would be at more pains to make it better--to lessen its suffering.
We ought to go into the crowded parts with an eye not only for the
poverty, but also with sympathy for its beauty--its love of
sunshine--the tenderness with which the elder children guard the
younger--its love of music--its dancing--its naturalness. If we had
this sympathy we could help--_ourselves_, first--and after that,
maybe, the East Side."

Flint arose and leaned against the chimney. He shook an accusing
finger at the