expanse as fresh as the constant floods of the Great
Lakes."

[Illustration: CHARLES EMBANKMENT, BELOW HARVARD BRIDGE]

"And we dare say that it looks as large as Lake Superior to Boston eyes.
What do they call their dam? The Charlesea?"

"You may be sure they will call it something tasteful and fit," our
friend responded, in rejection of our feeble mockery. "Charlesea would
not be bad. But what I wish to make you observe is that all which has
yet been done for beauty in Boston has been done from the unexhausted
instinct of it in the cold heart of Puritanism, where it 'burns frore
and does the effect of fire.' As yet the Celtic and Pelasgic agencies
have had no part in advancing the city. The first have been content with
voting themselves into office, and the last with owning their masters
out-of-doors; for the Irish are the lords, and the Italians are the
landlords. But when these two gifted races, with their divinely
implanted sense of art, shall join forces with the deeply conscienced
taste of the Puritans, what mayn't we expect Boston to be?"

"And what mayn't we expect New York to be on the same terms, or, say,
when the Celtic and Pelasgic and Hebraic and Slavic elements join with
the old Batavians, in whom the love of the artistic is by right also
native? Come! Why shouldn't we have a larger Boston here?"

"Because we are _too_ large," our friend retorted, undauntedly. "When
graft subtly crept among the nobler motives which created the park
system of Boston the city could turn for help to the State and get it;
but could our city get help from our State? Our city is too big to
profit by that help; our State too small to render it. The commonwealth
of Massachusetts is creating a new Garden of Eden on the banks of the
Charlesea; but what is the State of New York doing to emparadise the
shores of the Hudson?"

"All the better for us, perhaps," we stubbornly, but not very sincerely,
contended, "if we have to do our good works ourselves."

"Yes, if we do them. But shall they remain undone if we don't do them?
The city of New York is so great that it swings the State of New York.
The virtues that are in each do not complement one another, as the
virtues of Boston and Massachusetts do. Where shall you find, in our
house or in our grounds, the city and the State joining to an effect of
beauty? When you come to New York, what you see of grandeur is the work
of commercialism; what you see of grandeur in Boston is the