Sept. 26.
Other cities than Peking are embodiments of thought, Dairen, fills out @ handsome design rather sadly: it seems to hava gone on growing with shrunker ambitions. The plan of Shang hai is not so compact: the eager desire of many nations has found expression sometimes consciously, but more often at haphazard, dominating mentality has poised Hongkong in precarious acrobat tics round its mountain, looking down on Beauty. But in Peking thought is radiant. Not in the Acropolis or Rome or Constantinople has it triumphed and endured so. It speaks from the manifold stubborn walls that arg the shields of Mind, from" the spacious parks and sheets of water that give Peking such a ensured appearance, as if the old, gentlemanly city had never had to work for its living, from the length and breadth of thos rough fare, from the recurrent symbolism of the architecture, from the central sea of golden titles, from canopied temple and palace, Ideas were builders heres pre-eminently the Idea of Beauty, Aristocratic thought supervised the planning of the city, subor-dinaring all to the glory of the greatest, spreading the very few amply over the city and squash+ ing the very many into narrow places; but these few, who now are gone, belonged to the many, as visible gods. The Idea of the Conventions held monotonous sway over the architects, contin" ing beauty in rigorous limits, But above every other motive Beauty is paramount, Nor is it! any impediment to effectiveness.
The massive solemnity of the walls, able to defy any army not equipped with heavy guns or that older weapon of the besieger, j traitors within the gates, crowned above every entrance! with guard-houses of an ornate ferocity. But the.walls of the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.