One of the latest, and certainly one of the most keen-sighted, of
English travellers in America is Mr. G.W. Steevens, a master journalist
if ever there was one. I turn to his _Land of the Dollar_ and I find New
York writ down "uncouth, formless, piebald, chaotic." "Never have I
seen," says Mr. Steevens, "a city more hideous.... Nothing is given to
beauty; everything centres in hard utility." Mr. Steevens must forgive
me for saying that this is simply libellous. It is true, I do not quote
him fairly: I omit his laudatory antitheses. The truncated phrase in the
above passage reads in the original "more hideous or more splendid," and
after averring that "nothing is given to beauty," Mr. Steevens
immediately proceeds to celebrate the beauty of many New York buildings.
Are we to understand, then, that the architects thought of nothing but
"hard utility," and that it was some aesthetic divinity that shaped their
blocks, rough-hew them how they might? For my part, I cannot see how
truth is to result from the clash of contradictory falsehoods. There are
a few cities more splendid than New York; many more hideous. In point of
concentrated architectural magnificence, there is nothing in New York to
compare with the Vienna Ringstrasse, from the Opera House to the Votive
Church.
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