The Nineteenth Century , No 182, Apr 1892 [‎34r] (72/244)

1892 CHICAGO AND I 557
size on the face of the earth. The thing is not a good thing to have
done, but it has been done well, and nowhere, I am assured, and I
believe it, can business be more readily and more conveniently trans
acted than on this seething, swarming plot.
Leaving the business quarter for the better residential parts of
the town, we can pass for mile after mile along stately streets all as
straight as ancient Eoman roads, having on either side fine houses,
some mansions, some villas, for the most part detached, each standing
in its own plot of ground, generally of greensward—there seem to be
no gardens in Chicago, and few boundary walls or railings—some
artistic, some inartistic, some pretentious, some even grotesque, but
all comfortable and well-looking, betokening a high standard of wealth
and a growing standard of appreciation of the beautiful. The suburbs
of no English town, with their walled gardens and concealed houses,
present anything of the special attraction of these long vistas of
handsome buildings, individual but not separated, each distinct yet
open to all the world.
Turning away out of these fine streets, we soon get to unfinished
districts of the city, where the roads are bad, and the houses have a
temporary look. Even here and there on the main streets one may
see an occasional wood-frame house, relic of the days before the fire.
And, no doubt, Chicago has her squalid quarters, like every other
great assemblage of mankind. These, however, the visitor is not
taken to see, and I am only dealing with the hasty impressions of a
passing visit.
Of the life that is led within these comfortable abodes, nobody
without long experience can well speak except from hearsay. One is
left with the impression that if the people of Chicago treat one
another with the boundless hospitality, the genial friendliness they
extend to the wandering stranger, life there must have its advantages.
To the outsider, however, it would seem that the absence of a leisure
class, and therefore of any ambition to belong to it, must tend to
deprive life of many of what we, on this side, esteem its most
pleasant features. In Western America people do not seem to have
any holiday time. They have few or no outdoor amusements, little
sport, no hunting, no yachting, no games. Public opinion seems to
expect everybody to be busy making money, and disapproves of the
pursuits of those who are otherwise occupied. So nobody has any
ambition, except to make money, and, when he has made it, to go
on making more. Other objects of ambition are wanting. Politics
offer no career. With us a seat in the House of Commons is an
object to be attained. With them, a seat in the House of Kepre-
sentatives is a means for attaining an object. Perhaps the latter is
the more sensible view, but life is not the happier for the destruction
even of imaginary ideals. Country life, as we know it, is unknown.
Charming country houses there are, delightful houses for a short
V ol . XXXI—N o . 182 Q Q