Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 December 1884 — HISTORIC CITIES. [ARTICLE]

HISTORIC CITIES.

A Btrd’H-Ky* View of Some of the Cltje* Fainoua In Story atiul Son*. Alexandria sits demurely by the sea, an oriental mauleu attracted to the sandy shore bf the Mediterranean to uarter her spices, silks, mats, with the nfidel, concluding to remain there and wonder no more. Jaffa lifts up her head from a rocky cliff, and suth one hand salutes the -Vl editerranean, and, with the other welcomes the caravans from Damascus and Jerusalem. Jerusalem is still the child of laith, dwelling where little growß, where there is naturally little trade, or commerce, or manufacturing; drawing her supplies mysteriously from the rooks and the skies; yet different races, different religions, different civilizations believe in hei, and huddle together about her, awaiting something that does not appear. Jerusalem, sitting alone on the rocky side of Judea, is the snbliobe child of faith, coming of faith in the past, looking forward to the future by faith. Damascus is the fair maid issuing from the Abana or Baroda, mysteriously changing its musical waters into Olive groves, tropical luxuriance, aud a teeming population, and sitting in queenly robes, with her ff et in the sands of the desert of the Hanron, amid mosques and minarets, and robed men, smoking the nargileh ou divans, or by playing fountains or cooling streams.

Beirut, standing proudly on a penin-sula-shaped headland on one side of a beautiful crescent bay, is the commercial or moral mistress of Syria, sending the currents of life up the French highway to Damascus as the heart sends the blood through the artery to the head. Smyrna is the mistress of two ages and civilizations, reposing on a quiet plateau by the sea, welcoming the commerce of the West, guarding the grave of Polvcarp and the manners and forms of the East. Constantinople at a distance is the slightest of the cities, but on approaching near yoti. see she wears a mask, and behind that mask you perceive restlessness, discontent, perfidy and sullen waiting lor revolution or chaos. Athens is the bride of the cities. She holds in one hand a broken marble pointing to the ruins of her art in the heroic ages—the art which lifts conquered the world—and in the other the scepter of new springing power. Naples, as we approach itby steamer from the south and round the point, rises up out of the sea as a charming, timid apparition shrinking away from Vesuvius, who holds a smoking brand in one hand, shaking it over her head, and yet afraid to go in the other direction, as he thrusts the other hand in his subterranean pocket, touching the secret springs that let off convulsions in Ischia and the regions beyond her. Rome, the attractive, the interesting, the historic, the hider and the revealer of the secrets of her mother, the “Mistress of the World,” sitting in a royal way on her seven hills—full as she is of art and history—is nothing else, in form, so much as she is a saint. She is the high priestess in her ten —of the cities of the earth. Religion is scrolled upon her buildings, outside and inside, on her streets, on her calendar, on her garments, on her food and I do not know how far this sainthood strikes in, or what it is worth. I speak only of color. t Florence, one of the queens, reposes half asleep, half awake, in a beautiful cradle of the Appenines, dreaming over the splendors of the p%st, displaying still a matchless profusion of the art treasures, and beguiling those who came under the influence of her charms through labyrinths of plastic and painted beauty. Venice, the daughter of commerce, sits with her feet in the Adriatic, snuffing the breezes of the sea, browned and weather-beaten and her robes soiled, as they toyed with the gondoliers and water sprites so long. Paris is the city of sentiment. Not so much ideas or principles, or even prudence or policy, as sentiment, reigns. The inspiration of her patriotism is the love of glory; of her letters and art, the desire to gratify artificial demands and tastes rather than to exalt humanity ; of her efforts in dress and manners, to create and maintain a bland imperial goddess, Fashion, and compel others to worship at her shrine. Sentiment is the height and depth, length and breadth of the popular feeling. It iB curious to note that painters and sculptors in Paris do not rely on the expression of soul, of character, in their works so much as on intrinsic circumstances, sensational attitudes, combinations, adjuncts. If yon see a statue of Liberty on a column in a public square, she is represented as standing on tiptoe on one foot, throwing the other far up in the air behind, leaning forward with a flaming torch in her hand, and her wings spread as if eager to leave the spot and fly away to the end of the earth, while yonr whole thought is absorbed in the figure, and you have no interest in the face. You see no character, no truth, no ideal. You have a sensational display, Yet Paris in her clean robes is attractive and beantifnl. —Albany Ex [tress