others the world needed. Its prestige is great in the production of
such intellects. But it keeps up with the times. It is faithful to
its antecedents, and appreciates them at their full value and
obligation. It does not lie a-bed until noon because it has got its
name up for educating brilliant minds. Its grand old University
holds its own among the wranglers of learning. Its High School is
proportionately as high as ever, notwithstanding the rapid growth of
others of the same purpose. Its pulpit boasts of its old mind-power
and moral stature. Its Theology stands iron-cabled, grand and solid
as an iceberg in the sea of modern speculation, unsoftened under the
patter of the heterodox sentimentalities of human philanthropy. It
is growing more and more a City of Palaces. And the palaces are all
built for housing the poorest of the poor, the weakest of the weak
and the vilest of the vile. These hospitals are the Holyroods of
Edinburgh II. They honor it with a renown better than the royal
palace of the latter name ever won.

I said Edinburgh the Second. That is correct. There are two towns,
the Old and the New; the last about half a century's age. But the
oldest will be the youngest fifty years hence. The hand of a
"higher civilization," with its spirit-level, pick, plane and
trowel, is upon it with the grip of a Samson. That hand will tone
down its great distinctive individualities and give it the modern
_uniformity_ of design, face and feature. All these tall houses,
built skyward layer upon layer or flat upon flat, until they show
half a dozen stories on one street, and twice that number on the
other, are doomed, and they will be done for, one by one in its
turn. They probably came in with Queen Mary, and they will go out
under the blue-eyed Alexandra. They will be supplanted by the most
improved architecture of modern taste and utilitarianism. Edinburgh