hills and the hills answered the sea, till the city rose like a
widow and cast away her weeds, and toiled for her daily
bread; toiled steadily, toiled cunningly,--perhaps with some
bitterness, with a touch, of reclame,--and yet with real ear-
nestness, and real sweat.

It is a hard thing to live haunted by the ghost of an untrue
dream; to see the wide vision of empire fade into real ashes
and dirt; to feel the pang of the conquered, and yet know that
with all the Bad that fell on one black day, something was
vanquished that deserved to live, something killed that in
justice had not dared to die; to know that with the Right that
triumphed, triumphed something of Wrong, something sordid
and mean, something less than the broadest and best. All this
is bitter hard; and many a man and city and people have
found in it excuse for sulking, and brooding, and listless
waiting.

Such are not men of the sturdier make; they of Atlanta
turned resolutely toward the future; and that future held aloft
vistas of purple and gold:--Atlanta, Queen of the cotton
kingdom; Atlanta, Gateway to the Land of the Sun; Atlanta,
the new Lachesis, spinner of web and woof for the world. So
the city crowned her hundred hills with factories, and stored
her shops with cunning handiwork, and stretched long iron
ways to greet the busy Mercury in his coming. And the
Nation talked of her striving.


Perhaps Atlanta was not christened for the winged maiden