Chicago, the great grey city, interested her at every instant and
under every condition. As yet she was not sure that she liked it;
she could not forgive its dirty streets, the unspeakable squalor of
some of its poorer neighbourhoods that sometimes developed, like
cancerous growths, in the very heart of fine residence districts.
The black murk that closed every vista of the business streets
oppressed her, and the soot that stained linen and gloves each time
she stirred abroad was a never-ending distress.

But the life was tremendous. All around, on every side, in every
direction the vast machinery of Commonwealth clashed and thundered
from dawn to dark and from dark till dawn. Even now, as the car
carried her farther into the business quarter, she could hear it,
see it, and feel in her every fibre the trepidation of its motion.
The blackened waters of the river, seen an instant between
stanchions as the car trundled across the State Street bridge,
disappeared under fleets of tugs, of lake steamers, of lumber barges
from Sheboygan and Mackinac, of grain boats from Duluth, of coal
scows that filled the air with impalpable dust, of cumbersome
schooners laden with produce, of grimy rowboats dodging the prows
and paddles of the larger craft, while on all sides, blocking the
horizon, red in color and designated by Brobdignag letters, towered
the hump-shouldered grain elevators.

Just before crossing the bridge on the north side of the river she
had caught a glimpse of a great railway terminus. Down below there,
rectilinear, scientifically paralleled and squared, the Yard
disclosed itself. A system of grey rails beyond words complicated
opened out and spread immeasurably. Switches, semaphores, and signal
towers stood here and there. A dozen trains, freight and passenger,