Only the future would reveal. What silent forces crouched behind
those towers with their throbbing cylinders the world could only
guess as yet.

He walked past old Castle Garden where so many weary feet have
landed and found hope.

His heart filled with patriotic pride. Far out in the harbour stood
Liberty Enlightening the World, lifting her torch among the stars,
her face calm and majestic, gazing serenely out to sea.

"Land of faith and hope--my country!" he exclaimed. "Here the
commonest man has risen from the dust and proved himself a king.
Home of the broken-hearted, the tyrant-cursed, the bruised, the
oppressed, within thy magic gates the miracle of life has been
renewed!"

He looked out on the great emerald harbour gleaming in the sunlight,
its sky-line white with clouds and penciled with the pennant-tipped
masts of a thousand ships flying the flags of every nation of the
earth. His soul was flooded again with the sense of the city's
imperial splendour, stretching out her hand to grasp the financial
scepter of the world, already the second city of the earth, a
kingdom mightier than Caesar ruled and richer than Croesus dreamed.

He came back to Wall Street, and, as he turned into the narrow
lane, felt its power shadow his imagination.

"After all," he muttered, "Van Meter is not far wrong in his idea
of the omnipotence of this street."