point, the lower end of the island on which the city proper stands, rose
that higher clump of the great buildings, the Singer, the Woolworth, and
the rest. Their strength, almost severity, of line and the lightness of
their colour gave a kind of classical feeling, classical, and yet not of
Europe. It had the air, this block of masonry, of edifices built to
satisfy some faith, for more than immediate ends. Only, the faith was
unfamiliar. But if these buildings embodied its nature, it is cold and
hard and light, like the steel that is their heart. The first sight of
these strange fanes has queer resemblances to the first sight of that
lonely and secret group by Pisa's walls. It came upon me, at that
moment, that they could not have been dreamed and made without some
nobility. Perhaps the hour lent them sanctity. For I have often noticed
since that in the early morning, and again for a little about sunset,
the sky-scrapers are no longer merely the means and local convenience
for men to pursue their purposes, but acquire that characteristic of the
great buildings of the world, an existence and meaning of their own.

Our boat moved up the harbour and along the Hudson River with a superb
and courteous stateliness. Round her snorted and scuttled and puffed the
multitudinous strange denizens of the harbour. Tugs, steamers, queer-
shaped ferry-boats, long rafts carrying great lines of trucks from
railway to railway, dredgers, motor-boats, even a sailing-boat or two;
for the day's work was beginning. Among them, with that majesty that
only a liner entering a harbour has, she went, progressed, had her
moving--English contains no word for such a motion--"_incessu patuit
dea_." A goddess entering fairyland, I thought; for the huddled
beauty of these buildings and the still, silver expanse of the water
seemed unreal. Then I looked down at the water immediately beneath me,
and knew that New York was a real city. All kinds of refuse went
floating by: bits of wood, straw from barges, bottles, boxes, paper,