Page:Some Cities and San Francisco and Resurgam.djvu/16

Rh ere long be adjudged a crime. For already mediæval mud has ceased to be fashionable, and the picturesque in urban ugliness is picturesque no longer. All the capitals of Europe have had to be made over, Haussmannized, once or several times. Our own national capital we should scarcely be satisfied with as its illustrious founder left it.

It is a hopeful sign amidst some discouraging ones that wealth as a social factor and measure of merit is losing something of its prestige; that it is no longer regarded by the average citizen as the supreme good, or the pursuit of it the supreme aim in life; there are so many things worth more than money, so many human aspirations and acquirements worthy of higher considerations than the inordinate cravings of graft and greed. Hoarded wealth especially is not so worshipful to-day as it was yesterday, while the beautiful still grows in grace—the beautiful and the useful, compelling improvement, Rh