"It is not you who will criticise ours," he answered. "By your own confession, you know nothing whatever of architecture and sculpture, and when people know nothing they should either keep silence or ask for information in the best quarter. You have my authority for saying that the architects and sculptors of Berlin would have been better employed building dog-kennels." "But I rather like your wide cheerful streets," I objected, "and your tall clean houses. Our houses...." "Your houses are little black boxes in which people eat and sleep. They do not pretend to anything. Ours pretend to be beautiful, and are ridiculous. Moreover, in England there are men who can build beautiful houses. You do not employ them much. You prefer your ugly little boxes. But they are there. I know their names and their work." "But what do you think of our statues?" I asked him. "I don't think of them," he said; "I prefer to think of something pleasant. When I am in London I spend every hour I have at the docks." "I like the _Sieges-Allee_," I said boldly,--"it is so clean and cheerful." "It was made for people who look at sculpture from that point of view," said my friend. I hardly know where an artist finds inspiration in the streets of Berlin. It really makes the impression of a city that has sprung up in a night, and that is kept clean by invisible forces. The great breadth of the streets, the avenues of trees everywhere, and the many open places make it pleasant; but you look in vain for the narrow lanes and gabled houses still to be found in other German towns, and you are not surprised when Americans compare it with Chicago, because it is so new and busy. It is indeed the city of the modern German spirit, and what it has of old tradition and old social life lies beneath the surface, hidden from the eye of the stranger. There is Sans-Souci, to be sure, and Frederick the Great, and the Grosser Kurfürst. There is the double line of princes on either side of the _Sieges-Allee_. But modern Berlin dates from 1870, and so do all good Berliners, whatever their age may be. They are proud of their young empire and of their big city, and of doing everything in the best possible way. There is unceasing flux and growth in Berlin, so that descriptions written a few years ago are as out of date as these impressions must be soon. For instance, I had counted steadfastly on finding three things there that I cannot find at home: first and second-class cabs, hordes of soldiers everywhere, and policemen who would run a sword through you if you looked at them; and of all these I was more or less disappointed.