And then the system of Parks and Boulevards, the finest in the
world--100 miles of them beautiful pleasure drives. I believe, from what
I see afterwards, that he told the truth, for no city, it seems to me,
could improve on that long, broad, beautiful way, smooth and
tree-bordered, edged with stately homes, leadin' into the matchless
beauty of the Parks.
But anon, when I felt that I wuz bein' crushed down beneath a gigantic
weight of figgers, and estimates, elevators, population, hite, depth,
underground tunnels, and systems of drainage--though every one of 'em
wuz a grand and likely subject and awful big--but I felt that I wuz
a-bein' crushed by 'em--I felt that the Practical, the Real wuz a
crushin' me down--the weight, and noise, and size of the mighty iron
wheel of Progress, that duz roll faster in Chicago than in any other
place on earth, it seems to me. But I felt so trodden down by it, and
flattened out, that I thought I would love to see sunthin' or other
different, sunthin' kinder spiritual, and meditate a spell on some of
the onseen forces that underlays all human endeavor.
So, at my request, we went out of our way a little, so I could set my
eyes on that Temple dreamed out by a woman and wrought a good deal by
faith, some like the walls of Jericho, only different, for whereas they
fell by faith, this wuz riz up by it.
And my feelin's as I looked at that Temple wuz large and noble-sized as
you will find anywhere.
A Temple consecrated not so much to the Almighty in Heaven, who don't
need it, as to God in Humanity--to the help of the Divine as it shows
itself half buried and lost in the clay of the human--a help to relieve
the God powers from the trammels of the fiend--
A Temple--not so much to set, and pray, and sing in, about the beauties
of our Heavenly home, as to build up God's kingdom on earth, show forth
His praise in helpin' His poor, and weak, and sinful.
My feelin's wuz a sight--a sight to behold, as I sot and looked at
it--that tall, noble, majestic pile, and thought of the way it wuz
built, and what it wuz built for.
But as we drove on agin, my mind got swamped once more in a sea of
immense figgers that swashed up agin me--elevators that carry grain up
to the top of towerin' buildin's, 10,000 bushels a hour, and then come
down its own self and weigh itself, and I guess put itself into bags and
tie 'em up--though he didn't speak in particuler about the tyin' up.
And then he praised their stores--one of 'em which employed 2,000,400
men. And then he praised up their teliphone system, so perfect that
nothin' could happen in any part of the city without its bein' known to
once at police headquarters.
And then he praised up agin and agin the business qualities and
go-ahead-it-ivness of the people, and how property had riz.
"Why," sez he, "Chicago and three hundred miles around it wuz bought for
five shillings not so long ago as your little town was founded, and now
look at the uncounted millions it represents."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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