One need not dwell upon the way in which these obdurate, overwhelming masses take away from the little people who walk in their shadows any semblance of dignity as human beings; it is perhaps inevitable that one of the greatest mechanical achievements in a thoroughly dehumanized civilization should, no doubt unconsciously, achieve this wry purpose. It is enough to point out that the virtues of the skyscraper are mainly exercises in technique. They have precious little to do with the human arts of seeing, feeling, and living, or with the noble architectural end of making buildings which stimulate and enhance these arts. A building that one cannot readily see, a building that reduces the passerby to a mere mote, whirled and buffeted by the winds of traffic, a building that has no accommodating grace or perfection in its interior furnishing, beyond its excellent lavatories--in what sense is such a building a great work of architecture, or how can the mere manner of its construction create a great style? One might as well say, with Robert Dale Owen, that the brummagem gothic of the Smithsonian Institution was a return to organic architecture. Consider what painful efforts of interior decoration are necessary before the skyscraper-apartment can recapture the faded perfume of the home. Indeed, it takes no very discerning eye to see that in a short time we shall be back again in interiors belonging to the period of the ottoman and the whatnot, in order to restore a homely sense of comfort and esthetic ease to the eviscerated structure of the modern fireproof apartment. What chiefly distinguishes our modern American work in this department from that of the disreputable ’eighties is that the earlier architects were conscious of their emptiness, and attempted feverishly to hide it: whereas our moderns do not regard emptiness as a serious lapse, and are inclined to boast about it. There is a sense, of course, in which these modern colossi express our civilization. It is a romantic notion, however, to believe that this is an important or beautiful fact. Our slums express our civilization, too, and our rubbish heaps tell sermons that our stones conceal. The only expression that really matters in architecture is that which contributes in a direct and positive way to the good life: that is why there is so much beauty to the square foot in an old New England village, and so little, beyond mere picturesqueness, in the modern metropolis. A building stands or falls, even as a pure work of art, by its just relation to the city around it. Without a sense of scale--and the skyscraper has destroyed our sense of scale--the effect of any single building is nullified. V