If we only had a Napoleon here, some think, his master mind might arrest this Vandalism, infuse some system into our rag-bag cities, and make each a Paris. But have we not Public Opinion, stronger than any despot? Let a little of this current, guided by taste, be turned into the channels of art, and the results will soon be forthcoming. We seem to be hampered, as yet, with a kind of feudal system of architecture; this will presently be done away with, for the American character is eclectic, and naturally selects and combines the best in art, as in politics and commerce. To combine English good sense without its heaviness, French vivacity without its hollowness, and the exuberance of German fancy without its inertia--to combine and reflect all these should be the mission of our architecture. Neither is it too much to say that a genuine love for art may have its bearing on that part of us which is immortal. Not that any of these things will exist after this life, but as children are drilled by their teachers in many studies which have no practical bearing on their after life, so may we consider ourselves as only at boarding school with Nature while in this present temporary state; and if she has set us some lessons which do not appertain directly to our more exalted future, we should remember that this is her method of _discipline_. But she has done more; she has made the very tasks delightful. Are not such studies more beneficial and satisfactory than the idleness and play which fill up so much of our lives? No student can succeed, however, who tamely copies his neighbor's work. Let us hope, then, that our art will soon drop its clumsy costume, and take to itself something natural and national; that it will become, as it should, the type of our Western civilization--a civilization that spreads itself, not by sword or sceptre or crozier, but by life and liberty and light. JEFFERSON DAVIS AND REPUDIATION OF ARKANSAS BONDS LETTER NO. III OF HON. ROBERT J. WALKER. London, 10 Half Moon Street, Piccadilly, _January 28th_, 1864