which have taken centuries to perfect; that the grounds and walks, stretches of grass, masses of flowering plants, and bold colossal statues have all been added from time to time, as in other palace gardens of old, when opportunity or royal whim dictated; that this great city was built ages ago, long before the time of the Greeks, who modelled their own temples along their classic lines; and that not only were its builders the ablest and most learned men of all ages, but that their descendants, those who live beneath these roofs, are the wisest, the most cultured, and the most artistic men and women of their time. To me, moreover, the City is never evanescent nor unreal; never like a house built upon the sands. It is, when I look at it in amazed delight, not only entirely genuine, but firm and solid as the marble which it resembles. It is too vast, and the elements of atmosphere, perspective and proportion, enter too largely into its _ensemble_ to make it appear other than genuine. When, for instance, you stand in Athens, near the Parthenon, and your eye falls on a broken column at your feet, you _see_ that it is marble, and you _know_ that it is heavy. But without this sample stone in the foreground, and your knowledge of the character and quality of the material, the whole temple is to you, from where you look, only a film of light, now ivory, now alabaster, now lost in purple shadows. Here, about the White City, there is no broken column as an eye test, there are only superb façades, reaching skyward, and great stretches of columns and arches, relieved by gilded domes and sculptured frieze. They are never close to you--no comprehensive view is possible nearer than two hundred feet, and who can tell “staff” from marble at that distance--but far away, across the shimmer of the Lagoon, or over the massing of foliage or clustered roofs. [Illustration: DOME OF HORTICULTURAL BUILDING AT NIGHT.] There is, in addition to all this element of reality, a reality which every one must feel for himself, still another charm--an undefinable quality that constantly surprises and delights you. To this is united a majestic picturesqueness investing these superb palaces and royal gardens with a distinction never attained by any of their predecessors. This does not seem to be due so much to colossal proportions nor to the never-ending series of buildings piled one behind the other, as to the skill shown by architects [Illustration: IN OLD VIENNA.]