the focus, the real centre of all this activity is found in the office of the chief of construction, with its army of draughts men, its corps of architects, engineers, surveyors, experts, clerks, and all the accompanying and necessary multitude of assistants, the post-office, police, fire, and purchasing departments, each of them large enough for a moderate-sized city, and each conducted with precision and perfect system. Exactly in the same way that a general of an army directs the movements of his forces does the chief of construction direct and control the peaceful divisions, brigades, regiments, battalions, and companies at his command. And he who so successfully leads this army of workers must have, it goes without saying, the distinguishing mental qualities of a great general. If he had them not, he could not hold his authority an hour. Receiving his orders from the Directory, just as a commander-in-chief receives the instructions from the Ministry of War, he sets in motion the whole machinery to execute the orders, and takes upon himself the responsibility of the exact fulfilment of these commands. All questions are in turn referred to the experts whose duty it is to decide them, the decisions subject, of course, to the approval, the amendment, or the veto of the chief. For example, all matters involving questions of design are referred to Mr. Atwood, whose just and keen critical faculty, eminent good taste, and accurate judgment, based on his sound scholarship and remarkable experience, distinctly define him for the position of censor. But these questions, like

all others, are discussed and settled in the spirit of frankness and fair dealing, after thoroughly balancing the weight of the arguments brought forward by the complex conditions and the eternal combat between the purely utilitarian and the purely artistic. Fortunately for the exposition, Mr. Burnham and his associates recognize the fact that good art is by no means incompatible with practical ideas, for it stands on the firm foundation of reason and common-sense. It is their loyalty to this conviction that is the great

Every Wednesday afternoon a meeting of the chiefs is held in the office of the Construction Department, under the presidency of Mr. E. R. Graham, assistant chief of construction, a man to whose well-directed energy and practical knowledge the department owes much of its efficiency. At this meeting all questions relating to construction are discussed fully and frankly, and the future work is carried out on the lines suggested by these discussions. It is an assembly of men of remarkable executive powers.

SOPHIA G. HAYDEN. Architect of the Woman's Building.

Some of the greatest engineering problems of the time have been successfully solved by Mr. E. C. Shankland, the engineer of construction, and the monumental iron-work, the amazingly intricate carpentry-work, testify to his distinguished skill better than volumes of description. In all the electrical and mechanical operations, Mr. Frederick Sargent, the engineer of these two departments, has shown his great ability, not only in the use of well-known devices, but for ingenious adaptation of the latest and most novel principles. The complicated maze of sewer and water pipes in the whole underground system has been in the hands of Mr. W. S. MacHarg, the engineer of water supply, sewerage, and fire protection, and his assistant, Mr. C. M. Wilkes, and the results of their work are a convincing proof of its perfection. The department of grades and surveys, under Mr. J. W. Alvord, of railroads, under Mr. W. H. Holcomb, master of transportation, and Mr. E. G. Nourse, engineer of railroads, should also receive their wellmerited recognition. Altogether this

whole executive body has worked together in extraordinary harmony, and with mutual confidence of a degree and kind rarely met with in any similar organization. The same spirit of loyalty to the interests of the exposition which has animated the group of architects has stimulated each of these workers, and the contagion of this spirit has spread to the last one of the assistants and employés. The ordinary rules of attendance and the hours of office-work have needed no enforcement; all considerations of personal comfort and leisure have given way to the calls of generous emulation and continuous effort which complete preoccupation with the work has demanded. Money cannot pay nor brief fame reward these men for their devotion. Their best laurels will be found in the success of the exposition which they contributed to with such noble self-denial and personal sacrifice.

The general superintendence of the whole work has been in

the hands of Mr. Dion Geraldine, and the office is no sinecure, involving as it does an incalculable amount of detail, tremendous responsibilities, and demanding unusual force of character, tact, and judgment. The appointment of Colonel E. Rice, of General Miles's staff, to take charge of the force of guards and firemen, which, when the exposition is in running order, will number two or three thousand men, was a happy one in every respect. Colonel Rice has an enviable record for bravery in the Rebellion, and for service on the frontier since that war ended, and has no superior in managing and disciplining men. I cannot refrain from alluding in this place, however briefly, to the self-sacrifice and loyalty of the working committees. These committees are composed of active men of business, who have been for many months, and will be for months to come, working steadily, loyally, and energetically, without reward or public recognition, actuated solely by the motives of civic pride and the broader spirit of patriotism, to bring the exposition to a successful issue. Devotion to

this duty has forced these men to give up business, comforts, and pleasures, and to take upon themselves burdens of responsibility for which neither money nor fame can repay them.

The importance of their functions needs no explanation. It is sufficient to say that it calls for the unwavering fidelity and constant activity of the members, and an amount of self-sacrifice and labor that can be alone appreciated by those who are familiar with the unparalleled magnitude. of the enterprise they are conducting.

The Board of Architects, whose joint advice and assistance can be called upon at any time, according to their terms of mutual agreement, have been rarely summoned to a conference, because the individual members of the board have taken such a vital and uninterrupted interest in the work. The non-resident architects seem to be drawn to the exposition by an irresistible attraction, and seldom has a week passed without a visit from one or more of them. Their enthusiasm annihilates distance; the ties of home and the cares of business are powerless to make them resist, even if they were not willing victims to the fascinations of the great undertaking.

Mr. McKim has, for one, been most loyal and earnest from the start, and it is in justice to his constancy that I must record the fact that the exposition owes much to his devotion, for he has brought to the service of the Construction Department the finest artistic qualities of mind, the moral support of his excellent training and wide practice, and the added strength of an ever fresh and youthful enthusiasm. I could do scant justice to the value of the co-operation of the other associates even should I attempt the task. Mr. Hunt is honored and esteemed in two continents; Mr. Post has left an enduring mark on the architecture of this country, which is better praise than I can give; Mr. Van Brunt's talents and scholarly attainments are well known from the Atlantic to the Pacific; Mr. Sullivan's work is one

HENRY IVES COBB. Architect of the Fish and Fisheries Building.

of the notable sights of Chicago; Mr. Cobb, Mr. Whitehouse, Mr. Beman, Mr. Jenney-in fact, I must declare them, in imitation of the Spanish monarch, "todos nobles." To them and to Mr. Burnham and his staff is all credit due, not only for the great triumph of architecture, but for the great step forward in art, and for the establishment of an alliance which has long been the text of many an earnest discourse by Mr. Hunt -the proper union of architecture, sculpture, and painting. The trumpet note of his voice has sounded from East to West, and finds its first loud echo in the exposition. There each building has the complement of its architecture in sculpture and in painting. There first in this country, on a reasonably large scale at least, have the allied arts worked together and in harmonious proportions. The immediate fruits of this union, even if it be but temporary, are incalculable; of the final result there can be no doubt. It means the dawn of a real art in this country.

T

I.

TAKEN altogether, the Hôtel and Esplanade des Invalides is one of the most striking features of Paris. The vast space, the old trees, and farther down, beyond the road and the triumphant cannon, the golden dome under which reposes the historic coffin brought from St. Helena. Nothing can be more noble, nothing more magnificent. The least impressionable of Cook's tourists in checked ulster, Baedeker in hand, experiences here a solemn emotion; he thinks of the great King and the great Emperor. He admires; occasionally he envies. It was of that olden France, which possesses such durable and such imposing witnesses of its glory, that Bismarck must have thought at Ferrières when, to Jules Favre, asking for peace in the name of the republic, and asking with some simplicity, "Well, against whom are you making war?" the spiteful German replied, "Against Louis XIV." Yet to the eye of the Parisian observer, long satiated with the pomp of the spectacle, the Esplanade des Invalides presents many sad features. The Gros-Caillou, close by, is a very poor quarter, and when the temperature is mild or only supportable, it pours out, in their best

attire, all its sorry idlers, its promenaders in rags. A grotesque Philemon, an old soldier covered with medals and wearing a cap with a tricolored cockade, limps on his wooden leg after a wretched Baucis in a dirty gown. A grandmother, bent almost double, pushes before her or drags at her petticoat two or three sickly little children. Lying at full length on a bench, with his filthy felt hat over his eyes, a vagabond, a night-prowler, sleeps the sleep of a beast of prey and dreams perhaps of crime. The contrast between such sordid misery and such royal luxury has always been full of pathos to me.

At Venice the slipshod women in long shawls who pass you, scratching their old red wigs, spoil for me St. Mark's and the Duke's Palace; and at Hyde Park, in London, the barefooted ragamuffins wallowing in the turf make the torrent of equipages and the galloping procession of blond amazons seem odious to me. Otherwise people interest me. I love to mix myself with them. And it is for this reason that I so often indulge myself in day-dreams by the Esplanade and in the quarter of the Gros-Caillou. To mix thus with poor people I have guarded in my heart the gentle emotion of compassion. He is guilty who permits it to die out in

his soul. Think of this you who pass misery from near and far without seeing it through the glass windows of your coaches.

Now it was walking under the great trees on the Esplanade des Invalides that I noted two old women. It was the end of February, and the afternoon sun, warm with the suggestions of spring, touched with a color of bronze the swelling buds on the trees. Fearing no doubt to sit down out-of-doors on account of the dampness, the two old women tottered along, the elder, bent and trembling, leaning heavily on her comrade's arm, a lean and sorry person who held herself erect and seemed full of energy. Both of them were poorly but neatly dressed. Their black shawls were carefully pinned, their white linen bonnets fairly shone. In order that the weaker of the two might rest when she felt the least fatigue, the stronger carried a camp-stool under her arm. She patiently regulated her steps to those of her friend, and each instant turned to her with an attentive and affectionate regard.

She seemed to be some ten years younger than the other-a human ruin, certainly past sixty-and she alone of the two evidently still preserved some portion of strength, some modicum of health. This portion had to suffice for the two. One thought, in seeing them pass, of those country teams where a oneeyed horse is yoked with a blind mate, and which travel much in the same way.

The two old women interested me at once. I watched them. Certainly the feeblest of them had been beautiful. Her bonnet even now scarcely contained the abundance of her white hair. The fea tures of that face, now impassive and yellow with paralysis, still remained fine, and underneath eyebrows still black, from the depths of their dark-rimmed sockets, the eyes still glittered with an impetuous light. The other old woman, a faded blonde with soft and delicate skin, alas! she too had once been beautiful. But time marks most cruelly faces of such delicate beauty, les beautés du diable! nothing now but blotches and wrinkles. And yet the faded face still pleased one by its amiability and by the sweetness of its smile. They were not sisters; they bore no resemblance to each other.

VOL. LXXXV.-No. 510.-87

The sight of these poor creatures mutually dependent on each other, a partnership of joint feebleness, moved me. sincerely. A few days of early spring weather drew my wanderings to that quarter, and I met the two old women several times.

By certain details--by their hands always decently clad in gray cotton gloves, and by I cannot quite say what of respectability in their whole appearance-I knew that they had not always worn such humble clothing, but had, as the phrase goes, seen better days. Their eagerness to improve the least sunshine, and to go out notwithstanding their age and infirmities, told me the story of their captive life during the long winter in some lugubrious room in the Gros-Caillou, where, with their feet on the foot-stove, they were all alone with their memories. More and more they excited my compassion, and, I ought to add, my curiosity.

Now they knew me by sight. One day, when the extraordinary mildness of the weather permitted them to sit on a bench, I took a place near them, and we fell immediately into conversation. Their feminine instinct, always more intuitive and delicate than that of the other sex, inspired them with confidence in me. In short, at the end of an hour I knew their story. It is touching. I am going to tell it to you.

II.

Does there still live an old habitué of the Vaudeville who remembers Nelly Robin? Perhaps not. Yet in the winter of 1859 she was one of the most beautiful of the houris of that Mussulman's paradise which then occupied the stage of the theatre.

A clear brunette, with dark hair, tall, graceful, and slender, without being thin. A figure, following classic hyperbole, to hold in the two hands, but with superb shoulders and bust, deep and dreamy eyes, always absorbed in a voluptuous dream, such was Nelly Robin. Such a goddess, where majesty went hand in hand with grace, would have filled with enthusiasm the Florentine masters of the Renaissance. However, Nelly's father was only a poor hatmaker, struggling under the burden of a family, and her infancy had been spent on the streets of Charonne. The early victim of a neighbor, a scene-shifter at