There are hundreds of these inclines—ascenseurs, finiculari, in the world—all fascinating from above or below—but I know of none so fascinating as this even among the numbers at Cincinnati—none in which the pitch is steeper, the stop so sudden—none where the streets lead direct to the heart of the city; no city so dominated, concentrated, at its heart, by its lone white skyscraper, as Cincinnati. That is why I drew it; and, as I drew, the boy who opened and shut the gates came and told me he wanted to be a poet, that he was a poet, and that Poe was the greatest American author, which most great Americans do not know, and that he loved Shelley, and so I recommended Whitman to him, of whom he had not heard, and advised him to attend to his gates and his poetry and then he might do something. And he asked me if I had done anything myself. If I had made good! Well, have I?
XXVII VICTOR EMMANUEL MONUMENT, ROME
A triumph of misdirected work which has swallowed millions with no result—only while it was being built, the scaffolding which surrounded it was magnificent, and from where I made the drawing on the Palatine it told the story of ancient, mediæval, and modern work in Rome.
XXVIII REBUILDING THE CAMPANILE, VENICE
The changes in the methods of work between Canaletto's time and mine were never more clearly shown. When he drew the building being restored, it was hidden in scaffolding; when it was rebuilt, as I saw it, a few years ago, everything was done from the inside, till the top was reached, men and materials being carried up on elevators. It is said one of our ingenious American Captains of Labor offered to rebuild it free if the Venetians would let him put two elevators in, and have the profits of them for twenty-five years, after which he would hand it to the city and retire on the results. The Syndic declined, but put in the elevators.