The new building for the Denver Public Library is under process of construction, an appropriation of a quarter of a million dollars having been made for the edifice, which will stand in a small triangular park, insuring air and light, and giving to its approach a stately and beautiful dignity.
The Colorado capital is tending to fulfil the poet's ideal of affording
"room in the streets for the soul."
The life is most delightful. Without any undue and commonplace formalities, yet always within that fine etiquette which is the unconscious result of good breeding, the meeting and mingling has a cordial and sincere basis that lends significance to social life. The numerous clubs, and the associations for art and music, for Italian, French, and German readings, are all vital and prominent in the city, and the political equality of woman imparts to conversation a tone of wider thought and higher importance than is elsewhere invariably found.
Denver, which should be the capital city of the United States, is pre-eminently the convention city. Even with all the beauty of Washington and the vast sums that have been expended within the past fifteen years in the incomparable structure for the Library of Congress, and in other fine public buildings, and the splendor of the private residence region,—even with all this, and the fact that the Capitol itself is one of the notable architectural creations of the world, the nation is great enough and rich enough to found a new capital which should far surpass the present one, however fine that present one may be. However great are the treasures of art and architecture in Washington, the change could be, even now, made with the greatest advantage for the future. Within a quarter of a century all that invests Washington with such charm in architectural beauty and in art could be more than duplicated in Denver. The nation has wealth enough, and the most modern ideas and inspirations in these lines surpass those of any previous age or decade. The present is "the heir of all the ages."
No one need marvel that Denver ranks as the western metropolis of the Union, with its delightful climate, its infinite interests, its centre as a point for charming excursions, and its sixteen railroad lines.
In this atmosphere of opportunity and privilege there is, indeed, "room for the soul" and all that the poet's phrase suggests. There is room for all noble and generous development; for the expansion of the spirit to express itself in all loveliness of life, all splendid energy of achievement; and in all that makes for the supreme aim of a nation,—that of a Christian civilization,—no city can offer greater scope than does Denver the Beautiful.