With such concessions made to solemn visaged
commerce, is the carnival continued.
* * * * *
There are at least six cities on this continent which every one should
see. Every one should see New York because it is the largest city in the
world, and because it combines the magnificence, the wonder, the beauty,
the sordidness, and the shame of a great metropolis; every one should
see San Francisco because it is so vivid, so alive, so golden; every one
should see Washington, the clean, white splendor of which is like the
embodiment of a national dream; every one should see the old gray
granite city of Quebec, piled on its hill above the river like some
fortified town in France; every one should see the sweet and
aristocratic city of Charleston, which suggests a museum of tradition
and early American elegance; and of course every one should see New
Orleans.
As to whether it is best to see the city in everyday attire, or masked
for the revels, that is a matter of taste, and perhaps of age as well.
To any one who loves cities, New Orleans is always good to see, while to
the lover of spectacles and fetes the carnival is also worth
seeing--once. The two are, however, hardly to be seen to advantage
simultaneously. To visit New Orleans in carnival time is like visiting
some fine old historic mansion when it is all in a flurry over a
fancy-dress ball.
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