Before I came to this country, and in all the time I have been here, it has never occurred to me to think of New York as being beautiful. Therefore all this talk of beautifying New York seems strange to me. If we were discussing Bismarck I might ask five hundred questions about him before I should think of asking whether he was beautiful. ... So it is with New York. We expect of her power and magnificence, but not beauty. If a European came over here and found that New York was beautiful in the same way as the European cities he knew he would be very much disappointed. I do not see how you can make New York beautiful in that way with the laws and the democratic spirit that you have here The kind of beauty that makes Paris charming can only exist when private rights and personal liberty are or have been trampled on. Only when the mob rules, or where kings rule, so that there is at one time absolutely no respect for the property of the rich and at another time for the rights of the poor can the beauties of Paris be realized.