CHAPTER XIII.

NIGHT IN THE COURT OF HONOR.

It was a midsummer night in the Court of Honor; the crowds had vanished, and the air, the grounds, and the Lake were still. The Columbian Guards had retired from the weary duties of the day; the lights, one by one, had gone out; the constellations of electric splendors had passed away forever, for their renewal would be like the lighting of new stars.

The White City stood in the silence like Shinar Tower after the confusion, for if on the plains of Babylonia people began to speak many tongues, here the harmony of language found a prophetic expression again. The world had not built here a tower to touch the sky, from which men might enter heaven; but the beauty that fancy places in heaven was here, and into it people came and went away, and read here the fulfilment of earthly and celestial visions. The realities of Plato, Virgil, and Sir Thomas More were here. All the beautiful thoughts of creative art from the beginning of time here found expression. Egypt was here; Greece; Rome, in her long march through the world; the half-forgotten gods of the ancient world were here; Phidias was here; the Augustine age of the poets; the Roman age of colossal art.

The Peristyle was white in the starlight under the serene sky. The Columbus Quadriga, with its grand horses and Grecian grooms, seemed a thing of the Lake and sky; and the procession of heroes on the Peristyle was like a night march of the ghosts of the glorious sons of the world.

The Columbian Fountain was motionless, and Father Time sat at the helm of the barge of state, on which Columbia was enthroned, facing the stars and not the rainbows of spray and the gay gondolas. The sturdy Statue of Labor, with the plough horse and primitive harness, stood solitary by the grand basin; the swans moved to and fro on the lagoons, but all else was still life.

The nations seemed dreaming,—England, Germany, France, Austria, in their houses and pavilions of history; Denmark, Italy, India; charming Switzerland, the mother of republics; tropical South America, where Edwin Arnold says may one day come the greatest development of the American race. The Transportation Building was like a shadow; its grand portal, like the door of the sun, had lost its glory with the light. Who can ever forget its golden door in the morning light! Wooded Island, too, with its Ho-o-den palace and Japanese garden, was a shadow; the Convent of La Rabida was a shadow,—and the Krupp Building, with its awful guns; the battle ship was a phantom; the Walking Sidewalk rested; the Eskimos were gone to their mats; the Hagenbeck animals were sleeping in their cages; Cairo, Java, Algeria, China, all slept in one great camp. There was silence in the coffee garden of Brazil.

As our friends walked down the Court of Honor toward the Peristyle, the silence seemed a prophecy; and like the song of the angels on the night of the Nativity, the air seemed to say, “The world is at peace.” They could fancy that the old Destinies were there, and that they, as of old, said to their spindles, “Thus go on forever.”

“If Shinar’s Tower was the beginning of the world’s confusion, the White City by Lake Michigan may be the beginning of the new and eternal order of harmony,” said the old Quaker, as the clocks broke the silence with twelve strokes each, in many steeples and towers.

A night watch went wandering with him up and down the avenues of white luminous walls. He was a man who had been well educated, and who had seen much of the world.

“There is one statue that has been left out,” said the old officer, “and it should stand here in the Court of Honor, for it might represent the best of all for which the world can hope!”

“Whose?” asked our venerable Quaker.

“Pestalozzi’s, the founder of the public schools. He taught that education stands for character, and not for a cunning brain, and that character means the brotherhood and peace of the world.”

“He was right,” said our friend. “The new education should be that of peace. It should follow the spirit of the White City here, where all is harmony and unity, and all races are families of the same common family. Our schools, our churches, our societies, should all enter into this new education. It will be one day the greatest teaching in the world.”

“It seems as though sometimes, when I wander around these streets at night,” said the watch, “that I see the world in a new light, like this: From Christ to Pestalozzi; from Pestalozzi to the White City; from the White City to the peace federations of republics; and from that to the unity and brotherhood of all men. The next century will be a missionary age in the large sense of the world.”

“And its watchword must be Disarm!”

“Then humanity must build again.”

“The movement must begin in the schools,” answered the old Quaker. “The new heroes of war must be those only who fought for principle and peace. I am glad that I came here, and that I have been allowed to spend the night here. Stand here in the silence and look around you. It is the beginning of a new world. A new movement will follow it; I can feel it. I rejoice over it as though it had already been!”

* * * * *

When the Marlowes returned home, the Folk-Lore Society summoned them to answer the questions that they had entrusted to them and especially to Mr. Manton Marlowe, their president. There was a full meeting of the Society, to hear Mr. Marlowe’s report. He answered three of the questions in the manner that we have suggested in the book:—

That the most amusing thing that he saw at the Fair was the merriment of the crowds in the Street of Cairo, over the Eastern camel riders;

That the most useful thing was the Philadelphia Working Man’s house;

That the grandest thing was the White-Bordered Flag in the Court of Honor.

The greatest lesson of the Fair?

“It was this,” said Mr. Marlowe: “the agreement among the architects and artists, that each would sacrifice his own ideals and plans to the harmony of the whole. The beauty of the White City is due to that principle, and it is a lesson for all time!”

Transcriber’s Notes:

- Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). - Blank pages have been removed. - Silently corrected typographical errors. - Spelling and hyphenation variations made consistent