She travelled, studied and satisfied her longing for that broad culture which she believed to be the highest prize of life. She improved to the full all her talents and powers, and realized at last her girlhood's ideal of a woman who had lost no possibility of self-development, but who, in the phrase of her ambition, had made the most of herself.

And yet there sometimes crept a doubt into the complacency of her triumph. Had something escaped her, after all? Was "making the most of herself" the desideratum of life? Had she, indeed, really made the most of herself? She was not disappointed in her husband. She had understood him from the first, and had been prepared to meet his limitations, which after all, she thought, need not affect her scheme of evolution. She was to work out her own salvation, no other. She had hoped to make her own life so complete that it would not miss its complement in his. But often she turned in weariness from his simple affection and longed for the sympathy of one who could understand. At such times she remembered Tom. More and more as time passed she missed unconsciously the uplifting of his daily influence. Sometimes in the barren fullness of her days she had leisure to wonder what had become of him, and then the thought that he must have married would cause her an inexplicable pang. As often she would take pains to ascertain that her misgiving was unfounded.

Tom never married, but he did not allow the disappointment of that summer day to crush the purpose of his life. He was too much the man for that. Resolutely conquering himself, he steadily rose to the height of his profession, and at the summit stood pale and life-worn, alone, contemplating his joyless success. She guessed how hard the path had been for Him when the roses withered. She knew how sorry was the triumph at its end, unshared by her for whom it had been undertaken. How much more might

he not have done if they had worked together! Might she not, after all, have found with him the opportunity to make the most of herself? For at last she felt the emptiness of a selfish ambition. His life had been spent in conquering self, hers had been devoted to the raising of self into a fair idol. Both had been successful, but happiness had lingered at the crossroads.

At last came a day when, in a far-off land, the news of Tom's death reached her. With it came the horror of full realization, and she recognized the futility of her life. Then on the hour flashed the vivid picture of that summer morning when she had looked down on the gray-clad boyish figure hurrying to lay his future in her lap; she sniffed the mingled perfumes of rose and fern and bay,-love and selfsacrifice and the pride of success,and knew that she had chosen wrongly.

Wistfully she stretched out her arms to that old-time phantom Tom in the other path and cried from the depths of an empty heart; "O Tom, Tom, if I could only choose again!"

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"A Sleeping Beauty who weeps ought to be awakened from unpleasant dreams," mused Tom, as he stood hesitating beside the red parasol, to reach which by a short cut he had scrambled wildly over the face of the cliff. He was a diffident prince, and so, in lieu of a more satisfactory caress, he dropped a wild rose gently. upon her cheek. Ruth's eyes opened with a start, the tears still dewy upon their lashes.

"Tom!" she gasped; "Tom! where did you come from?"

"I came from the path down there," he answered cheerfully. "I saw your red parasol miles away, and it drew me like a magnet." He did not confess that he had run half the distance at full speed.

Ruth had risen, and was looking at him strangely. She passed her hand. across her eyes and glanced off over

the bay. Was this real, or was the other? The yacht was anchored near the shore, and the captain's gig with its white uniformed crew lay close by the pier. Tom hesitated no longer.

"Will you stay here or go for a little walk with me?" he asked, timidly.

Was it all wiped out as if it had never been, and was she of all foolish women alone granted the blessed privilege of choosing again? Or was this very present a happy dream of that other Ruth who had chosen wrongly? With a glance seaward, Ruth answered uncertainly: "Let us walk."

"And which path shall we take,— that, or this?"

Looking down the slope to the pier, they saw a portly white figure just emerging from the hedge gap behind Ruth's cottage. They turned at the same moment; their eyes met, and each flushed consciously, for one knew and the other guessed the captain's errand.

"Which path?" Tom asked, again with meaning.

"That path, with you, Tom," she whispered. And the advancing figure beheld a vanishing tableau silhouetted against the sky.

T

It is a

HE Architectural Club of Philadelphia calls itself the T Square Club; and the catalog of the recent annual exhibition of this T Square Club, which is a profusely illustrated volume of more than two hundred pages, contains a feature not common in such catalogs, and in this case one of high interest. "symposium" upon the question whether there are yet any signs of the development of an indigenous or unaffected style of architecture in America. It occupies ten pages of the volume, and eleven men contribute to it, all significant and representative men, unusually well chosen for such an expression of opinion, Mr. Louis H. Sullivan, Mr. John M. Carrère, Mr. Ralph Adams Cram, Mr. Daniel H. Burnham, Mr. Ernest Flagg, Mr. Russell Sturgis, Mr. Cass Gilbert, Professor William R. Ware, Professor Charles Eliot Norton, Professor Warren L. Laird and Professor John V. Van Pelt. It would not be easy to form any group of a dozen Americans combining more conspicuously practical architectural talent and experience with knowledge of the history of art, large grasp of theory, and good taste. It appears that the editor of the catalog, Mr. Albert Kelsey, to whom altogether much is due for the splendid enthusiasm and devotion which his work manifests, addressed this question about an unaffected school of modern architecture in America to these gentlemen; and their contributions to this symposium are their replies to this letter.

Mr. Burnham and Mr. Sturgis write but a word-the former to say that, though there is little in the exterior details of our buildings that is

exclusively American, there are American buildings, and some of them artistic, which in their whole expression are fresh and original; the latter to say that he knows many architects who long for the appearance of such a style, but none who know how to work toward that result or who profess to see any signs of its appearance. The other eight gentlemen answer the question at considerable length and with manifest care, often with great spirit, making most interesting reading. Professor Ware's letter occupies three pages; and it is not only the longest letter, but to our thinking by far the most sensible and most important. Its points are worth remembering always in these days of contentions about architectural styles; and we will briefly glance at them.

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Professor Ware heartily justifies the free use of the various architectural styles of the past in our modern life; and to the objection that such adaptations show a very different spirit from that in which the "genuine" styles, Greek, Gothic, the styles of peoples who had a single style, were wrought out, he replies that the modern spirit itself and the modern situation are entirely different. "People who know of half a dozen ways to do things, all equally admirable and all equally familiar, cannot possibly work as the men did who knew only one way and knew that perfectly well. The Greek architect, or the Gothic, knew only Greek or Gothic, had to do with nothing else, had nothing else. in his environment or upon his horizon, -was as much under the influence of local tradition, says Professor Ware, as the Egyptians and Assyri

ans, the Chinese and the South Sea Islanders. We, on the other hand, are familiar with all the styles of the past and feel their influence everywhere and always. It is as impossible for us to adopt exclusively some past style, classic, Romanesque, or to strike out some entirely new style, as to strike out a new language or new alphabet; and it is as undesirableoriginality does not lie that way. "It is," says Professor Ware, "somewhat as if the men interested in literature should advocate a reformed spelling or a new vocabulary. What makes a good literary style is the use made of the words not the forms of the parts of speech, but the structure of the sentences, the balance of the paragraphs and the whole movement of the composition. This is now the only legitimate field of endeavor for the literary nations, since-as with the human creature the processes of evolution by which the external details have been determined long ceased to be active. The present development of the species proceeds on higher and more vital lines. So it is with literature. Style is constantly changing, but the language is substantially what it was in the days of Queen Elizabeth. So I fancy will it be with architecture."

Professor Ware therefore urges the architectural people to be less uneasy and discontented, less anxious to forecast the future. Let our architects use the details of such styles as they have, erect the most sensible and beautiful buildings they can, dealing independently and boldly with whatever new practical problems the new architectural needs of our complex life impose; and thus the architecture of the future will be created.

Charles Eliot Norton emphasizes one of the points which Professor Ware emphasizes. He sees nothing He sees nothing of distinctly American growth in our architecture. "Nor," he says, "is anything of this kind likely to exhibit itself or, in my opinion, to be aimed at as desirable. The conditions

of the civilized world whether in Europe or America are, so far as architecture is concerned, largely similar, and there is no reason why we should expect in this country any specially distinctive style. It is as if we were to ask for a specially American style in literature. An architectural genius in America will stamp his work with his own individuality, and that individuality will undoubtedly exhibit national characteristics distinguishing his work from that of the profession in England or in any other European country; but these characteristics will not be such as to make a school or form an independent style."

Professor Van Pelt of Cornell and Professor Laird of the University of Pennsylvania are in essential accord with Professor Ware and Professor Norton. Professor Van Pelt dwells with Professor Norton upon the fact that the civilization and needs of America and of other countries are becoming day by day more alike, the world in all respects becoming one. each nation more and more feeling the influences of all the rest, making strongly marked architectural peculiarities unlikely; "already," he says, "one finds more resemblance between the averages of architectural expression in different races than between the works of individuals of the same race." He dwells with Professor Ware upon the fact, which after all is another side of the same fact, of the great difference between the conditions of the modern time and the conditions under which distinct, sharply defined styles were shaped. "In earlier days, each country was more or less isolated, and in consequence evolved its own style, either from some inherent need, from some previous style, or from the style of its nearest neighbor, as, for instance, when Jean Goujon and his confrères returned from their years of study in Italy, and French renaissance received its great impulse. At present, easy means of communication between different countries have levelled

barriers that prevented the intermingling of ideas, and photography has done even more to help such an interchange and make universal the best examples of art." Professor Laird, writing in the same general spirit, does recognize the fact, which the other professors fail to touch, but which it seems to us is a point much to be noted, that "in certain of the directions in which there has been architectural activity in this country, we have developed a distinctive manner of building, as, for instance, in the work of the old Colonial period and in the modern suburban house and high office building."

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This would also be frankly recognized, we doubt not, by Mr. Ralph Adams Cram, the rigorous and vigorous young Boston architect, who gives "a prompt and decided negative" to the T Club's inquiry. Professor Laird himself says of our new and distinctive developments in manner of building, that these are "simply points in progress, and do not even indicate remotely the character of our future American architecture as a distinctive style." Mr. Cram denies that any style that has come into vogue among us during the century has been based in any respect upon local conditions or the peculiar needs of our American civilization. “I consider this particularly true," he says, "of the last two fads, viz., the Romanesque revival and the Ecole des Beaux Arts tendency." He seems to think that if we could "bring our civilization more into harmony with those of the past, which invariably expressed themselves instinctively in artistic forms," this virtuous condition would find its distinctive virtuous expression in architecture as in other things. But for the present stress he accepts the gospel preached here by Professor Ware; and, with his own exceptional culture, sympathy and versatility, he has certainly practised the preaching well. The

duty of our architects to-day, he holds, is to apply to such problems that style which is best suited to it, using the various styles with freedom and in a vital, modern way. "The teachings of Paris are grotesque when applied to the architecture of most of our churches, while the style that would fit this would be absurd if applied to an office building or a city hall."

Mr. Ernest Flagg, whose own work also is so artistic and who has coped so successfully with such varied practical problems, would take sharp issue with Mr. Cram in classing the "Ecole des Beaux Arts" tendency among the "fads." Those who view it as an attempt to "gallicize American art" and as "a passing fashion, like those which have preceded it," look, he holds, simply at the surface. Its principles-the "true principles of design," he pronounces them, as taught by "the greatest masters of the most artistic nation of Europe”—“are bound to take root here," he believes, "because they are logical, reasonable, right and true; and in time they will produce their legitimate result, and we shall have an architecture of our own." This architecture of our own, let it be understood, need not be marked by the same style or details as those used by any of the contemporary Frenchmen. The Beaux Arts "principles," of which Mr. Flagg and the other adherents of this school talk, define not so much a style as a method. We are not sure that we understand it; we certainly shall not attempt to expound it; and we do not know how Mr. Flagg would defend himself against those who, like Mr. Cram, choose to call it a "fad" in the same way that they call modern Romanesque or Victorian Gothic so. We only wish to emphasize the point that the "principles" which Mr. Flagg champions so stalwartly do not at all prevent his saying that his architecture "would draw the good, that is to say the spirit, from the art of all times and all nations, and apply it to modern