6o 



the picturesque. It was an ex- 

 pression of the crudity of man when 

 he has broken away from the primi- 

 tive and is trying to make a big 

 showing in a cheap way, and often 

 does he do this in the very lap of 

 Nature's grandest achievements such 

 as here where she has with indiffer- 

 ence taken centuries of time and em- 

 ployed all the mighty agents at her 

 command, the sun, the air, the water 

 and the earth, all the elements to 

 make a home for one of her vassals, 

 the Colorado, and to paint it in all 

 the colours that could beautify. 

 Then does man erect a structure of 

 his on its surface, as a fleck of soot 

 mars the face of a beautiful woman, 

 putting up a false front, painting 

 its pine boards to look like brick, 

 and its pine furniture to look like 

 mahogany, papering its walls to 

 look like marble, curtains that imi- 

 tate lace, a melodeon that imitates 

 a piano, tissue paper that is cut and 

 twisted into shameless shapes of 

 flowers in an imitation Worcester 

 vase nothing honest but the fly- 

 paper and the spittoon. 



It is necessary perhaps, this civil- 



