Show I I I City Old and New I jI j I Dresden Aptly Termed Compromise Between Past and Present Times Special Correspondence In Berlin you aro In the newest of tow Germanics nt Augsburg or Nuremberg Nur-emberg you arc In tho middle ages Dresden provides an excellent compromise com-promise This In a double sense not only has Dresden not yet quite given up being old German not yet altogether alto-gether made up her mind to become new her chief Interest centers somewhere some-where between tho seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when old German Ger-man was nt jot not altogether old and tho rlso of Prussia was already heralding forth tho new Thero are parts of Dresden nnd these tho most important from tho foreigners point of view whore n man can never feel altogether nt homo without n nicely powdered perutiuo an amply skirted oat preferably of peach color knee breeches and silk stockings and n gold h11ted sword by his side Then again there are other parts where fD Royal Picture Gallery factory chimneys cluster thick and strange manufacturing smells assault ho nose whero such a costume would seem absolutely out of place Guide hooks tell you that Dresden is tho headquarters of the baroque and tho roccoco To mo It Is tho city of compromise and of the America1 tourist Never wns there such n meeting meet-ing place for Americans Tho porters at all tho principal hotels have added to their list the national American drInkor what they take to bo such They spell It cherry goblor which Is to my mind a decided Improvement Of course thoro are other things besides be-sides Americans In Dresden Thoro wns ono Englishman besides myself when I was there Ho came from Manchester which tho local papers spelled Manshcster Terrace on Bank of the Elbe I Thoro aro some good shops whore they soil Dresden china nnd picture rhotographs and a few other things that do not matter Then there Is the Brulscho tarrnsse It Is a high terrace ter-race running along the right bank of tho gIbe which at Dresden Is something some-thing else wide than tho Thames at Westminster It was built by a long dead minister named Bruhl as part of his private gardens antI It proves him to have been a man of taste From It you can get tho finest possible view of tho city unless Indeed you go up ono of the hills which border tho Elbo valley and from It nt night your have a gllmpso Into fairyland I tyrant that when a plaintive American complained to mo that It was not nearly so fine as the view of New York nt night as you como In from the seaward I had not tho heart to contradict him Nor Is It finer than that of tho Thames embankment from tho Surrey side but on tho Surrey you havo not tho Belvedere The Belvedere Is a restaurant with a garden gar-den which looks over tho Elbe from tho end of tho Tarrasse There you may sit and sip cooling drinks of a biimmor night and listen to gbod music noblest results that tho art of religious relig-ious painting has ever produced Unfortunately Un-fortunately It Is difficult to get a good vlow of the picture It Is hung In a room by Itself and tho room Is always crowded by Americans Really Two Cities Dresden then consists of two cities ono which Interests the American tourist and uno which does not Tho former takes up very little space It clusters around the Augustus Brucke tho old bridge near tho Elbe which has heard the tramp of many armies for all that It now gives passage to HO many electrIc trnmcars Facing tho bridge is the modernized Iloyal castle and next to It Is tho court Homnn Catholic church On the opposite op-posite side of a big square Is tho winger which Is n large quadrangle filled by flowerbeds And surrounded by buildings of tho Baroque persuasion persua-sion which were to have been only a part of a novorflnlshed palace This house the picture galleries and part of tho other collections historical histor-ical ethnographical and what not The test lire behind the Bruhlsche Tcr race which starts from the bridge following tho river bank in tho opposite oppo-site direction On yet another side of tho nfore mentioned square Is the court opera house In the Heart of Dresden Dresden as known to the Dresden er stretches for miles along the river filling the valley with white villas that climb ho hillsides or cluster plong tho banks peasant suburbs with pleasant houses bowered In llcasant gardens where a man may live a very happy life on n very small income Then In the heart of tho city are still left old streets and squares which speak of tho past quaint old houses with high pitched gables that seem to lean together partly for mutual support and partly to whisper together of tho Ono times they had In tho old days that are gono They are not very healthy perhaps certainly they arc sometimes a little fragrant with a fragrance that Is not of roses But for those who do not livo In them they are eminently picturesque pic-turesque They aro rendered all tho moro so by limo fact and I wonder tho town council does not advertise It as among the chief residential amenities that there Is scarcely a street from which you may not obtain ob-tain a distant view of blue hilltops dominating tho chimney pots I Thus then Dresden Is always a city of compromises lingering between tho old and the newher factories and within a few miles though out of sight her collieries her broad whlto streets and modern villa residences I resi-dences face to face with her memories memor-ies of tho past nnd her memorials of eighteenthcentury splendor Capital of an old state which Is yet but an i item of a brand new empire she Is old and new provincial and metropolitan I artistic and Industrial In one And pbovo all she Is the setting for mho Slstlno Madonna I I I tru rt 1 + q r General View of Dresden I and watch tho lights twinkling along the curvo of tho river and tho tramcars tram-cars what an effective adjunct to a night effect are the colored lights on n distant tramcar slipping across tho bridges and tho red and green lamps on the boats passing beneath tbem To most people tho namo of Dresden Dres-den recalls only Dresden china which is not mado at Dresden at all but nt Meissen solute miles up tho river and picture galleries Ono might enjoy en-joy Dresden without oven looking at a picture It is true that ono would miss ono of tho greatest pictures In tho world Raphaels Slstlno Madonna Madon-na Everybody knows it from photographs photo-graphs and reproductions but until you have seen tho original you have no Idea of tho reality Tho faco of the Madonna and of tho child sho hojds In hoi arms arc I suppose tho self without thanking hlmsho exclaimed ex-claimed In tones that reached to tho furthest end of the car What do you want to stand up there for Como hero and sit on my lap Madam gasped tho man as his faco became scarlet 11 fear I am not deserving of such an honor What do you mean shrieked the woman You know very well I was speaking to my nleco there behind youSonttlo Post Intelllgencer |