From the
office of one of our dramatic critics the view is negligible (being
but a hardy brick wall), but the critic, debonair creature, has a
small mirror of his own, so there one manages the ticklish business
of the cravat. And from our own kennel, where are transacted the
last touches (transfer of pipe, tobacco, matches, Long Island
railroad timetable, commutation ticket, etc., to the other pockets)
there is a heavenly purview of those tall cliffs of lower Broadway,
nobly terraced into the soft, translucent sky. In that exquisite
clarity and sharpness of New York's evening light are a loveliness
and a gallantry hardly to be endured. At seven o'clock of a May
evening it is poetry unspeakable. O magnificent city (one says),
there will come a day when others will worship and celebrate your
mystery; and when not one of them will know or care how much I loved
you. But these words, obscure and perishable, I leave you as a
testimony that I also understood.
She cannot be merely the cruel Babel they like to describe her: the
sunset light would not gild her so tenderly.
* * * * *
It was a great relief to us yesterday evening to see a man reading a
book in the subway. We have undergone so many embarrassments trying
to make out the titles of the books the ladies read, without running
afoul of the Traveller's Aid Society, that we heaved a sigh of
relief and proceeded to stalk our quarry with a light heart.
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