Part 11 (2/2)
CONFESSIONS OF A HUMAN GLOBULE
As a matter of fact, we find the evening subway jam very restful. Being neatly rounded in contour, with just a gentle bulge around the equatorial transit, we have devised a very satisfactory system. We make for the most crowded car we can find, and having buffeted our way in, we are perfectly serene. Once properly wedged, and provided no one in the immediate neighbourhood is doing anything with any garlic (it is well to avoid the vestibules if one is squeamish in that particular) we lift our feet off the floor, tuck them into the tail of our overcoat, and remain blissfully suspended in midair from Chambers Street to Ninety-sixth. The pressure of our fellow-pa.s.sengers, powerfully impinging upon the globular perimeter we spoke of, keeps us safely elevated above the floor. We have had some leather stirrups sewed into the bottom of our overcoat, in which we slip our feet to keep them from dangling uncomfortably. Another feature of our technique is that we always go into the car with our arms raised and crossed neatly on our chest, so that they will not be caught and pinioned to our flanks. In that position, once we are gently nested among the elastic ma.s.s of genial humanity, it is easy to draw out from our waistcoat pocket our copy of Boethius's ”Consolations of Philosophy” and really get in a little mental improvement. Or, if we have forgotten the book, we gently droop our head into our overcoat collar, lay it softly against the shoulder of the tall man who is always handy, and pa.s.s into a tranquil nescience.
The subway is a great consolation to the philosopher if he knows how to make the most of it. Think how many people one encounters and never sees again.
NOTES ON A FIFTH AVENUE BUS
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Far down the valley of the Avenue the traffic lights wink in unison, green, yellow, red, changing their colours with well-drilled promptness.
It is cold: a great wind flaps and tangles the flags; the tops of the buses are almost empty. That brisk April air seems somehow in key with the mood of the Avenue--hard, plangent, glittering, intensely material.
It is a proud, exultant, exhilarating street; it fills the mind with strange liveliness. A magnificent pomp of humanity--what a flux of lacquered motors, what a twinkling of spats along the pavements! On what other of the world's great highways would one find churches named for the material of which they are built?--the _Brick Church_, the _Marble Church_! It is not a street for loitering--there is an eager, ambitious humour in its blood; one walks fast, revolving schemes of worldly dominion. Only on the terrace in front of the Public Library is there any temptation for tarrying and consideration. There one may pause and study the inscription--_But Above All Things Truth Beareth Away the Victory_ ... of course the true eloquence of the words lies in the _But_. Much reason for that _But_, implying a previous contradiction--on the Avenue's part? Sometimes, pacing vigorously in that river of lovely pride and fascination, one might have suspected that other things bore away the victory--spats, diamond necklaces, smoky blue furs nestling under lovely chins.... Hullo! here is a sign, ”Headquarters of the Save New York Committee.” Hum! Save from what? There was a time when the great charm of New York lay in the fact that it didn't want to be saved.
Who is it that the lions in front of the Public Library remind us of? We have so often pondered. Let's see: the long slanting brow, the head thrown back, the haughty and yet genial abstraction--to be sure, it's Vachel Lindsay!
We defy the most resolute philosopher to pa.s.s along the giddy, enticing, brilliant vanity of that superb promenade and not be just a little moved by worldly temptation.
SUNDAY MORNING
It was a soft, calm morning of suns.h.i.+ne and placid air. Clear and cool, it was ”a Herbert Spencer of a day,” as H. G. Wells once remarked. The vista of West Ninety-eighth Street, that engaging alcove in the city's enormous life, was all freshness and kempt tranquillity, from the gray roof of the old training s.h.i.+p at the river side up to the tall red spire near Columbus Avenue. This pinnacle, which ripens to a fine claret colour when suffused with sunset, we had presumed to be a church tower, but were surprised, on exploration, to find it a standpipe of some sort connected with the Croton water system.
Sunday morning in this neighbourhood has its own distinct character.
There is a certain air of luxurious ease in the picture. One has a feeling that in those tall apartment houses there are a great many ladies taking breakfast in negligee. They are wearing (if one may trust the shop windows along Broadway) boudoir caps and mules. Mules, like their namesakes in the animal world, are hybrid things, the offspring of a dancing pump and a bedroom slipper. They are distinctly futile, but no matter, no matter. Wearing mules, however, is not a mere vanity; it is a form of physical culture, for these skimpish little things are always disappearing under the bed, and crawling after them keeps one slender.
Again we say, no matter. This is no concern of ours.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Near Broadway a prosperous and opulently tailored costume emerges from an apartment house: cutaway coat, striped trousers, very long pointed patent leather shoes with lilac cloth tops. Within this gear, we presently see, is a human being, in the highest spirits. ”All set!” he says, joining a group of similars waiting by a s.h.i.+ning limousine. Among these, one lady of magnificently millinered aspect, and a smallish man in very new and s.h.i.+ny riding boots, of which he is grandly conscious.
There are introductions. ”Mr. Goldstone, meet Mrs. Silverware.” They are met. There is a flas.h.i.+ng of eyes. Three or four silk hats simultaneously leap into the s.h.i.+ning air, are flourished and replaced. The observer is aware of the prodigious gayety and excitement of life. All climb into the car and roll away down Broadway. All save the little man in riding boots. He is left on the sidewalk, gallantly waving his hand. Come, we think, he is going riding. A satiny charger waits somewhere round the corner. We will follow and see. He slaps his hunting crop against his glorious boots, which are the hue of quebracho wood. No; to our chagrin, he descends into the subway.
We sit on the shoes.h.i.+ning stand on Ninety-sixth Street, looking over the Sunday papers. Very odd, in the adjoining chairs men are busily engaged polis.h.i.+ng shoes that have n.o.body in them, not visibly, at any rate.
Perhaps Sir Oliver is right after all. While we are not watching, the beaming Italian has inserted a new pair of laces for us. Long afterward, at bedtime, we find that he has threaded them in that unique way known only to shoe merchants and polishers, by which every time they are tied and untied one end of the lace gets longer and the other shorter. Life is full of needless complexities. We descend the hill. Already (it is 9:45 A. M.) men are playing tennis on the courts at the corner of West End Avenue. A great wagon crammed with scarlet sides of beef comes stumbling up the hill, drawn, with difficulty, by five horses.
When we get down to the Ninety-Sixth Street pier we see the barque _Windrush_ lying near by with the airy triangles of her rigging pencilled against the sky, and look amorously on the gentle curve of her strakes (if that is what they are). We feel that it would be a fine thing to be off soundings, greeting the bounding billow, not to say the bar-room steward; and yet, being a cautious soul of reservations all compact, we must admit that about the time we got abreast of New Dorp we would be homesick for our favourite subway station.
The pier, despite its deposit of filth, bales of old shoes, reeking barrels, scows of rubbish, sodden papers, boxes of broken bottles and a thick paste of dust and ash-powder everywhere, is a happy lounging ground for a few idlers on Sunday morning. A large cargo steamer, the _Eclipse_, lay at the wharf, standing very high out of the water. Three small boys were watching a peevish old man tending his fis.h.i.+ng lines, fastened to wires with little bells on them. ”What do you catch here?”
we said. Just then one of the little bells gave a cracked tinkle and the angler pulled up a small fish, wriggling briskly, about three inches long. This seemed to anger him. He seemed to consider himself in some way humiliated by the incident. He grunted. One of the small boys was tactful. ”Oh, gee!” he said. ”Sometimes you catch fish that long,”
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