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The Project Gutenberg EBook of An International Episode, by Henry James This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: An International Episode Author: Henry James Release Date: July 6, 2008 [EBook #210] [This file last update October 10, 2010] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE *** Produced by Judith Boss AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE By Henry James PART I Four years ago--in 1874--two young Englishmen had occasion to go to the United States. They crossed the ocean at midsummer, and, arriving in New York on the first day of August, were much struck with the fervid temperature of that city. Disembarking upon the wharf, they climbed into one of those huge high-hung coaches which convey passengers to the hotels, and with a great deal of bouncing and bumping, took their course through Broadway. The midsummer aspect of New York is not, perhaps, the most favorable one; still, it is not without its picturesque and even brilliant side. Nothing could well resemble less a typical English street than the interminable avenue, rich in incongruities, through which our two travelers advanced--looking out on each side of them at the comfortable animation of the sidewalks, the high-colored, heterogeneous architecture, the huge white marble facades glittering in the strong, crude light, and bedizened with gilded lettering, the multifarious awnings, banners, and streamers, the extraordinary number of omnibuses, horsecars, and other democratic vehicles, the vendors of cooling fluids, the white trousers and big straw hats of the policemen, the tripping gait of the modish young persons on the pavement, the general brightness, newness, juvenility, both of people and things. The young men had exchanged few observations; but in crossing Union Square, in front of the monument to Washington--in the very shadow, indeed, projected by the image of the PATER PATRIAE--one of them remarked to the other, "It seems a rum-looking place." "Ah, very odd, very odd," said the other, who was the clever man of the two. "Pity it's so beastly hot," resumed the first speaker after a pause. "You know we are in a low latitude,"
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