hing is more pathetic in human nature than its faculty of
self-deception. Winding up the alarm clock (the night before) I meditate
as to the exact time to elect for its disturbing buzz. If I set it at
6:30 that will give me plenty of time to shave and reach the station
with leisure for a pleasurable cup of coffee. But (so frail is the human
will) when I wake at 6:30 I will think to myself, "There is plenty of
time," and probably turn over for "another five minutes." This will mean
a hideous spasm of awakening conscience about 7:10--an unbathed and
unshaven tumult of preparation, malisons on the shoe manufacturers who
invented boots with eyelets all the way up, a frantic sprint to
Sixteenth Street and one of those horrid intervals that shake the very
citadel of human reason when I ponder whether it is safer to wait for a
possible car or must start hotfoot for the station at once. All this is
generally decided by setting the clock for 6:50. Then, if I am spry, I
can be under way by 7:20 and have a little time to be philosophical at
the corner of Sixteenth and Pine. Of the vile seizures of passion that
shake the bosom when a car comes along, seems about to halt, and then
passes without stopping--of the spiritual scars these crises leave on
the soul of the victim, I cannot trust myself to speak. It does not
always happen, thank goodness. One does not always have to throb madly
up Sixteenth, with head retorted over one's shoulder to see if a car may
still be coming, while the legs make what speed they may on sliddery
paving. Sometimes the car does actually appear and one buffets aboard
and is buried in a brawny human mass. There is a stop, and one wonders
fiercely whether a horse is down ahead, and one had better get out at
once and run for it. Tightly wedged in the heart of the car, nothing can
be seen. It is all very nerve-racking, and I study, for quietness of
mind, the familiar advertising card of the white-bearded old man
announcing "It is really very remarkable that a cigar of this quality
can be had for seven cents."

Suppose, however, that fortune is with me. I descend at Market Street,
and the City Hall dial, shining softly in the fast paling blue of
morning, marks 7:30. Now I begin to enjoy myself. I reflect on the
curious way in which time seems to stand still during the last minutes
before the departure of a train. The half-hour between 7 and 7:30 has
vanished in a gruesome flash. Now follow fifteen minutes of exq