al over the scene, as the sky takes on a pearly
softness, and the shadows creep through the trees in the Park, and the
lights in half the windows up that white cliff wall begin to gleam in
golden squares, the great building becomes curiously ethereal, the
pine limb flung into the foreground of the design catches the eye, the
reflection in the water is as real as the reality. The Plaza,
monstrous tons of steel and stone, floats between two elements. Then
darkness gathers, the reflected lights in the blackening water grow
more golden, and suddenly, perhaps, a duck swims across a tenth story
window and sets it dancing in golden ripples. You may fare far among
the ancient and "picturesque" cities of the earth without finding a
rival for this strange bit of beauty in New York, an ethereal
sky-scraper in white and gold gazing at its own reflection in the
forest pool!

Twilight in the Park, indeed, converts more than one building into a
thing of beauty, and the Plaza into a thing of beauty from more than
one view. For instance, as you pass into the Park, seeking the spot we
have described, turn back before you have advanced far, and see the
great cliff wall going up beyond the slender tracery of young trees,
with the street lights, just turned on, making a level strip of golden
shimmer at its base, curiously suggestive of crowds and gaiety. There
is at all hours a certain charm to be found in the long line of high
hotels and apartment houses which line the Park to the west, when you
view them over treetops, rock ledges, and running brooks, or over
white fields of snow. It is as if the city had crested in a great wave
along the green shore of the country, ready to curl and fall and dash
onward, but had been suddenly arrested by some more potent King
Canute. Loveliness, however, is hardly a word you would apply till
twilight steals across the scene. Down side streets into the west the
golden sunset glows for a time, and the shadows on the snow are
amethyst. Then the glow fades. The arc lamps come on with a splutter,
and they, too, at first are amethyst. But in the gathering dark they
change to blue. The sky changes to the deep blue of approaching night.
The dim bulks of the buildings change to blue. The shadows about you
are but a deeper blue. Even the snow at your feet is blue. In the
great apartments and hotels the golden window squares appear, and the
looming procession of blue shadow bulks might be a fleet of giant
liners g