FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   >>  
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. Let us explain that on a crowded train it is not such an easy task. You see your victim at the other end of the car. First you have to buffet your way until you get next to him. Then, just as you think you are in a position to do a little careful snooping, he innocently shifts the book to the other hand. This means you have got to navigate, somehow, toward the hang-handle on the other side of him. Very well. By the time the train gets to Bowling Green we have seen that it is a fattish book, bound in green cloth, and the author's name begins with FRAN. That doesn't help much. As the train roars under the river you manage, by leanings and twistings, to see the publisher's name--in this case, Longmans. At Borough Hall a number of passengers get out, and the hunted reader sits down. Ten to one he will hold the book in such a way that you cannot see the title. At Nevins Street you get a seat beside him. At Atlantic Avenue, as he is getting off, you propose your head over his shoulder in the jam on the stairs and see what you are after. "Lychgate Hall," by M.E. Francis. And in this case, success left us none the wiser. Atlantic Avenue, by the way, always seems to us an ideal place for the beginning of a detective story. (Speaking of that, a very jolly article in this month's _Bookman_, called "How Old Is Sherlock Holmes?" has revived our old ambition to own a complete set of all the Sherlock Holmes tales, and we are go
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   >>  



Top keywords:

evening

 

Atlantic

 
Avenue
 

Sherlock

 

Holmes

 
relief
 

twistings

 
leanings
 
publisher
 

terraced


Longmans
 

manage

 

Broadway

 

Nevins

 

reader

 

number

 

passengers

 

hunted

 

Borough

 
handle

navigate
 

author

 

begins

 
Street
 
Bowling
 

fattish

 

article

 
Bookman
 

called

 

beginning


detective
 

Speaking

 

complete

 
ambition
 

revived

 

shoulder

 

stairs

 

propose

 

cliffs

 
success

Lychgate

 
Francis
 

innocently

 
unspeakable
 
tenderly
 

sunset

 
describe
 

poetry

 

subway

 
endured