A
painstaking examination by the Committee showed that he had concealed
about him neither talent, nor imagination, nor knowledge of human
nature, nor insight into life, nor an intimate acquaintance with the
elements of English grammar. Nevertheless, before the eyes of the amazed
observers, novel after novel went humming through the air in a direction
away from the writer, while a steady stream of bank-books, automobiles,
and country houses flowed in the opposite direction.
XV
THE CADENCE OF THE CROWD
I have always been peculiarly susceptible to the music of marching feet.
I know of no sound in nature or in Wagner that stirs the heart like the
footsteps of the crowd on the board platform of the Third Avenue "L" at
City Hall every late afternoon. The human tread is always eloquent in
chorus, but it is at its best upon a wooden flooring. Stone and asphalt
will often degrade the march of a crowd to a shuffle. It needs the
living wood to give full dignity to the spirit of human resolution that
speaks in a thousand pair of feet simultaneously moving in the same
direction; and particularly when the moving mass is not an army, but a
crowd advancing without rank or order.
Pages:
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112