United States or Bahamas ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There were a few pretty streets, with well-kept sidewalks, and ambitious, although small houses, and there were many lovely bits of views to be obtained, especially in the green flush of spring, and the red glow of autumn over the softly swelling New Jersey landscape with its warm red soil to the distant rise of low blue hills; but it was not fair enough in a general way to justify its name.
Height on height rise the stately, sculptured façades, colonnaded, statued, pierced by mighty doorways and lofty windows; and the palaces seem to gain a kind of aristocratic hauteur from the fact that there are for the most part no sidewalks, and that the carriages, rolling insolently through the crowd, threaten constantly to grind the pedestrian up against their carven marbles, and immolate him to their stony pride.
"He c'u'd 've wrote that letter to himself.... He's wise enough.... Yeh can't fool Hickey all the time.... I'll get him yet. Gottuh make good 'r it's the sidewalks f'r mine.... Me, tryin' hard to make an 'onest livin'.... 'Nd him with all kinds of money!" The fat mottled fingers sought a waistcoat pocket and, fumbling therein, touched caressingly a little pellet of soft paper.
In placed Calhoun saw doors that had been broken in and splintered, and never repaired. That implied violence unrestrained. The streets were almost empty. Occasional figures might be seen on the sidewalks before the speeding ground cars, but the vehicles never passed them. Pedestrians turned corners or dodged into doorways before the cavalcade could overtake them. The buildings grew taller.
For over half an hour they held possession of the sidewalks, then suddenly disappeared, leaving behind one or two stragglers who hurried along with great strides of their little thin legs, very anxious and preoccupied. Towards eleven o'clock the ladies from the great avenue a block above Polk Street made their appearance, promenading the sidewalks leisurely, deliberately.
And then all the people on the sidewalks vanished and the buildings melted away into sunswept levels, and the Avenue was a trail down which Mary came on her pony in the resplendent sufficiency of his dreams. "Great heavens!" he warned himself. "And I am to take my first lesson in running the business this evening!
Men who smoke on the street should avoid the crowded promenade, where ladies "most do congregate;" since it is nearly impossible to avoid annoying some one with the smoke. In most towns, the Board of Health ordinance forbidding spitting on floors, sidewalks, etc., is not only a hygienic safe-guard, but a much needed enforcement of good manners. Comment is superfluous.
When it rains, and sometimes when it does not, your levee is unpleasant to walk upon. Your sidewalks are dangerous, and your streets are unclean. John Phenix declared you destitute of honesty. Dickens asserted that your physical and moral foundations were insecurely laid. Russell did not praise you, and Trollope uttered much to your discredit. Your musquitos are large, numerous, and hungry.
The post-boys were lashing their horses into a savage run, like devils running away with the souls of innocents, and behind clattered the mounted, liveried servant. People on the sidewalks waved good-bys and called God-bless-yous. Soon the sleepy old town was left behind and the horses slowed down to a lazy trot. Jeanne looked back, like Lot's wife: only a church-spire could be seen.
Freight teams, flowing currents of men, chains of dusty mules, disordered cargoes on the sidewalks, and a couple of automobiles were glaringly cut out from their shadows, as the sunlight poured upon them. Sunlight and motion, false-fronted buildings, tents, and mountains, and fever that is the camp on the desert.
Word Of The Day