Above are stories uncountable (unless you are willing to be bumped
into); beside you, hurried-looking people gazing straight ahead or
dashing in and out of these large doors which are kept swinging back
and forth all day; very heavy doors to push, especially in winter,
when there are sometimes three sets of them. Within is the vestibule
bulletin-board with hundreds of men's names and office-numbers on it;
near by stands a judicial-looking person in uniform who knows them all,
and starts the various elevators by exclaiming "Up!" in a resonant
voice. While outside the crowd still hums and hurries on; it never gets
tired; it seems to pay no attention to anything. It is a matter of
wonder how a living is made by all the newsstands on the corners; all
the dealers in pencils and pipe-cleaners and shoe-strings and rubber
faces who are thick between the corners, to whom as little heed is
given as to the clatter of trucks or the wrangling of the now-blocked
cable-cars, or the cursing truck-drivers, or the echoing hammering of
the iron-workers on the huge girders of that new office building across
the way.
But that is simply because the crowd is accustomed to all these common
phenomena of the city street. As a matter of fact, half of them are
not so terrifically busy and important as they consider themselves.
They seem to be in a great hurry, but they do not move very fast, as
all know who try to take the walk up-town at a brisk pace, and most of
them wear that intent, troubled expression of countenance simply from
imitation or a habit generated by the spirit of the place. But it gives
a quaking sensation to the poor young man from the country who has
been walking the streets for weeks looking for a job; and it makes the
visiting foreigner take out his note-book and write a stereotyped phrase
or two about Americans--next to his note about our "Quick Lunch" signs
which never fail to astonish him, and behind which may be seen lunchers
lingering for the space of two cigars.
An ambulance, with its nervous, arrogant bell, comes scudding down
the street. A very important young interne is on the rear keeping his
balance with arrogant ease. His youthful, spectacled face is set in
stony indifference to all possible human suffering. The police clear the
way for him. And now see your rushing "busy throng" forget itself and
stop rushing. It blocks the sidewalk in five seconds, and still stays
there, growing larger, after those walking up-town have passed on.
The beautiful spire of Trinity, with its soft, brown stone and the green
trees and quaintly lettered historic tombs beneath and the damp monument
to Revolutionary martyrs over in one corner--no longer looks down
benignly on all about it, because, for the most part, it has to look up.
On all sides men have reared their marts of commerce higher than the
house of God.
[Illustration: No longer to be thrilled ... will mean to be old.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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