American fiction -- 20th century; Manhattan (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction; Women artists -- Fiction
On East 58th Street there once stood Peter Buckel's brewery. Opposite
was, still is, Terrace Garden. A theatre now occupies the old brewery
ground. Young people who preferred serious converse to the glitter and
bang of the big Garden across the street went to Buckel's. A wooden
terrace with a roof was pleasant to sit upon when the weather was
warm. A huge tree grew in the middle of this esplanade and the owner
had artfully made it serve as a decoration. Under its spreading foliage
people supped and smoked. The town was then younger, less crowded
by "undesirable citizens"--the phrase is of Theodore Roosevelt's
making--and life more mellow, because less puritanical. An evening in
middle May saw a group around the tree-table as it was called; the most
coveted spot on the terrace. There were Ulick Invern and Alfred Stone.
Next to him sat a tall thin young man addressed by his companions
as Milton. He did not wear a clerical garb but the cut of him was
unquestionably priestly. His harmonious features, extremely blond hair,
prominent eye-balls, gray in color, denoted refinement of mind and
body. He was not in the least priggish and gave himself no sacerdotal
airs. If he had done so he would soon have been lonely. Ulick and
Alfred were too easy-going to endure superior pretensions in anyone;
besides, they had known Milton before he went to the Jesuits, and Ulick
sincerely sorrowed when ill-health fostered by strenuous study had sent
his friend temporarily back into the world he despised. He recognized
that Milton had a genuine vocation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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