The Faith Doctor: A Story of New YorkEggleston, Edward
General
The Faith Doctor: A Story of New York
Eggleston, Edward
New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction
When the elevator had landed him on one of the high floors of the
Graydon Building, a bachelor apartment house, and he had entered his own
parlor, the large windows of which had a southern outlook, he stood a
long time regarding the view. The electric lights were not visible, but
their white glow, shining upward from the streets and open squares,
glorified the buildings that were commonplace enough in daytime. Miles
away across a visible space of water Liberty's torch shone like a star
of the fifth magnitude. The great buildings about the City Hall Park,
seen through a haze of light, seemed strangely aerial, like castles in a
mirage or that ravishing Celestial City which Bunyan gazed upon in his
dreams. A curved line of electric stars well up toward the horizon
showed where the great East River Bridge spanned the unresting tides
far below. Millard's apartment was so high that the street roar reached
it in a dull murmur as of a distant sea, and he stood and absorbed the
glory of the metropolitan scene--such a scene as was never looked upon
in any age before our own decade--and it was to him but a fit
accompaniment to his passion for Phillida, which by its subjective
effect upon him had transformed all life and the universe itself. A
month before he had sat and stared a hard-coal fire out of countenance
in apprehension of falling in love with Phillida. Now he eagerly drank
in the glory of earth and air, and loved her without reserve and without
regret.
XI.
IN THE PARK.
Although love had at length come to Millard like an inundation sweeping
away the barriers of habit and preconception, he was quite aware that
Phillida Callender's was not a temperament to forget duty in favor of
inclination, and the strength of his desire to possess her served as a
restraint upon his action. He followed the habits of business
negotiation even in love-making; he put down his impatience and made his
approaches slowly that he might make sure of success. As a prudent
beginning to his courtship he called on Phillida at first but once a
week. She soon regained her wonted placidity of exterior, and Millard
found it difficult to divine how far his affection was reciprocated.
For himself, he kept up his round of post-Easter social engagements. It
would be time enough to lop these off if Phillida should require it when
his affairs with her should be upon a more secure footing. Phillida,
too, kept up a series of post-Easter engagements, but of another sort.
Besides the ordinary work of the mission, and the extraordinary work
attending the preparations for Fresh Air excursions for the invalid poor
which were to be carried on in the heats of summer, she went once a week
to the parlor Bible readings of Mrs. Frankland, which were, in fact,
eloquent addresses, and which served greatly to stimulate her zeal. Thus
these two lovers journeyed upon paths that had no convergence, even
while feeling themselves drawn irresistibly toward each other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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