[Illustration]
Far down the valley of the Avenue the traffic lights wink in unison,
green, yellow, red, changing their colours with well-drilled promptness.
It is cold: a great wind flaps and tangles the flags; the tops of the
buses are almost empty. That brisk April air seems somehow in key with
the mood of the Avenue--hard, plangent, glittering, intensely material.
It is a proud, exultant, exhilarating street; it fills the mind with
strange liveliness. A magnificent pomp of humanity--what a flux of
lacquered motors, what a twinkling of spats along the pavements! On what
other of the world's great highways would one find churches named for
the material of which they are built?--the _Brick Church_, the _Marble
Church_! It is not a street for loitering--there is an eager, ambitious
humour in its blood; one walks fast, revolving schemes of worldly
dominion. Only on the terrace in front of the Public Library is there
any temptation for tarrying and consideration. There one may pause and
study the inscription--_But Above All Things Truth Beareth Away the
Victory_ ... of course the true eloquence of the words lies in the
_But_. Much reason for that _But_, implying a previous contradiction--on
the Avenue's part? Sometimes, pacing vigorously in that river of lovely
pride and fascination, one might have suspected that other things bore
away the victory--spats, diamond necklaces, smoky blue furs nestling
under lovely chins.... Hullo! here is a sign, "Headquarters of the Save
New York Committee." Hum! Save from what? There was a time when the
great charm of New York lay in the fact that it didn't want to be saved.
Who is it that the lions in front of the Public Library remind us of? We
have so often pondered. Let's see: the long slanting brow, the head
thrown back, the haughty and yet genial abstraction--to be sure, it's
Vachel Lindsay!
We defy the most resolute philosopher to pass along the giddy, enticing,
brilliant vanity of that superb promenade and not be just a little moved
by worldly temptation.