Letters of Travel (1892-1913)

Оглавление

Rudyard Kipling. Letters of Travel (1892-1913)

FROM TIDEWAY TO TIDEWAY

IN SIGHT OF MONADNOCK

ACROSS A CONTINENT

THE EDGE OF THE EAST

OUR OVERSEAS MEN

SOME EARTHQUAKES

HALF-A-DOZEN PICTURES

'CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS'

ON ONE SIDE ONLY

LEAVES FROM A WINTER NOTE-BOOK

LETTERS TO THE FAMILY

THE ROAD TO QUEBEC

A PEOPLE AT HOME

CITIES AND SPACES

NEWSPAPERS AND DEMOCRACY

LABOUR

THE FORTUNATE TOWNS

MOUNTAINS AND THE PACIFIC

A CONCLUSION

EGYPT OF THE MAGICIANS

I. SEA TRAVEL

II. A RETURN TO THE EAST

III. A SERPENT OF OLD NILE

IV. UP THE RIVER

V. DEAD KINGS

VI. THE FACE OF THE DESERT

VII. THE RIDDLE OF EMPIRE

Отрывок из книги

After the gloom of gray Atlantic weather, our ship came to America in a flood of winter sunshine that made unaccustomed eyelids blink, and the New Yorker, who is nothing if not modest, said, 'This isn't a sample of our really fine days. Wait until such and such times come, or go to such and a such a quarter of the city.' We were content, and more than content, to drift aimlessly up and down the brilliant streets, wondering a little why the finest light should be wasted on the worst pavements in the world; to walk round and round Madison Square, because that was full of beautifully dressed babies playing counting-out games, or to gaze reverently at the broad-shouldered, pug-nosed Irish New York policemen. Wherever we went there was the sun, lavish and unstinted, working nine hours a day, with the colour and the clean-cut lines of perspective that he makes. That any one should dare to call this climate muggy, yea, even 'subtropical,' was a shock. There came such a man, and he said, 'Go north if you want weather – weather that is weather. Go to New England.' So New York passed away upon a sunny afternoon, with her roar and rattle, her complex smells, her triply over-heated rooms, and much too energetic inhabitants, while the train went north to the lands where the snow lay. It came in one sweep – almost, it seemed, in one turn of the wheels – covering the winter-killed grass and turning the frozen ponds that looked so white under the shadow of lean trees into pools of ink.

As the light closed in, a little wooden town, white, cloaked, and dumb, slid past the windows, and the strong light of the car lamps fell upon a sleigh (the driver furred and muffled to his nose) turning the corner of a street. Now the sleigh of a picture-book, however well one knows it, is altogether different from the thing in real life, a means of conveyance at a journey's end; but it is well not to be over-curious in the matter, for the same American who has been telling you at length how he once followed a kilted Scots soldier from Chelsea to the Tower, out of pure wonder and curiosity at his bare knees and sporran, will laugh at your interest in 'just a cutter.'

.....

Beyond the very furthest range, where the pines turn to a faint blue haze against the one solitary peak – a real mountain and not a hill – showed like a gigantic thumbnail pointing heavenward.

'And that's Monadnock,' said the man from the West; 'all the hills have Indian names. You left Wantastiquet on your right coming out of town,'

.....