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Strunsky Simeon. Post-Impressions: An Irresponsible Chronicle
Post-Impressions: An Irresponsible Chronicle
Table of Contents
POST-IMPRESSIONS
I
ALMA MATER BROADWAY
II
THE CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE
III
SUMMER READING
IV
NOCTURNE
V
HAROLD'S SOUL, I
VI
EDUCATIONAL
I. WORD STUDY
II. GEOGRAPHY
III. ARITHMETIC
IV. HISTORY
V. LOGIC
VI. SCIENCE
VII
MORGAN
VIII
THE MODERN INQUISITION
IX
THORNS IN THE CUSHION
X
LOW-GRADE CITIZENS
XI
ROMANCE
XII
WANDERLUST
XIII
UNREVISED SCHEDULES
XIV
SOMEWHAT CONFUSED
XV
HAROLD'S SOUL, II
XVI
RHETORIC 21
XVII
REAL PEOPLE
XVIII
DIFFERENT
XIX
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
XX
THE HEAVENLY MAID
XXI
SHEATH-GOWNS
XXII
WITH THE EDITOR'S REGRETS
XXIII
A MAD WORLD
XXIV
Ph.D
XXV
TWO AND TWO
XXVI
BRICK AND MORTAR
XXVII
INCOHERENT
XXVIII
REALISM (AFTER A-N-LD B-N-ETT)
XXIX
ART (WHEN EMMY DESTINN SANG IN THE LION CAGE)
XXX
THE PACE OF LIFE (AS RECORDED BY THE FILM DRAMA AND TIMED BY A DOLLAR WATCH)
XXXI
MARCUS AURELIUS, 1914
XXXII
BY THE TURN OF A HAND
XXXIII
THE QUARRY SLAVE
XXXIV
MONOTONY OF THE POLES (AT A FIVE O'CLOCK TEA)
THE END. Footnote
Отрывок из книги
Simeon Strunsky
Published by Good Press, 2021
.....
She could study them with comparative leisure in the Night Court. Outside in the course of her daily routine she might catch an occasional glimpse of these same women, through the windows of a passing taxi, or in the matinée crowds, or going in and out of the fashionable shops. But her work took her seldom into the region of taxicabs and fashionable shops. The nature of her occupation kept her to furtive corners and the dark side of streets. Nor was she at such times in the mood for just appreciation of the beautiful things in life. More than any other walk of life, hers was of an exacting nature, calling for intense powers of concentration both as regards the public and the police. It was different in the Night Court. Here, having nothing to fear and nothing out of the usual to hope for, she might give herself up to the æsthetic contemplation of a beautiful world of which, at any other time, she could catch mere fugitive aspects.
Sometimes I wonder why people think that life is only what they see and hear, and not what they read of. Take the Night Court. The visitor really sees nothing and hears nothing that he has not read a thousand times in his newspaper and had it described in greater detail and with better-trained powers of observation than he can bring to bear in person. What new phase of life is revealed by seeing in the body, say, a dozen practitioners of a trade of whom we know there are several tens of thousands in New York? They have been described by the human-interest reporters, analysed by the statisticians, defended by the social revolutionaries, and explained away by the optimists. For that matter, to the faithful reader of the newspapers, daily and Sunday, what can there be new in this world from the Pyramids by moonlight to the habits of the night prowler? Can the upper classes really acquire for themselves, through slumming parties and visits to the Night Court, anything like the knowledge that books and newspapers can furnish them? Can the lower classes ever hope to obtain that complete view of the Fifth Avenue set which the Sunday columns offer them? And yet there the case stands: only by seeing and hearing for ourselves, however imperfectly, do we get the sense of reality.
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