The Bacillus of Beauty

NEW YORK, Sunday, Dec. 16.

I am going to set down as calmly and fully as I can a plain statement of all that has happened since I came to New York.

I shall not trim details, nor soften the facts to humour my own amazement, nor try to explain the marvel that I do not pretend to understand.

I begin at the beginning--at the plunge into fairy tale and miracle that I made, after living twenty-five years of baldest prose, when I met Helen Winship here.

Why, I had dragged her to school on a sled when she was a child. I watched her grow up. For years I saw her nearly every day at the State University in the West that already seems so unreal, so far away, I loved her.

Man, I knew her face better than I knew my own! Yet when I met her here-- when I saw my promised wife, who had kissed me good-by only last June--I did not recognise her. I looked full into her great eyes and thought she was a stranger; hesitated even when she called my name. It's a miracle! Or a lie, or a wild dream; or I am going crazy. The thing will not be believed. And yet it's true.

This is my calmness! If I could but think it might be a tremendous blunder out of which I would sometime wake into verity! But there has been no mistake; I have not been dreaming unless I am dreaming now.

As distinctly as I see the ugly street below, I remember everything that has befallen me since my train pulled into Jersey City last Thursday morning. I remember as one does who is served by sharpened senses. Only once in a fellow's lifetime can he look upon New York for the first time-- and to me New York meant Helen. Everything was vividly impressed upon my mind.

I crossed the Cortlandt Street ferry and walked up Broadway, wondering what Helen would say if I called before breakfast. I could scarcely wait. I stopped in front of St. Paul's Church, gaping up at a twenty-six story building opposite; a monstrous shaft with a gouge out of its south side as if lightning had rived off a sliver. I went over to it and saw that I had come to Ann Street, where Barnum's museum used to stand. The Post Office, the City Hall, the restaurant where I ate breakfast, studying upon the wall the bible texts and signs bidding me watch my hat and overcoat; the Tribune building, just as it looks on the almanac cover--all these made an instant, deep impression. Not in the least like a dream.