Gloucester County Democrat., 1909-01-07
One Kind of Freedom.

from one of the many forms of slavery
that bind us! We feel as must have
felt the Ancient Mariner when the al
batross fell from his neck and sank
into the sea.
was a slave, but am slave no
longer. have recovered from New
Yorkitis. / tested myself last week.
went back to the old haunts, but they
had no charm. The breath of the
open country had done its work, and
the cure was complete. How hot and
stuffy the place seemed after the river
and mountains! How musty was the
subway, how dirty the streets!
A friend as a lure took me to lunch
at the Columbia Yacht club This is
below Riverside drive, on the water
front. The surroundings. the lights
blossoming on the Jersey shore and in
the tall buildings downtown, the yes
sades opposite, all combined to produce
a delightful effect, but it did not equal
the view of the same river i'll the
highlands or through the gateway
into the low country as l had seen it
every night from my own little plat
form. Against the Palisades put
Storm King and Grow Nest, against
the darting yachts and pleasure boats
the river steamers plying at all hours,
against the lights of New York and
Jersey, Gods lights in the skies. and
against the stuffy city air, present even
on the water front, the breath of field.
forest and hill in the up country.
But there was one part of the city
still appealed to me. 1t was the peo-
pie. Every street furnished its study
of human nature. There was every
type from the criminal out of the
slums to the teacher and minister.
from the denizen of the Tenderloin to
the dame of Fifth avenue, from the
counter jumper and the hall room boys
to the millionaire. OF course there are
few of the wealthy in New York in
summer, but have seen them in other
crowds. For example, remember a
gala night in the old town when Broad
way was swirl of faces from Forty
second street south. People had
thrown aside the masks of convention
ality and thus offered the better oppor-
tunity to the student Every one was
trying to delude himself into the be-
lief that he was having the time of his
been for the consciousness that each
ones feet weighed several tons more
than they should have weighed the
success might have been greater
There were all sorts of faces, from
the hard, calculating visage of the bust
ness man to the supplicating and faded
features of the woman grinding out a
dismal tune on the street corner. There
were faces as rosy and sweet as an
Italian dawn and faces the very look of
which would wreck freight train
There were faces as weak as a watery
moonbeam and faces strong enough to
defy fate itself. There were tired,
chalky and lifeless faces, and faces so
full of vitality and perspiration that
they resembled nothing so much as
the rising sun ON a smoky morning
There were foxy faces, goosey faces.
leonine faces and horse faces. There
were faces so full of the brute that
they had a swinish cast and faces SO
spiritual that an inner heaven seemed
to shine through them. There We're
short and pudgy faces, and faces long
enough to eat oats out of a churn
There were irritable faces and serene
faces There were faces so timid and
lacking in confidence that they could
be driven or led like sheep and faces
whose owners seemed so self centered
that they would have looked unmoved
on the end of the world.
Ever and ever the crowds drifted by.
leaves tossed to and fro on the winds
of caprice, all laughter and light and
jollity, as though there had been no
such thing as suffering or death in the
world; here bevy of giggling school
girls ogled by callow youths on the
corner, and there tired faced mother
clucking to her brood about her. out
in the street splendid equipage.
whose occupants had the sort of su-
percilious air that only wealth be-
slows, and ON the corner hard by a
sightless old man droning with a
wheezy accordion an asthmatic plea
for aims.
While looking upon it l thought in
my soul this is Gods book of life
These faces are letters that spell our
character. / read on, but caught
glimpses of fathomless meaning
that eluded me. All the show faded
into a phantom thing, and l seemed to
live in other times and other climes.
The scene before me was bnt mask.
behind which saw deep and sorrow
full eyes. was face to face with a
something ages and ages old the soul
of humanity.