The Olneyville times. (Olneyville [Providence, R.I.]) 1887-1917, 1909-04-23
The Hotel.
by HARRIET MONROE.

The long resounding marble corri.
tors, the shining parlors with shin.
ing women in them.
The French room, with its gilt and
garlands under plump little tumbling
painted loves.
The Turkish room, with its tumble
of many carpets and its stifiy squared
un-Turkish chairs.
The English room, all heavy crim-
son and gold, with spreading palms
lifted high in round green tubs.
The electric lights in twos and
threes and hundreds, made into fes.
toons and spirals and arabesques, a
maze and magic of bright persistent
radiance.
The people sitting in corners by
twos and threes, and cooling together
under the glare.
The long rows of silent people ir
chairs, watching with eyes that see
not while the patient band tangles
the air with music,
The bell-boys marching in with
cards, and shouting names over and
over into ears that do not heed.
The stout and gorgeous dowagers
in lacy white and lilac, bedizened
with many jewels, with smart little
scarlet or azure hats on their gray.
streaked hair.
The business men In trim and spot.
less suits, who walk in and out with
eager steps, or sit at the desks and
tables, or watch the shining women.
The telephone girls forever listen.
ing to far voices, with the silver band
over their hair and the little black
caps obliterating their ears.
The telegraph tickers sounding
their perpetual chit-chit-chit from
the uttermost ends of the earth.
The walters, in black swallow-tails
and white aprons, passing here and
there with trays of bottles and
glasses.
The quiet and sumptuous bar-room.
with purplish men softly drinking il
little alcoves, while the bar-keepel
mixing bright liquors, is rapidly ply
ing his bottles.
The great bedecked and gilded
cafe, with its glitter of a thousand
mirrors, with it's little white table.
bearing gluttonous dishes wheretc
bright forks, held by pampered
hands, flicker daintily back and
forth.
The white-tiled, immaculate kitch.
where white-clad cooks are making
spiced and favored dishes.
The cool cellars filled with meats
and fruits, or layered with sealed anG
bottled wines mellowing softly in the
darkness.
The invisible stories OF furnaces
and machines, burrowing deep dowL
into the earth, where grimy workmer
are heavily laboring.
The many-windowed stories of lit.
tie homes and shelters and sleeping.
places, reaching up into the nigh,
like some miraculous, high-piled hon.
eycomb Of wax-white cells.
The clothes inside of the cells
the stuffs, the silks, the laces; the
elaborate delicate disguises that waii
in trunks and drawers and closets
or bedrape and conceal human flesh
The people inside of the clothes, the
bodies white and young, bodies fat
and bulging, bodies wrinkled ana
wan, all alike veiled by fine fabrics,
sheltered by walls and roofs, shut in
from the sun and stars.
The souls inside of the bodies
the naked souls; souls weazen and
weak, or proud and brave; all i'm.
prisoned in flesh, wrapped in woven
stuffs, enclosed in thick and painted
masonry, shut away with many shad.
ows from the shining truth.
God inside Of the souls, God yelled
and wrapped and imprisoned and
shadowed in fold on fold of flesh and
fabrics and mockeries; but ever alive,
struggling and rising again, seeking
the light, freeing the world.-From