The Washington times., 1920-07-28
tCo.tia.ss from Yesterday

ne vast NlbAdos INC 0hcdNtd lONN-
illness OF detail. the stately tran
guilty OF this capital. he did not
understand after the sham, the ig-
noTanee. the noisy vulgarity OF his
native municipality.
Here were new standards; the
gray immensity OF the splendid
capital gave him. at first. an i'm
preston OF something flat and al
most featureless under the horizon
wide sweep OF sky. There were no
skyscrspers. With exquisite dis
cretion. Notre Dame dominated the
east, the silyery majesty OF the
Pantheon the south: In the west the
golden bubble of the Invalides
burned; the frail tracery OF the
Einel Tower scared from the city's
center.
And for the first two months he
was an alien here. depressed, si-
fenced. not comprehending, obliy-
ious OF the subtle atmosphere OF
civil friendliness possessing the
throngs which flowed by him on
either hand. unaware that he stood
upon the kindly hearthstone OF the
world itself. where the hospitable
warmth never grew colder, where
the generous glow was for all.
He went to lectures at the Sor-
bonne; he attended a class in phil
ology In the Rue des Ecoles; he
studied in the quiet alcoves OF the
great Library of Ste. Genevieve;
he paced the sonorous marble pave
ments of the Louvre. And the aus
tere statues seemed to chill him
to the soul.
All was alien to him, all foreign;
the English speaking landlady OF
his pension, with her eternal cold in
the head and her little shoulder
shawl: the dreary American families
from the Middle West who gather
ed thrice day at the pension table;
passing wayfarers he saw from the
windows; red-legged soldiers in
badly fitting uniforms. priests in
shovel hats and black soutanes, po-
licemen slouching by under cowled
cloaks. their bayonets dangling;
hatless. chattering shop girls. and
the uninteresting types OF civilian
citizens; men in impossible hats and
oddly awful clothes; women who
all looked smart from the rear and
dubious from the front.
He found an annoying monotony
in the trees OF the Bois. a tiresome
sameness in square and circle and
park and boulevard. He found the
language difficult TO understand,
more difficult to speak. Food, ac-
commodations. the domestic regime.
were not to his liking. French sco-
I'm
At lectures his comrades seemed
merely specifically polite and not
very desirable as acquaintances. He
felt himself out of place, astray
from familiar things. out of touch
with this civilization, out OF SYM
pathy with place and people. He
was intensely lonely.
In the beginning he wrote to
Stephanie every other day. That
burst Of activity lasted about two
months.
Also. in his rather dingy and
cheerless suite of rooms, he began
a tragedy in five acts and a pessi-
mistic novel called "Out Of the
Depths" Also, he was guilty of a
book Of poems called DAY Dreams"
He missed his father terribly; he
missed his home: he missed the
monstrous city of his nativity. And
he missed Stephanie violently.
He told her so in every letter. The
more letters he wrote the warmer
grew this abrupt affection for her.
And, his being a creative talent,
with all its temperamental impulses,
exaggerations and drawbacks, he
began to evolve, unconsciously, out
of Stephanie Quest a girl based on
the real girl he knew, only trans
cendentally endowed with every de-
sirable and ornamental quality abb
stractly favored by himself.
/ He began to create an ideal
Stephanie to comfort him in his
loneliness: he created, too, a mutual
situation and a sentimental atmo-
sphere for them both. neither Of
which had existed when he left
America.
But now, in his letters. more and
more this romantic and airy fabric
took shape. Being young, and for
the first time in his life thrown
upon his own resources-and, more
over. feeling for the first time the
pleasures of welding an eloquent,
delicate and capricious pen to voice
indefinable aspirations, he began to
lose himself in romantic subtleties