Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1919-1980, 1920-12-15

AAiG Usual iiA'Pl'NiiNN ~ cN'iiiN'1
Cleland; for the first two months
in Paris he was intensely lonely.
Life in an Englishspeaking pen
sion near the Hlace de PEtoile
turned out to be very drab and
eventless after he returned to his
rooms, fatigued from sight seeing
and exploration. The vast silver
grey city seemed to him cold mon
otonously impressive and oppres-
sive; he was not in sympathy with
it being totally unaccustomed TO
the splendour of a municipal en-
semble with all its beauty of re-
ticence and good taste.
The vast yistas, the subdued
loveliness of detail, the stately
tranquility of this capital he did
not understand after the sham,
the ignorance, the noisy vulgarity
of his native municipality.
Here were new standards; the
grey immensity of the splendid
capital gave him, at first, an inn
preston of something flat and al
most featureless under the horiz-
on-wide sweep of sky. There
were no sky-scrapers. With eX-
quisite discretion, Notre Dame
dominated the east, the silvery
majesty of the Pantheon the south
in the west the golden bubble of
the Invalides burned; the frail
tracery of the Eiffel Tower SCARED
from the city's centre.
And for the first two months
he was an alien here, depressed,
ailenced, not comprehending. OBJ
livious of the subtle atmosphere
of civil friendliness possessing the
throngs which flowed by him on
either hand, unaware that he
stood upon the kindly hearth
stone 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 attendeda n class in philo-
logy in the Rue des Ecoles he
studied in the quiet alcoves Of
the great Library of Ste. Gene
We've: he paced the sonorous mar
BILE pavements of the Louvre. And
the austere 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 fa-
miles from the Middle West who
gathered thrice a day at the pen
sion table; passing wayfarers he
saw from the windows; red-legged
soldiers in badly fitting uniforms.
priests in shovel hats and black
soutanes, policemen slouchlng by
cowled cloaks, their bayonets dan
Cling; hatless, chattering shop
girls, and the uninteresting types
of civilian citizens; men in impos-
sible hats and oddly awful clothes;
women who all looked smart from
the rear and dubious from the
front.
lie found an annoying mono
tony in the trees of the Bois, a
tiresome sameness i'm square and
circle and park and boulevard.
He found the language difficult TO
understand. more difficult to
speak. Food. accommodations
the domestic regime. we're not to
his liking. French economies
bored him.
AT lectures his comrades merely
specifically polite and not very
desirable as acquaintances. He
felt himself out of place. astray
from familiar things. oat If toach
with this civilization, out OF SYM
pathy with place and people.
He was intensely lohe1y
In the beginning he wrote to
Stephanie every other day. That
burst of activity lasted about two
Also. In his rather dingy and |
cherries suits Of rooms. he beSan
4 tragedy in five acts and pes
novel called "Out of the /
Depths" Also. he was guilty Of
A book of poems called "Dayl
Dreams"
lie missed his father terribly; I
be missed his home; he missed
he noisy grotesque. half-civilized
md monstrous city of his nativity.
And he missed Stephanie violent
y /
he told her so in every letter.
The moro letters he wrote the
warmer grew this abrupt affection
or her And his being a creative
aient with an its. ts.temperamental
Congregations and draw
Iaeks, he began to evolve, .un-
saseloHsly, out Of Stephanie 3