The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1922-06-02
THE GREEN LIGHT
BY John G. Woolley

, is all it is now, little Paris and a
resort for spenders bent on making
two blades of wild oats grow where
there was only one before. The Ara
bian part of the city, however, is one
of the worlds real curiosities. 1t is
the Arabian Nights" preserved in
tact-customs, costumes, romance and
all. 1t has twenty mosques that are
crowded with worshipers whenever
the muezzins call to prayer. A short
drive takes one to the desert, which is
now anything but desert. Part of
it is the Garden of Allah" near
Biskra. | am free to say that If had
to choose one of the two greups-the
French city by the sea, or the Arab
city on the hill, | should be all for the
Arabs. In the fashion quarter the
women-the women-seemed to me
to be all carrying canes. / reckon it
is an adaptation of automobile pre-
caution-carrying spare" in case of
leg trouble.
From Algiers, our course was laid,
straight across the Mediterranean, to
Monaco, the gamblers heaven, or hell.
1t is in the heart of the Riviera, and
the capital of elegant and expensive
dissipation. The whole thing is only
about eight square miles, but it is an
independent government, with a con-
gress and a standing army and an
everlasting picnic, going night and
day. Geographically it is three little
towns, Monte Carlo, Monaco and Con-
tademine. The gambling place is
Monte Carlo.
Even when my mind is reasonably
cheerful visit to Monte Carlo, beau
tiful as it is, is depressing. The SUI
perfcial explanation is of course, that
| am no sport and | reckon that |
could easily be convicted on that
charge. But I suspect that there is
another and a deeper reason. The
sport at Monte Carlo runs at so high
voltage and so insulated from ten
sion leakages of common life, that the
kindness OF play differs little, if any,
from the malice of murder, and does,
in fact, not infrequently blow itself
out in suicide.
But if, as on the present occasion,
the ship is too big to go inside the
harbor and the sea is running a nasty
swell i'll which the tender seems COM
pletely confused as to whether ito
be or not to be" tender, an arplane,
or submarine, and the surf is tearing
at the cliff as ii the concentrated hate
of all the wars, all the insensibilities
of the commissions of nature and all
the frenzies OF pandemoniun were un-
eashed in one wild passion of revenge
against this mountainsidc OF pleasure
palaces-then Monte Carlo makes you
think and if you think you get un-
happy. s-----<s~.
1t requires tougher sense OF humor
than falls to the lot of most old peo-
pie, to get pleasure out of watching
play or work, for that matter. Even
the games OF children soon get tire
some to the spectator whose arteries
of mind and body arc getting hard
The fact is that watching others is a
trial and tends to seriousness. To see
the crew of an ocean liner warp her
into her berth is a maddening spec
tacle OF incficicncy, to the Idle OBJ
server. And to watch a wrecking
crew even tackle a ditched locomo-
tive is the absolute zero of enthusiasm
in the idle looker-on.
am writing this in my note book,
on the poop deck of big ship, as
some four hundred tourists are taking
the tug which will land them at Genoa
And it seems to me that as many
guinea pigs would contrive as we'll
And l am no pessimist, but rather
soft lover of mankind. But when
was homesick and idle this stream OF
reflections got on the wires of my
Photograph and they have made me
think that the big sport OF the idle is
criticism.