Page:America Today, Observations and Reflections.djvu/51

 street life in the central region of New York is indescribably exhilarating. From Union Square to Herald Square, and even further up, Broadway and many of the cross streets flash out at dusk into the most brilliant illumination. Theatres, restaurants, stores, are outlined in incandescent lamps; the huge electric trolleys come sailing along in an endless stream, profusely jewelled with electricity; and down the thickly gemmed vista of every cross street one can see the elevated trains, like luminous winged serpents, skimming through the air. The great restaurants are crowded with gaily dressed merry-makers; and altogether there is a sense of festivity in the air, without any flagrantly meretricious element in it, which I plead guilty to finding very enjoyable. From the moral, and even from the loftily æsthetic point of view, this gaudy, glittering Vanity Fair is no doubt open to criticism. What reconciles me to it æsthetically is the gemlike transparency of its colouring. Garish it is, no doubt, but not in the least stifling, smoky, or lurid. The application of electricity light divorced from smoke and heat—to