The Powder of Sympathy

by Christopher Morley

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF AN AMIABLE VISITOR

We thought of telling you about the things that most interested a British friend of ours during the first hours of his first visit to this country.

Perhaps first of all we should give you an inkling of what kind of chap he is. He’s a Welshman, an Oxford man, served in the war as a captain in the Highland Light Infantry, was awarded the Military Cross, is now in the wholesale tobacco business, is an ardent reader, and we daren’t mention his name. He’s over here to study conditions in the world of tobacco.

We went down the bay and boarded the Baltic in the Narrows. We stood with our friend on what a landsman might call the roof while the ship came up the harbour. We pointed out Liberty, as she emerged from the sunlit wintry haze. At first glimpse, coming in from sea, she has rather a forbidding mien—her gesture seems one of warning. Then, as you come nearer, she seems to be holding up a cocktail shaker. But we promised to give our friend’s impressions, not our own.

The first things he wanted to have pointed out to him were the Woolworth Tower and the Brooklyn Bridge. Brooklyn engaged his fancy more than the Jersey shore—probably on account of the Walt Whitman tradition. “I have rather a feeling for Whitman,” he said. He was quiet as we passed the long profile of downtown skyscrapers, but we saw that he was inwardly meditating. He wanted to know about all the water tanks on top of the buildings, especially on the Jersey side. “You people seem very keen about water,” he said. He was hugely pleased with the way the tugs got the Baltic into her berth.

He wondered whether, before landing, we had better dispose of a little toddy he had in his pocket flask. He had heard that if any usquebaugh were found, the officials would confiscate the flask. We agreed that it would be better not to take any chances on this matter. He was greatly surprised and delighted with the rapidity and courtesy of the customs examination. We got away from the pier with no more trouble, he said, than we would have had in arriving at a railway terminal in London.

We took a taxi, bound for Penn. Station, and then decided to prolong the ride by going down Fifth Avenue to Washington Square, and up again. He remarked that the street paving near the docks was no better than it is in Liverpool. He was charmed by the chauffeur’s air of camaraderie. The latter, hearing through the open window that this was an exploring expedition, began offering most friendly suggestions as to nice long rides we might take, to Central Park, for instance. “Take him to see the skaters, he’ll enjoy that,” said the chauffeur. This friendly informality on the part of brakemen, soda jerkers, cab drivers, ticket choppers, shop girls, and all such public servants delighted him.

Madison Square appealed to him, for he is an admirer of O. Henry. “That’s where the old tramps sit on the benches, isn’t it?” he said. He was anxious to see a “surface car,” for he had read about them in The Four Million. The L did not seem to interest him so much. In a drug store, he was excited by the little whirling instrument that mixed our “frosted chocolate.” The lighting, spaciousness, and attractive display in the department stores tickled him. The Penn. Station gave him extraordinary pleasure. Chiefly, we thought, he was struck by a general spaciousness and lack of hurry everywhere, in the traffic, in the shops, etc. When we asked him what he wanted to see, he said, “I want to see some of you hustling.” We looked everywhere, but could find no one hustling. Like a candid observer, however, he noticed one thing which is not beneath the attention of any student of human manners. “Your people have rather a fine line in legs,” he said.

We pointed proudly to the Public Library (but could not bear to tell him that the City has again cut its appropriation for buying new books). He praised the large windows at the backs of the taxicabs, making it possible to see what was going on behind the car. In Madison Square he was particularly delighted by Diana, who seemed just then to be aiming her gilded arrow at the pale, low-swimming daylight moon. He asked us whether we thought he should subscribe to the Saturday Evening Post and the Literary Digest. Both these journals, in some way or other, had come prominently to his attention at his home in Cheshire. Harper’s and The Century, he said, he frequently reads.