But among these fugitive and sudden scribbles we did find one notation that brings back to us more or less clearly what we had in mind. It was written thus: People in N. Y. no rooted sense of place.
We had been thinking of the curious life of those who dwell in city apartments. We are a great lover of apartments every now and then, for a briefly adventurous term; and certainly every one who has read Simeon Strunsky’s admirable book Bellshazzar Court will have realized how fecund with human episode these great, dense barracks are. But there can be no good life for very long unless one has an opportunity to plant feet on actual soil; to be close witness of earth’s colours and seasons; to be able (sovereign pleasure of all) to go out at night and make the circuit of one’s terrain and recognize a few stars. There are three stars, for instance, that we see (at certain seasons) from the back stoop when we visit the icebox towards midnight. We suspect them of being the trio known as Orion’s Belt. Anyhow, part of our pleasure in life is to notice them occasionally and know that they are still there, or were still there when those agile beams left them to vibrate across all the light-years between us.
Orion’s Belt, by the way, seems to be a Sam Browne, for it is tilted up diagonally. We will show you exactly what his starry girth looks like, so you can recognize it:—
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The simple and sensuous pleasures of place are not so easy to enjoy in the city. There is a feeling of unreality, of human and mechanical interposition, when you are snugly nested in a niche of a stone cliff fifteen stories high. Something stands between you and the realization of earth. That something may be fine, comfortable, reassuring, it may be highly stimulant for the mind; but there is also a loss to the spirit. It is a loss not to be able to see exactly how Nature tints her tapestry curtain of gold and bronze, behind which she quietly shifts the scenes for the next act; and then suddenly the curtain is shredded away; the landscape widens and is transvisible to the eye; going out on the porch at night you find the trees full not of leaves but stars.
This is a large topic: we can only hint at it. Science, criticism, ethics, these are urbane. Poetry and religion are rustic. Poetry particularly—whether the writing or the reading of it—thrives best where there is silence and the foundation on earth. The solid satisfaction of visiting one’s own cellar and the brightness of one’s own furnace grate, actually set down inside the shell of earth’s crust; of knowing one’s own chimney shaft open topward to the sky; the fall of autumn acorns rattling on the roof—are sentiments felt rather than understood. But from that quiet fertility of feeling understanding grows gradually. You must be quiet with things before you can love them; and you must love them before you can write about them.
But very likely these fragmentary ideas are true only for those who believe them. It is a way ideas have.
