"Yes," he said again and again,
as he stood on the Heights, in view of the river, the green wall of
Jersey and the great metropolis spread away to the ocean gate, "it is a
beautiful city! And the critics say it is commonplace and vulgar." Dear
dreamer, it is a beautiful city, and for one reason and another a million
of people who have homes there think so. But take out of it one person,
and it would have for you no more interest than any other huge assembly
of ugly houses. How, in a lover's eyes, the woman can transfigure a
city, a landscape, a country!
Celia had come up to town for the spring exhibitions, and was lodging at
the Woman's Club. Naturally Philip saw much of her, indeed gave her all
his time that the office did not demand. Her company was always for him
a keen delight, an excitement, and in its way a rest. For though she
always criticised, she did not nag, and just because she made no demands,
nor laid any claims on him, nor ever reproached him for want of devotion,
her society was delightful and never dull. They dined together at the
Woman's Club, they experimented on the theatres, they visited the
galleries and the picture-shops, they took little excursions into the
suburbs and came back impressed with the general cheapness and
shabbiness, and they talked--talked about all they saw, all they had
read, and something of what they thought.
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