LETTER II
Fog in New York Harbour—The Customs—The Note-Taker's Hyperæsthesia—A Literary Car-Conductor—Mr. Kipling and the American Public—The City of Elevators.
By way of making us feel quite at home, New York receives us with a dank Scotch mist. On the shores of Staten Island the leafless trees stand out grey and gaunt against the whity-grey snow, a legacy, no doubt, from the great blizzard. Though I keep a sharp look-out, I can descry no Liberty Enlightening the World. Liberty (absit omen!) is wrapped away in grimy cotton-wool. There, however, are the "sky-scraper" buildings, looming out through the mist, like the Jotuns in Niflheim of Scandinavian mythology. They are grandiose, certainly, and not, to my thinking, ugly. That word has no application in this context. "Pretty" and "ugly"—why should we for ever carry about these æsthetic labels in our pockets, and insist on dabbing them down on everything that comes in our way? If we cannot get, with Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, we might at least allow our souls an occasional breathing-space
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