Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 10.djvu/339

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October.

��325

��the eye and the artist who pleases the stomach, and stomach will win every time. It's human nature.

We close this description with another extract from an article writ- ten after the recent repairs were com- pleted.

The first house of this engrossing, com- manding kind the country had seen when erected, it remains to-day the leading hotel of the world, crowned with the ap- probation of two continents, and wholly worthy of the enthusiastic encomiums showered on it from every quarter. It must be confessed that Americans regard luxurious hotel-living as a divine right, but it should not be forgotten that the Fifth Avenue gave them their first lesson by showing they could expect absolute perfection. When the architect, Mr. William Washburn, of Boston, designed

��the house, he aimed at not only making it simple and elegant in structui'e, but absolutely fire-proof; and since then improvements have added to its safety as well as to its interior beauty. No one with eyes to see, who enters the Fifth Avenue hotel to-day, but will pause to note the witchery of the modern taste for decoration, or to look with admiration at the changes which have fallen like a beautiful mantle over the once familiar places. The trite, conventionalized hotel ornamentation has passed away forever. In its stead are visions of Aladdin's jjal- ace, or what imagination calls such, though it is doubtful if Aladdin ever conjured from his lamp so splendid or so complete a residence. The refinement and elegance of the new decorations would be noticeable in the private house of a millionaire with whom good taste was a cardinal virtue.

��OCTOBER.

��By Mary R. P. Hatch.

��October, October !

Say not that 't is sober ;

Say not that 't is dreary, - The soul's intuition Sees joy and fruition

��'t is not so to me.

��In the o;lorious clothing of hillside and tree.

��October, October !

Say not that 't is sober ;

The yellow's for gladness all the vear throngh. The purple 's for wealth, The red is for health,

And the blue of the sky tells us friends shall be true.

��Fulfilment, perfection I The soul's resurrection,

Are some of its promises lasting and dear. October, October ! Say not that 't is sober ;

To me 't is the sweetest of all the glad 3'ear.

�� �