the Swedes, the Germans, the Lithuanians and the Poles, the Russians, Czechs, and Greeks, the Syrians, Turks and Armenians, the nameless hodge-podge of the Balkans, as well as Chinese, Japs, and dapper little Filipinos—a hundred tongues, a thousand tribes, unnumbered colonies of life, all poured in through the lean gateways of the sea, all poured in upon that rock of life, to join the countless freightage of that ship of living stone, all nurtured and sustained upon the city’s strong breast, —a thousand kinds, a single substance, all fused and joined there at the heart of the night, all moving with that central, secret and dynamic energy, all wrought and woven in, with all their swarming variousness, into the great web of America—with all its clamour, naked struggle, blind and brutal strife, with all its violence, ignorance, and cruelty, and with its terror, joy, and mystery, its undying hope, its everlasting life.
All he could do was gape and mumble foolishly again, and stammer finally: “There—there are all kinds, I guess,” and plunge on desperately, “and then—and then—there are the wharves and piers and docks—the Battery and the City Hall—and then—and then,” he stumbled on, “—the Bridge—the Bridge is good.”
“The Bridge?” Again the pencilled brows of arched surprise, the glacial curiosity. “What bridge?”
What bridge? Great God! the only bridge, the bridge of power, life and joy, the bridge that was a span, a cry, an ecstasy—that was America. What bridge? The bridge whose wing-like sweep that was like space and joy and ecstasy was mixed like music in his blood, would beat like flight and joy and triumph through the conduits of his life for ever. What bridge? The bridge whereon at night he had walked and stood and watched a thousand times, until every fabric of its soaring web was inwrought in his memory, and every stone of its twin terrific arches was in his heart, and every living sinew of its million cabled nerves had throbbed and pulsed in his own spirit like his soul’s anatomy.
“The—the Brooklyn Bridge,” he mumbled. “The—the Bridge is good.”
“Good? How do you mean—good?” The glacial and amused inquiry pierced his consciousness again with confusion, numb paralysis of speech, and incoherence. And at this moment Joel, seeing his agonizing embarrassment, came to his rescue with the exquisite, radiant kindliness that was the constant evidence of his fine character.
“Um. Yes,” he could hear Joel whispering in a thoughtful and convinced
