the course of events has compelled me for several months to catch an early train at broad street three times a week. i call it an “early” train, but, of course, these matters are merely relative; 7:45 are the figures illuminated over the gateway—not so very precocious, perhaps; but quite rathe enough for one of haroun-al-raschid temper, who seldom seeks the “oblivion of repose” (boswell's phrase) before 1 a. m.
nothing is more pathetic in human nature than its faculty of self-deception. winding up the alarm clock (the night before) i meditate as to the exact time to elect for its disturbing buzz. if i set it at[pg 112] 6:30 that will give me plenty of time to shave and reach the station with leisure for a pleasurable cup of coffee. but (so frail is the human will) when i wake at 6:30 i will think to myself, “there is plenty of time,” and probably turn over for “another five minutes.” this will mean a hideous spasm of awakening conscience about 7:10—an unbathed and unshaven tumult of preparation, malisons on the shoe manufacturers who invented boots with eyelets all the way up, a frantic sprint to sixteenth street and one of those horrid intervals that shake the very citadel of human reason when i ponder whether it is safer to wait for a possible car or must start hotfoot for the station at once. all this is generally decided by setting the clock for 6:50. then, if i am spry, i can be under way by 7:20 and have a little time to be philosophical at the corner of sixteenth and pine. of the vile seizures of passion that shake the bosom when a car comes along, seems about to halt, and then passes without stopping—of the spiritual scars these crises leave on the soul of the victim, i cannot trust myself to speak. it does not always happen, thank goodness. one does not always have to throb madly up sixteenth, with head retorted over one's shoulder to see if a car may still be coming, while the legs make what speed they may on sliddery paving. sometimes the car does actually appear and one buffets aboard and is buried in a brawny human mass. there is a stop, and one wonders fiercely[pg 113] whether a horse is down ahead, and one had better get out at once and run for it. tightly wedged in the heart of the car, nothing can be seen. it is all very nerve-racking, and i study, for quietness of mind, the familiar advertising card of the white-bearded old man announcing “it is really very remarkable that a cigar of this quality can be had for seven cents.”
suppose, however, that fortune is with me. i descend at market street, and the city hall dial, shining softly in the fast paling blue of morning, marks 7:30. now i begin to enjoy myself. i reflect on the curious way in which time seems to stand still during the last minutes before the departure of a train. the half-hour between 7 and 7:30 has vanished in a gruesome flash. now follow fifteen minutes of exquisite dalliance. every few moments i look suddenly and savagely at the clock to see if it can be playing some saturnine trick. no, even now it is only 7:32. in the lively alertness of the morning mind a whole wealth of thought and accurate observation can be crammed into a few seconds. i halt for a moment at the window of that little lunchroom on market street (between sixteenth and fifteenth) where the food comes swiftly speeding from the kitchen on a moving belt. i wonder whether to have breakfast there. it is such fun to see a platter of pale yellow scrambled eggs sliding demurely beside the porcelain counter and[pg 114] whipped dextrously off in front of you by the presiding waiter. but the superlative coffee of the broad street station lunch counter generally lures me on.
what mundane joy can surpass the pleasure of approaching the station lunch counter, with full ten minutes to satisfy a morning appetite! “morning, colonel,” says the waiter, recognizing a steady customer. “wheatcakes and coffee,” you cry. with one deft gesture, it seems, he has handed you a glass brimming with ice water and spread out a snowy napkin. in another moment here is the coffee, with the generous jug of cream. you splash in a large lump of ice to make it cool enough to drink. perhaps the seat next you is empty, and you put your books and papers on it, thus not having to balance them gingerly on your knees. all round you is a lusty savour of satisfaction, the tinkle of cash registers, napkins fluttering and flashing across the counters, coloured waiters darting to and fro, great clouds of steam rising where the big dish covers are raised on the cooking tables. you see the dark-brown coffee gently quivering in the glass gauge of the nickel boiler. then here come the wheatcakes. nowhere else on earth, i firmly believe, are they cooked to just that correct delicacy of golden brown colour; nowhere else are they so soft and light of texture, so hot, so beautifully overlaid with a smooth, almost intangible suggestion of crispness. two[pg 115] golden butter pats salute the eye, and a jug of syrup. it is now 7:38.
as everyone knows, the correct thing is to start immediately on the first cake, using only syrup. the method of dealing with the other two is classic. one lifts the upper one and places a whole pat of butter on the lower cake. then one replaces the upper cake upon the lower, leaving the butter to its fate. in that hot and enviable embrace the butter liquefies and spreads itself, gently anointing the field of coming action. upon the upper shield one smilingly distributes the second butter pat, knifed off into small slices for greater speed of melting. by the time the first cake has been eaten, with the syrup, the other two will be ready for manifest destiny. the butter will be docile and submissive. now, after again making sure of the time (7:40) the syrup is brought into play and the palate has the congenial task of determining whether the added delight of melting butter outweighs the greater hotness and primal thrill of the first cake which was glossed with the syrup only. you drain your coffee to the dregs; gaze pityingly on those rushing in to snap up a breakfast before the 8 o'clock leaves for new york, pay your check, and saunter out to the train. it is 7:43.
this, to be sure, is only the curtain-raiser to the pleasures to follow. this has been a physical and carnal pleasure. now follow delights of the mind.[pg 116] in the great gloomy shed wafts and twists of thick steam are jetting upward, heavily coiled in the cold air. in the train you smoke two pipes and read the morning paper. then you are set down at haverford. it is like a fairyland of unbelief. trees and shrubbery are crusted and sheathed in crystal, lucid like chandeliers in the flat, thin light. along the fence, as you go up the hill, you marvel at the scarlet berries in the hedge, gleaming through the glassy ribs of the bushes. the old willow tree by the conklin gate is etched against the sky like a japanese drawing—it has a curious greenish colour beneath that gray sky. there is some mystery in all this. it seems more beautiful than a merely mortal earth vexed by sinful men has any right to be. there is some ice palace in hans andersen which is something like it. in a little grove, the boughs, bent down with their shining glaziery, creak softly as they sway in the moving air. the evergreens are clotted with lumps and bags of transparent icing, their fronds sag to the ground. a pale twinkling blueness sifts over distant vistas. the sky whitens in the south and points of light leap up to the eye as the wind turns a loaded branch.
a certain seriousness of demeanour is noticeable on the generally unfurrowed brows of student friends. midyears are on and one sees them walking, freighted with precious and perishable erudition, toward the halls of trial. they seem a[pg 117] little oppressed with care, too preoccupied to relish the entrancing pallor of this crystallized eden. one carries, gravely, a cushion and an alarm clock. not such a bad theory of life, perhaps—to carry in the crises of existence a cushion of philosophy and an alarum of resolution.
