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Harriet Monroe - The Hotel
Work rating: Low

The long resounding marble corridors, the 
	shining parlors with shining women in 
	them.
The French room, with its gilt and garlands 
	under plump little tumbling painted loves`.
The Turkish room, with its jumble of many 
	carpets and its stiffly squared un-Turkish 
	chairs.
The English room, all heavy crimson and gold, 
	with spreading palms lifted high in round 
	green tubs.
The electric lights in twos and threes and hundreds, 
	made into festoons and spirals and 
	arabesques, a maze and magic of bright 
	persistent radiance.
The people sitting in corners by twos and 
	threes, and cooing together under the glare.
The long rows of silent people in chairs, watching 
	with eyes that see not while the patient 
	band tangles the air with music.
The bell-boys marching in with cards, and 
	shouting names over and over into ears 
	that do not heed.
The stout and gorgeous dowagers in lacy white 
	and lilac, bedizened with many jewels, with 
	smart little scarlet or azure hats on their 
	gray-streaked hair.
The business men in trim and spotless suits, 
	who walk in and out with eager steps, or 
	sit at the desks and tables, or watch the 
	shining women.
The telephone girls forever listening to far 
	voices, with the silver band over their hair 
	and the little black caps obliterating their 
	ears.
The telegraph tickers sounding their perpetual 
	chit—chit-chit from the uttermost ends of 
	the earth.
The waiters, in black swallow-tails and white 
	aprons, passing here and there with trays 
	of bottles and glasses.
The quiet and sumptuous bar-room, with purplish 
	men softly drinking in little alcoves, 
	while the bar-keeper, mixing bright liquors, 
	is rapidly plying his bottles.
The great bedecked and gilded café, with its 
	glitter of a thousand mirrors, with its little 
	white tables bearing gluttonous dishes 
	whereto bright forks, held by pampered 
	hands, flicker daintily back and forth.
The white-tiled, immaculate kitchen, with many 
	little round blue fires, where white-clad 
	cooks are making spiced and flavored 
	dishes.
The cool cellars filled with meats and fruits, or 
	layered with sealed and bottled wines 
	mellowing softly in the darkness.
The invisible stories of furnaces and machines, 
	burrowing deep down into the earth, where 
	grimy workmen are heavily laboring.
The many-windowed stories of little homes and 
	shelters and sleeping-places, reaching up 
	into the night like some miraculous, 
	highpiled honeycomb of wax-white cells.
The clothes inside of the cells—the stuffs, the 
	silks, the laces; the elaborate delicate 
	disguises that wait in trunks and drawers and 
	closets, or bedrape and conceal human flesh.
The people inside of the clothes, the bodies 
	white and young, bodies fat and bulging, 
	bodies wrinkled and wan, all alike veiled 
	by fine fabrics, sheltered by walls and 
	roofs, shut in from the sun and stars.
The souls inside of the bodies—the naked souls; 
	souls weazened and weak, or proud and 
	brave; all imprisoned in flesh, wrapped in 
	woven stuffs, enclosed in thick and painted 
	masonry, shut away with many shadows 
	from the shining truth.
God inside of the souls, God veiled and wrapped 
	and imprisoned and shadowed in fold on 
	fold of flesh and fabrics and mockeries; but 
	ever alive, struggling and rising again, 
	seeking the light, freeing the world.
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