City views and visions Author:William Griffith Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ARGUMENT Critic. Someone has mentioned your attempt to modernize a form of dialogue once popular as a manner of dramatic expression. Is the idea original? ... more »Author. Others since Virgil and Spenser have used the same vehicle successfully. Critic. It is something of a novelty? Author. Fairly so; at least with respect to the American application. Critic. While you have used the form of verse, do you think rhyme in dialogue is natural? Author. It may be musical. Critic. One might say that you were trying to realise the poetry of new-world life ? Author. Only in so far as others may realise the same thoughts and emotions. Brmvn personifies an immature mind overshadowed by fatalism. It is not an extraordinary obsession, though the character has many necessary limitations. Gray has something of the philosopher about him, and Green is simply a happy medium. They voice only vague murmurs and echoes that have come by intermittently: voices from invisible verandahs: hints and aspirations and memories and emotions of pulses that beat and have probably beaten forever through the world. SPRING Brown. Gray. Green. Brown at a table is reading a daily paper. Gray has just entered the room, and is seated near a window. A number of newspapers and periodicals cover the table. Above a confused murmur of voices from the outside echoes the commerce of the avenue. Brown. To-day, the same as yesterday, The sun goes toiling west. Gray. Another joyous roundelay Awakens nest by nest. Once more the green Aprilian woods Are brimming with the spring. Brown. And now the wilding mary-buds Are shyly opening. But never bud nor bloom nor bird, Nor sylvan serenade, Have we on Broadway seen or heard Above the din of trade. By day and night the soundi...« less