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The Pathos of Distance; A Book of a Thousand and One Moments
The Pathos of Distance A Book of a Thousand and One Moments Author:James Huneker General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1913 Original Publisher: C.Scribner's sons Subjects: Art Literature Music Art / General History / General Humor / Form / Essays Literary Collections / Essays Literary Criticism / General Literary Criticism / American / General Notes: This is a black and w... more »hite OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: Ill A HALF-FORGOTTEN ROMANCE About thirty years ago there was a small family hotel at the northeast corner of Irving Place and Seventeenth Street; kept by an elderly German married couple, the place was noted for its excellent cooking, its home-like atmosphere. Many well-known Americans and Germans in literary and artistic life made a rendezvous at Werle's, and at the table d'hote dinner you could always count on meeting entertaining companions. It was one of those houses where at any time before midnight the sounds of pianofortes, violins, violoncellos, even the elegiac flute, might be heard and, invariably, played by skilled professional hands. There was, I recall, a small vine-covered entrance, on the steps of which we sat listening to some passionately played Chopin Ballade, or to string music made by Victor Herbert and his friends across the street. For several weeks I had been a frequenter of the place, when the mistress of the establishment told me that the Red Countess would be at one of the dinner-tables. Later I saw sitting near the centre of the dining-room, which was in thebasement, a large, rather heavy woman, with red hair of the rich hue called Titian by aesthetic hair-dressers and ardent reporters. Her face was too fleshy for beauty, but the brows and the intense expression of the eyes made up for any lineal deficiency. She must have been in the forties, and...« less