morning of awe.


AN EDITOR'S NARRATIVE.


"I have seen this whole, great horror. I stood with two other members
of the Examiner staff on the corner of Market Street, waiting for a car.
Newspaper duties had kept us working until five o'clock in the morning.
Sunlight was coming out of the early morning mist. It spread its
brightness on the roofs of the skyscrapers, on the domes and spires of
churches, and blazed along up the wide street with its countless banks
and stores, its restaurants and cafes. In the early morning the city was
almost noiseless. Occasionally a newspaper wagon clattered up the street
or a milk wagon rumbled along. One of my companions had told a funny
story. We were laughing at it. We stopped--the laugh unfinished on our
lips.

"Of a sudden we had found ourselves staggering and reeling. It was as if
the earth was slipping gently from under our feet. Then came a sickening
swaying of the earth that threw us flat upon our faces. We struggled in
the street. We could not get on our feet.

"I looked in a dazed fashion around me. I saw for an instant the big
buildings in what looked like a crazy dance. Then it seemed as though my
head were split with the roar that crashed into my ears. Big buildings
were crumbling as one might crush a biscuit in one's hand. Great gray
clouds of dust shot up with flying timbers, and storms of masonry rained
into the street. Wild, high jangles of smashing glass cut a sharp note
into the frightful roaring. Ahead of me a great cornice crushed a man as