rises from Dearborn and State in the full blast of a commercial noon. You
wonder why an unprofitable person like myself lives here, and not in an
up-town club with my fellows. Ah, my dear lady, I wish to see the game
always going on in its liveliest fashion. So I have made a den for myself,
not under the eaves of a hotel, but on the roof, among the ventilators.
Here I can see the clouds of steam and the perpetual pall of smoke below
me. I can revel in gorgeous sunsets when the fiery light threads the smoke
and the mists and the sodden clouds eastward over the lake. And at night I
take my steamer chair to the battlements and peer over into a sea of
lights below. As I sit writing to you, outside go the click and rattle of
the elevator gates and other distant noises of humanity. My echo comes
directly enough, but it does not deafen me. Below there exists my barber,
and farther down that black pit of an elevator lies lunch, or a cigar, or
a possible cocktail, if the mental combination should prove unpleasant.
Across the hall is Aladdin's lamp, otherwise my banker; and above all is
Haroun al Raschid. Am I not wise? In the morning, if it is fair, I take a
walk among the bulkheads on the roof, and watch the blue deception of the
lake. Perhaps, if the wind comes booming in, I hear the awakening roar in
the streets and think of work. Perhaps the clear emptiness of a Sunday
hovers over the shore; then I wonder what you will say to this letter.
Will you feel with me that you should live on a housetop and eat cheese?
Do you long for a cool stream without flies, and a carpet of golden sand?
Do you want a coal fire and a husband home at six-thirty, or a third-class
ticket to the realms of nonsense? Are you thinking of Lane's income, or
Smith's cleverness, or the ennui of too many dinners?

I know: you are thinking of love while you read this, and are happy. If I
might send you a new sensation in every line, I should be happy, too, for
your prodigal nature demands novelty. I should then be master for a
moment. And love is mastery and submission, the two poles of a strong