The Six Messiahs by Mark Frost

Author:Mark Frost
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Private investigators, Mystery fiction, Historical fiction, Private investigators - England, Mystery & Detective, Biographical, Fiction, Arthur Conan, Doyle, Historical, Authors, Traditional British, General, Occult & Supernatural
ISBN: 9780380722297
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1996-09-01T23:15:56+00:00

SEPTEMBER 26, 1894

Our train left the Grand Central Depot at eleven o 'clock sharp this morning—Americans are nothing if not obsessively punctual. We're traveling on The Exposition Flyer, an express introduced last year to accommodate traffic back and forth from the World's Fair. We will cover the eight hundred miles to Chicago in under twenty hours; extraordinary, as are the train's lush appointments. Luxury of the first order. Competition for the customer's dollar drives everything here; bigger, faster, stronger; there's no end to this fetish for improvement, but in a country without much history their thoughts run inevitably, sometimes exhaustingly, to the future. But before they can consider themselves truly civilized, something must be done about their incessant public use of the spittoon.

The broad reaches of the Hudson River accompany us as we make our way north; the train has just passed the farthest outskirt of the City and what greets us is a riot of autumnal colors the brilliance and variety of which I have never conceived. If the Creator of our universe is an artist, He has emptied his paint box in these woods; reds, rusts, vermillions, violets, ambers and golds, all made sparkling and radiant by a brilliant warming sun. Hawthorne called this region home; Irving, Melville, and Fenimore Cooper as well; it is nothing if not inspirational. Major Pepperman, our indefatigable host, has termed this glorious weather an "Indian Summer." Not hard to imagine Indians living in these sheltering forests, doing whatever it is Indians do, paddling their canoes, shooting off arrows, scaling the craggy palisades that line the western shore.

I have just completed the morning's correspondence—letters to Louise; notes and gifts for the children; Martha Washington dolls for Mary, a splendid tin soldier set for Kingsley; now he can restage the American Revolution and continue to rewrite history. A wire from Louise yesterday makes no mention of her health; this of course, entirely without foundation, leads me to suspect only the worst.

New York City has left me knackered; another few days might have finished me off. What a pace! Amazing its residents don't drop every night and sleep where they fall. I have never visited a city whose residents were so confident, one might say arrogant, about their own significance. The city may well be preparing for greatness but they never let you forget it.

Two observations: Every man you meet on the street seems utterly consumed with baseball, a local game, apparently derived from cricket, whose elusive appeal they are equally incapable of conveying by any means of common speech. Their professional ' 'season'' has just concluded or I would certainly by now have taken in one of these contests, if only to sort out the dizzying and contradictory welter of rules and regulations its enthusiasts are only too eager to inflict upon the innocent. The second: In the heart of a neighborhood they call Greenwich Village, one of the earliest settled areas of the city, stands Washington Square; entrance framed by a graceful monument

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