{"product_id":"2940015204452","title":"The Bacillus of Beauty: A Romance of Today! A Romance, Fiction and Literature Classic By Harriet Stark! AAA+++","description":"Excerpt:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am going to set down as calmly and fully as I can a plain statement of all that has happened since I came to New York.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI shall not trim details, nor soften the facts to humour my own amazement, nor try to explain the marvel that I do not pretend to understand.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI begin at the beginning--at the plunge into fairy tale and miracle that I made, after living twenty-five years of baldest prose, when I met Helen Winship here.\u003cbr\u003eWhy, I had dragged her to school on a sled when she was a child. I watched her grow up. For years I saw her nearly every day at the State University in the West that already seems so unreal, so far away, I loved her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMan, I knew her face better than I knew my own! Yet when I met her here-- when I saw my promised wife, who had kissed me good-by only last June--I did not recognise her. I looked full into her great eyes and thought she was a stranger; hesitated even when she called my name. It's a miracle! Or a lie, or a wild dream; or I am going crazy. The thing will not be believed. And yet it's true.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is my calmness! If I could but think it might be a tremendous blunder out of which I would sometime wake into verity! But there has been no mistake; I have not been dreaming unless I am dreaming now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs distinctly as I see the ugly street below, I remember everything that has befallen me since my train pulled into Jersey City last Thursday morning. I remember as one does who is served by sharpened senses. Only once in a fellow's lifetime can he look upon New York for the first time-- and to me New York meant Helen. Everything was vividly impressed upon my mind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI crossed the Cortlandt Street ferry and walked up Broadway, wondering what Helen would say if I called before breakfast. I could scarcely wait. I stopped in front of St. Paul's Church, gaping up at a twenty-six story building opposite; a monstrous shaft with a gouge out of its south side as if lightning had rived off a sliver. I went over to it and saw that I had come to Ann Street, where Barnum's museum used to stand. The Post Office, the City Hall, the restaurant where I ate breakfast, studying upon the wall the bible texts and signs bidding me watch my hat and overcoat; the Tribune building, just as it looks on the almanac cover--all these made an instant, deep impression. Not in the least like a dream.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy the statue of Horace Greeley I stood a moment irresolute. I knew that, before I could reach her, Helen would have left her rooms for Barnard College; breakfast had been a mistake. Then I noticed that Nassau Street was just opposite; and, in spite of my impatience to be at her door, I constrained myself to look up Judge Baker.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBetween its Babel towers narrow Nassau Street was like a canyon. The pavements were wet, for folks had just finished washing windows, though it was eight o'clock in the forenoon. Bicycles zipped past and from somewhere north a freshet of people flooded the sidewalk and roadway.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDown a steep little hill and up another--both thronged past belief--and in a great marble maze of lawyers' offices I found the sign of Baker \u0026amp; Magoun.","brand":"BDP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47152989962480,"sku":"2940015204452","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940015204452_p0.jpg?v=1763619826","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940015204452","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}