XXVI THE INCLINE, CINCINNATI
There are hundreds of these inclines—ascenseurs, finiculari, in the world—all fascinating from above or below—but I know of none so fascinating as this even among the numbers at Cincinnati—none in which the pitch is steeper, the stop so sudden—none where the streets lead direct to the heart of the city; no city so dominated, concentrated, at its heart, by its lone white skyscraper, as Cincinnati. That is why I drew it; and, as I drew, the boy who opened and shut the gates came and told me he wanted to be a poet, that he was a poet, and that Poe was the greatest American author, which most great Americans do not know, and that he loved Shelley, and so I recommended Whitman to him, of whom he had not heard, and advised him to attend to his gates and his poetry and then he might do something. And he asked me if I had done anything myself. If I had made good! Well, have I?