דירות יוקרה וסיפוריהן

“You had to blink when looked at it; and you heard a fizzing sound just like the machine with a "scope" at the end of it.” ↩

'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;
A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!

An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain;
Oh, give me my lowly thatched cottage again!
The birds singing gayly, that came at my call
Give me them-and the peace of mind, dearer than all!
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!

I gaze on the moon as I tread the drear wild,
And feel that my mother now thinks of her child,
As she looks on that moon from our own cottage door
the woodbine, whose fragrance shall cheer me no more.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!

How sweet 'tis to sit 'neath a fond father's smile,
And the caress of a mother to soothe and beguile!
Let others delight 'mid new pleasure to roam,
But give me, oh, give me, the pleasures of home,
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!

To thee I'll return, overburdened with care;
The heart's dearest solace will smile on me there;
No more from that cottage again will I roam;
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!

http://www.seiyaku.com/hymns/en/148.html

סמיכותם של שני אלים אלה כתרפי הבית ממשיך את הניגוד שהופיע בתחילת המשפט – "גפנך הייתה הדבקון הלבן; עץ התאנה שלך נשא תמרים": אל המסחר, הנדודים וההרפתקאות אינו יכול לדור בכפיפה אחת עם ג'ון הווארד פיין, היוצא נגד המסעות (אותם הוא מכנה "גלות") וטוען כי מכל הארמונות והתענוגות, אין מקום כמו הבית. ↩

"You want to give them time for the question of that souvenir silver sugar bowl to blow over." ↩

“The lid's shut down as close there as it is over the eye of a Williamsburg girl when she's kissed at a party. But if you think there's anything queer at the address, I'll go there with ye.” ↩

TO HIM who in the love of Nature holds,
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks,
A various language; for his gayer hours,
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile,
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides,
Into his darker musings, with a mild,
And healing sympathy, that steals away,
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts,
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight,
Over thy spirit, and sad images,
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;—
Go forth under the open sky, and list,
To Nature's teachings, while from all around—
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air—
Comes a still voice—Yet a few days, and thee,
The all-beholding sun shall see no more,
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist,
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim,
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up,
Thine individual being, shalt thou go,
To mix forever with the elements;
To be a brother to the insensible rock,
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain,
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak,
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place,
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish,
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down,
With patriarchs of the infant world,—with kings,
The powerful of the earth,—the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills,
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales,
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods—rivers that move,
In majesty, and the complaining brooks,
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste,—
Are but the solemn decorations all,
Of the great tomb of man! The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread,
The globe are but a handful to the tribes,
That slumber in its bosom.—Take the wings,
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods,
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings,—yet the dead are there:
And millions in those solitudes, since first,
The flight of years began, have laid them down,
In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone.,
So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw,
In silence from the living, and no friend,
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe,
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh,
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care,
Plod on, and each one as before will chase,
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave,
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come,
And make their bed with thee. As the long train,
Of ages glide away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes,
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man—,
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join,
The innumerable caravan which moves,
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take,
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed,
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch,
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

William Cullen Bryant, Thanatopsis, http://www.bartleby.com/102/16.html

משמעות " Thanatopsis" היא "הרהורים על מוות", כנושאו של השיר – ההכרה וההבנה כי שבסופו של דבר, כולם חייבים למות. כדי לשכך את החרדה מגורל בלתי נמנע זה ומן המחשבות הטורדניות הנגזרות ממנו, מאניש המשורר את הטבע (מעניק לו את היכולת לדבר) והופך אותו למייצג את האדם. הטבע מדבר בקול שמחה, חיוך ורהיטות של יופי. אהבתו העדינה מרפאת את הכאב (או לפחות מפחיתה אותו) ומשכיחה את עובדת המוות.
הטבע מסייע לאדם לחוש טוב יותר ולכן, כשמתחיל האדם לחשוש מפני המוות, עליו לצאת החוצה ולהאזין לקול הטבע המזכיר לו כי במותו יתאחד שוב עם האדמה ממנה בא. במובן זה "אומר" הטבע לאדם כי במותו לא יהיה לבדו, משום שכל אדם שחי אי־פעם – נקבר בה. סיומו של השיר הוא בקריאתו לאדם לחשוב על המוות כעל שינה בעלת חלומות נעימים.  ↩

A Psalm of Life

What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm of Life, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173910

לונגפלו קורא לאדם לפעול, להפוך את חייו למשמעותיים ולהותיר את חותמו בעולם. מזמור החיים מכיר בקיומו של המוות אך קורא לאדם לזכור את תמותו כדי לחיות את החיים הטובים ביותר שניתן. הוא מפריד בין הגוף, החוזר אל האדמה, לבין הנשמה האמיתית והנצחית, ועל ידי כך מקדש את העשייה ומתרכז בהווה ולא בעבר שחלף ואיננו או בעתיד חסר הוודאות.

בביקורתו על הסיפור, טוען יוג'ין קורנט גרסיה כי דירות יוקרה וסיפוריהן אינו מחדש דבר בהשוואה ליצירות אחרות מאת או. הנרי ואף גובל בהפרזה מופרכת לחלוטין:

“For all his innovative skills, even O. Henry might have found it hard to work up many more variations on the theme of dull lives such as these. The only other one he attempted, evidently, is “Suit Homes and Their Romance,” a somewhat cynical story about a typical lower-middle-class couple, the Turpins, whose income of two hundred dollars a month enables them to live high on the hog because they never pay their bills (Whirligigs, 135-42). After its sharply satirical opening expose of the rootlessness and irresponsibility of such people, the story degenerates, however, into a fatuous sequence of improbable events that lead finally to a bookmaker’s setup disguised as a Browning Society and Serving as a front for an illicit ice-cream parlor. As a fictional mirror image of middle-calss domestic life, “Suite Homes” is too far-fetched even for effective satire, despite its wisecracks and tomfoolery. Yet O. Henry could employ these same tactics more effectively – and achieve some variety as well – by applying his fictional brush to the lives of Irish laboring-class families, where his requisite conditions of poverty, love, and war were inescapably present and could be manipulated amusingly in at least half a dozen different ways.” Eugene Current-Garcia, O. Henry – A Study of the Short Fiction, Twayne Publisihers, New York, 1993, p. 82.

גרסיה צודק לעניין המציאות ההפוכה המצטיירת בסיפור: העובדה שלמפקח המשטרה יש מפתח לאולם ההימורים, הופעתם של השוטרים, לבושים במדים מלאים כדי "להשתלב בסביבה" והפתעתם מכך שהוזעקו וכמובן – ההמלצה הגוערת להמר לשם עזרה בכלכלת הבית (בשונה מבזבוז כספים על הוצאה מיותרת ו"לא חוקית" כגלידה") אכן יוצרים רושם לא הגיוני.
גרסיה צודק גם בעניין הדמיון לסיפורים אחרים, ביניהם המטולטלת והמרובעים של כוס ויסקי, שכן דירות יוקרה וסיפוריהן מותח אף הוא ביקורת על חיי ההבל של הכרך הגדול, המבקש מהאדם לנהוג שלא כפי טבעו (היציאה אל הטבע בשירו של בראיינט וכן תמונת המצב ההפוכה של ההימורים המקובלים נוכח
הגלידה האסורה). החזות האופנתית היא העיקר: הצורך להשתייך, להתמזג ולהיות "עירוני" במלוא מובן המילה הוא-הוא המופרך היוצר ניגודיות בלתי הגיונית (ראו הערה 16). אזכור שירו של לונגפלו הוא המענה לתפיסה זו, שכן הוא דן בערך החיים האמיתי המתעצם מול תחושת הקץ הבלתי נמנע – קריאה לתוכן, משמעות ועשייה של ממש. בהקשרו של הסיפור, מזמור החיים הוא כתב מחאה נגד אזרחי ודיירי עיר השקר הגדולה, אלא שנוהרים אחר חיצוניות ריקה ויוצרים בליל רעיונות תלוש רק משום שהוא מצטלצל באופן נעים לאוזן. ↩

“I'll not hold any of yez. Some of yez I recognize as having fine houses and good standing in the community, with hard-working husbands and childer at home. But I'll read ye a bit of a lecture before ye go. In the next room there's a 20-to-1 shot just dropped in under the wire three lengths ahead of the field. Is this the way ye waste your husbands' money instead of helping earn it? Home wid yez! The lid's on the ice-cream freezer in this precinct." ↩

"Almost sure, little one," answered Claude, stooping and lightly touching her snowy forehead with his lips. "I'll let you know later on. I've got a month's salary down on Vanilla to win the three-year-old steeplechase to-morrow; and if the ice-cream hunch is to the good you are It again — see?" ↩