John Roderigo Dos Passos

Name: Manhattan Transfer — Great Lady on a White Horse
Author: John Roderigo Dos Passos

Manhattan Transfer — Great Lady on a White Horse (1925)

Summary

“Manhattan Transfer — Great Lady on a White Horse”, published in 1925, is a work by John Roderigo Dos Passos. It explores elements such as Jimmy, collegeboys and Oglethorpe.

Quotes from Manhattan Transfer — Great Lady on a White Horse (John Roderigo Dos Passos)

John Roderigo Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer — Great Lady on a White Horse (1925)

“ Ruth's giggle broke into a whoop of laughter. Jimmy blushed crimson. "I never axed you maam, he say-ed."
Sunlight dripped in her face through the little holes in the brim of her straw hat. She was walking with brisk steps too short on account of her narrow skirt; through the thin china silk the sunlight tingled like a hand stroking her back. In the heavy heat streets, stores, people in Sunday clothes, strawhats, sunshades, surfacecars, taxis, broke and crinkled brightly about her grazing her with sharp cutting glints as if she were walking through piles of metalshavings. ”

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Source: Wikisource

John Roderigo Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer — Great Lady on a White Horse (1925)

“ Yes this is Elaine Oglethorpe's apartment. . . . She climbed up onto a Washington Square bus. Sunday afternoon Fifth Avenue filed by rosily dustily jerkily. On the shady side there was an occasional man in a top hat and frock coat. Sunshades, summer dresses, straw hats were bright in the sun that glinted in squares on the upper windows of houses, lay in bright slivers on the hard paint of limousines and taxicabs. It smelled of gasoline and asphalt, of spearmint and talcumpowder and perfume from the couples that jiggled closer and closer together on the seats of the bus. ”

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Source: Wikisource

John Roderigo Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer — Great Lady on a White Horse (1925)

“ Got a job yet Ruth?"
"Um-um. . . . A couple of things may materialize during the week. But they wont. Oh Jimmy I'm getting desperate." She shook her hair loose of the crimpers and combed out the new mousybrown waves. She had a pale startled face with a big mouth and blue underlids. "This morning I knew I ought to be up and ready, but I just couldn't. It's so discouraging to get up when you haven't got a job. . . . Sometimes I think I'll go to bed and just stay there till the end of the world."
"Poor old Ruth." ”

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Source: Wikisource

John Roderigo Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer — Great Lady on a White Horse (1925)

“ Cassandra Wilkins lisped and pouted, "Isn't she dweadful Mr. Herf. . . . She says the dweadfullest things."
"She merely does it to annoy."
"Oh Mr. Herf I'm so pleased to meet you at last, Ruth does nothing but talk about you. . . . Oh I'm afwaid I was indiscweet to say that. . . . I'm dweadfully indiscweet."
The door across the hall opened and Jimmy found himself looking in the white face of a crookednosed man whose red hair rode in two unequal mounds on either side of a straight part. He wore a green satin bathrobe and red morocco slippers. ”

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Source: Wikisource

John Roderigo Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer — Great Lady on a White Horse (1925)

“ Stan rattled it off quickly under his breath.
"Music, isnt it?" put in Ellen laughing. "I always say mischief."
"Well how's college?" asked Baldwin in a dry uncordial voice.
"I guess it's still there," said Stan blushing. "I wish they'd burn it down before I got back." He got to his feet. "You must excuse me Mr. Baldwin. . . . My intrusion was infernally rude." As he turned leaning towards Ellen she smelled his grainy whiskey breath. "Please forgive it, Miss Oglethorpe." ”

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Source: Wikisource

John Roderigo Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer — Great Lady on a White Horse (1925)

“ Oglethorpe rested his chin on the silver ball of his cane. "Confidence, Mr. Baldwin," he began, "confidence between husband and wife is a very beautiful thing. Space and time have no effect on it. Were one of us to go to China for a thousand years it would not change our affection one tittle."
"You see George, what's the matter with Jojo is that he read too much Shakespeare in his youth. . . . But I've got to go or Merton will be bawling me out again. . . . Talk about industrial slavery. Jojo tell him about Equity." ”

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Source: Wikisource

John Roderigo Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer — Great Lady on a White Horse (1925)

“ They sometimes come on Sunday just to fool you." A smile coyly bridged the crack in the door.
"Shall I bring in the milk?"
"Oh do and sit down in the hall and I'll call Ruth." The hall was very dark; smelled of sleep and toothpaste and massagecream; across one corner a cot still bore the imprint of a body on its rumpled sheets. Straw hats, silk eveningwraps, and a couple of men's dress overcoats hung in a jostling tangle from the staghorns of the hatrack. Jimmy picked a corsetcover off a rockingchair and sat down. ”

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Source: Wikisource

John Roderigo Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer — Great Lady on a White Horse (1925)

“ The cats are leaving the garbage cans, the chinches are going back into the walls, leaving sweaty limbs, leaving the grimetender necks of little children asleep. Men and women stir under blankets and bedquilts on mattresses in the corners of rooms, clots of kids begin to untangle to scream and kick. ”

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Source: Wikisource

John Roderigo Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer — Great Lady on a White Horse (1925)

“ I guess all he needs is to go to work and get a sense of values. Too much money's what's the matter with most of those collegeboys. . . . Oh but Elaine thank God we're alone again. I have worked continuously all my life ever since I was fourteen. The time has come when I want to lay aside all that for a while. I want to live and travel and think and be happy. I cant stand the pace of downtown the way I used to. I want to learn to play, to ease off the tension. ”

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Source: Wikisource

John Roderigo Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer — Great Lady on a White Horse (1925)

“ The door closed on Cassie's tittering lisp.
"Wow, Ruth that place gives me the infernal jimjams.'
"Now Jimmy dont get peevish because you need food."
"But tell me Ruth, what the hell is Mr. Oglethorpe? He beats anything I ever saw."
"Oh did the Ogle come out of his lair?" Ruth let out a whoop of laughter. They came out into grimy sunlight. "Did he tell you he was of the main brawnch, dontcher know, of the Oglethorpes of Georgiah?"
"Is that lovely girl with copper hair his wife?"
"Elaine Oglethorpe has reddish hair. She's not so darn lovely either. . . . ”

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Source: Wikisource

John Roderigo Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer — Great Lady on a White Horse (1925)

“ It may be true of men but it says nothing in regard to women," droned a woman's voice from the next table. . . . "Your feminism rises into an insuperable barrier," trailed a man's husky meticulous tones. "What if I am an egoist? God knows I've suffered for it." "Fire that purifies, Charley. . . ." George was speaking, trying to catch her eye. "How's the famous Jojo?" ”

John Roderigo Dos Passos

Summary

Quotes from Manhattan Transfer — Great Lady on a White Horse (John Roderigo Dos Passos)

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