"Charles L. Grant - The Sea Harp Hotel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Charles L)

INTERLUDE 187

Wendy Webb
A MUSE FOR MR. KALISH 200

Leslie Alan Horvitz

NO PAIN, NO GAIN 223

Thomas F. Monteleone

OLD FRIENDS NEVER DIE 242

Bob Booth

AMIAMETDELIPENCET 259

Nancy Holder

THECHRONICLERS
 THE SEAHARP HOTEL
Introduction
by
Charles L. Grant
Greystone Bay 17 July 1862

The SeaHarp Hotel

My dear Jonathan,

Born here, died here. If you would be so kind as to put that on my tombstone, son, I would be grateful. Anything
else would no doubt be blasphemous. And I doubt God has any patience left for me, being busy enough putting fools
in high office who will, I no longer fear but know, soon have us all bearing arms against our own kind. Children in the
park play at war. Those who claim to understand such things, as I do not, claim that conflict is unthinkable, that no
man, no state, no country would dare wage open warfare against itself. As usual, those who claim to know, know
nothing.

Would you were here, you would be shocked to see that even the Bay is afflicted. Aside from the arguments which
rage nightly in the Gentleman's Lounge here at the hotel, each night, on the sand, a madman who claims to have fought
with General Harrison shrieks his anti-abolitionist message to anyone who will listen, including the gulls and the tide.
The guests are disturbed. There is little I can do. Perhaps God, or an armed drunk, will put this fool out of his misery. I
lose rooms because of him.

But perhaps I am too much the cynic these days.

Perhaps I am bitter because, after all these years, I still miss your mother.

Only time and the Rail-splitter will tell.