Excerpt

A great city is nothing more than a portrait of itself, and yet when all is said and done, its arse­nals of scenes and images are part of a deeply moving plan. As a book in which to read this plan, New York is unsurpassed. For the whole world has poured its heart into the city by the Palisades, and made it far better than it ever had any right to be.

But the city is now obscured, as it often is, by the whitened mass in which it rests -- rushing by us at unfathomable speed, crackling like wind in the mist, cold to the touch, glistening and unfolding, tumbling over itself like the steam of an engine or cotton spilling from a bale. Though the blinding white web of ceaseless sounds flows past mercilessly, the curtain is breaking . . . It reveals amid the clouds a lake of air as smooth and clear as a mirror, the deep round eye of a white hurricane.