Way of Revelation

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Excerpt from Way of Revelation: A Novel of Five Years Time had wrought changes, the unknown future held many more, but no change had ever altered the face of the fluttering crowd. It is true that all had passed out in their turn - with their generation: the newsboys, the filles de joie, the commonplace ones, the strange-looking men. Many had passed out before their turn: nobody knew, nobody cared. Individuality does not count here. It is sufficient that the crowd remains, that the winged archer poised above his fountains in the heart of Piccadilly Circus remarks no pause in the ebb and flow, no dimming of his brilliant halo, no foreboding of an impending judgment upon humanity. Two young men attired for the evening were strolling from the direction of the Empire Music Hall towards Piccadilly. They were due to meet a party of friends at a ball at 11.15 precisely, and were late. Not that it mattered to be late for a ball, the friends would probably be late, too. It was altogether fashionable to be late, it was fatal to be punctual. At the portals of the great Hotel Astoria, in the heart of Piccadilly, a long line of motor-cars disclosed successive pairs of lamps stretching down that thoroughfare towards Hyde Park Corner. Each, as it drove up, discharged its four, five, or six occupants, and, amid the exhortations of enormous uniformed porters and policemen, passed on. The two young men pushed through a circular moving doorway into a brilliantly lighted foyer, mirrored almost the whole way round and leading to a large, less brilliantly lighted winter-garden or palm court, beyond which steps led up to a kind of dais whereon tables and chairs were set. This outer hall was crowded with people - gentlemen taking off their hats and coats, ladies in opera cloaks and gowns of shimmering material. All the while the doors kept revolving as fresh parties arrived. The two friends having handed their hats and sticks over a counter to a rather ostentatiously grand lacquey - with whom they seemed to cultivate something more than a hat-and-stick acquaintance - proceeded to draw on normally difficult white gloves. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.