Quotation

ericnorcross
Most of the big shore places are closed now, and there are hardly any lights except the shadowy moving glow of a ferry boat across the sound. As the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away, until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailor's eyes. A fresh green breast of the new world. It's vanished trees, the trees that made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams and for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood 'nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.