In Praise of Prague

~ A Song of Prague ~

Hradczany Castle in Prague
by Bohumír Dvorský (1902 - 76)

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from the novel The Valley Of Decision
by Marcia Davenport (1903 - 96)
fiance of Jan Masaryk (1886 - 1948)

Chapter 79 ~ 1936

Claire sniffed happily as the car rounded the turn of the hill and she could look down and see the sharp spires of Prague piercing the gray haze which seemed to always hang over the city. The air had the most pungent, unforgettable odor. And how different, Claire thought, from the smoky smell of Pittsburgh. She put the rabbity little car in second gear and steeed it noisily down the grade. It's a strange thing, she reflected, that I have this queer love for two of the smokiest, grayest cities in the world. . . .

She drove as slowly as she could because she wanted to fill her eyes with the ancient, beautiful vista -- the broad winding Vltava spanned by the lacy bridges and crowned by the jewel of the Karluv Most [Charles Bridge].

Beyond, the Hradcany brooded on its bluffs, the stern pile of centuries where the wise old coachman's son [Czech President Thomas Masaryk, son of Jozef Masárik, coachman and steward; Thomas's son was beloved Czechoslovakian Diplomat Jan Masaryk] had lived and guided the nation he had led to freedom. Claire . . . drove down the wide Vysehrad, crossed the Palacky Bridge and turned left on the Smichov Embankment. The river flowed along, steel - colored and heavy in the dank November air. Tugboats and steamers puffed about their business. Handsome buildings and monuments lined the banks, punctuated by the noble Gothic towers of the bridges. Claire looked back over her shoulder at the imposing pile of the Narodni Divadlo; the national opera house, the quintessence of nineteenth - century pomposity, and wondered for the thousandth time why European city - builders had the vision to line their rivers with architectural magnificence while in America -- she grimaced at the thought of Pittsburgh. All its riverbanks were a shambles of ugliness; stacks and sheds and chimneys and railroad tracks and mies of dingy warehouses to obliterate the beauty God had put there. Yet she loved it. She would feel this same inward happiness, this eagerness to throw her arms around a beloved friend, if she were reaching Mary in Pittsburgh instead of Julka in Prague. (528 - 529)

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View of Prague from the Castle District ~ 2019
See Gerry?!

Here I am, standing on the
(very crowded!) Charles Bridge

Previously, a few brief references to
The Valley of Decision
on
Kitti's List
Fortnightly KC
Quotidian K

See also Davenport's autobiography:
Too Strong for Fantasy

Commonplace Book

"It smells good here," she said.
It did. It had the indefinable smell of a perfectly - kept,
well - loved American home; the smell found nowhere else on earth.
A smell of cleanliness and polish and Ivory soap and potted plants
and baking bread -- the sweet warm smell of simplicity and abundance.
. . . everything in the room felt kind and gentle and safe."

~ Marcia Davenport ~
from The Valley of Decision, 407
[More on my Book Blog]

Regular as clockwork, yet another Fall Semester has arrived, with all the excitement and promise of course descriptions and syllabi! Risking repetition, I thought the beginning of the academic year would be the right time to provide
a thorough outline of my fortnightly initiative on my
CURRENT FORTNIGHTLY BLOG POST:
~ "Commonplace Book" ~
Why? Because a blog is a digital journal or Commonplace Book that will be unique to whatever its keeper finds of interest, e.g., the clean metallic lines of the graceful leaves above (photographed earlier this summer at the at the Wynn / Encore in Las Vegas) and Marcia Davenport's blissful description of early twentieth homemaking. How are these apparently random items related? The blogger gets to impose the pattern! That's the beauty of blogging!

Thanks for reading
The QUOTIDIAN KIT and
The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker:
A Fortnightly [every 14th & 28th] Literary Blog of
Connection & Coincidence; Custom & Ceremony