David Hayden

It's an immense skill to do that.

And Maxwell said that she was a big fan of the 18th century spectator essayists.

particularly Hazlitt, and you can see that because that is the very highest art of the essay.

If you can aspire to be as good as Hazlitt, and she does, and she pulls it off, but in these very, very small ways.

Let me know when you're ready, David.

Okay, so this is a New York interior from a piece called Howard's Apartment.

The rain is falling fast and as black as ever.

The windows of the front apartment where the party is must be streaming with rain, frothing almost.

And 10th Street must be streaming too and frothing black.

But a cocktail party has to expand if it can.

And now the people in front have opened their door and left it open.

What a lot of noise they are making with glasses and bottles and music and voices.

They must have hundreds of people in there.

Once in a while, over the low roar of conversation, there is a loud laugh, and once in a while, a little shriek.

Outside, all the noise in the world is being hammered into the earth by the rain.

And inside, all the noise there is, is effervescing at the cocktail party.

Only in this room, there is stillness.

And the stillness has gone tense.

The room is waiting for something to happen.

I could light the fire, but my friend forgot to leave me any logs.