Mr. Dryden: Lawrence, only two kinds of creature get fun in the desert: Bedouins and gods, and you're neither. Take it from me, for ordinary men, it's a burning, fiery furnace.
T.E. Lawrence: No, Dryden, it's going to be fun.
Mr. Dryden: It is recognized that you have a funny sense of fun.
On my morning outing with Beau, the weather is so cold and wet, ice drops freeze on my hat brim, glistening above my eyes. The predicted warmer weather that would melt the powdery snow that fell Friday has not materialized and all around is cold mush. Beau has to go out and neither rain, nor sleet, nor dark of night can stop the two of us from our appointed rounds three times a day.
Fortunately, I have two pairs of rugged boots I can alternate using until the warming trend arrives, supposedly tomorrow. Beau's first outings in the snow have given him great pleasure, although the ubiquitousness of salt thrown around by building and park staffs impeded an easy walk, as the burning in a paw made him stop in his tracks. I then had to put my gloved finger deep inside the paw to extract the offending crystal before we could continue. Even under the deepest snow on the park side of Riverside Drive, there is salt to be found.
So I bought snow boots for Beau yesterday afternoon, hoping they might solve the problem.These "boots" (Beau's are red), look like nothing more than colored balloons. Indeed, the material might be one and the same, save for the manufacturer's stamp --"PAWS"-- paw-side down. They are not as difficult to get on as I anticipated and better, once on, Beau is as comfortable in them as he is boot-less on unsnowy ground. He bounds and scampers once more, happy as ever, me even happier.
Our regular walk has become the walk up the park side of Riverside Drive past Grant's Tomb, past the belvedere as far as the monument to "Amiable Child". The "amiable child" is St. Clair Pollock, who is believed to have died of a fall from the cliffs to the rocks by the Hudson's shore on July 15, 1797. Servants found the child's body by the rocks that night.
St. Clair Pollock was five years old when he died. He is buried in a private grave marked by a large Grecian urn set on a plinth where Riverside Park meets the Drive. The land once belonged to George Pollock, a wealthy linen merchant from Dublin, either the uncle or father of the child. It was George Pollock's decision to bury St. Clair here, rather than in a church graveyard.
George Pollock sold the land not too many years after St. Clair was buried there, to a Mrs. Verplanck. The sale was made with the stipulation that the purchaser would care for the grave and leave it untouched. The parcel passed to a Mr. Claremont and then a Mr. Post before it was purchased by the City of New York, which continues to honor the request of St. Clair's relative. The memorial may be the only private grave on public land in the five boroughs of the City of New York.
Each time I pass it I have a sense of poignance. The front of the monument states the boy's name, the date of his death and describes him as an "amiable child". On the back is chiseled a verse from the Book of Job:
"Man that is born of woman is of a few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not."
The language of George Pollock's request to Mrs. Verplanck appears on the Landmark Department's sign beside the grave. The grave itself is enclosed by cast-iron rails and pickets painted black. Across the way, on a hill overlooking the monument, there is now a playground, although at the time Grant's Tomb was built directly south, the "Claremont Inn", a fancy restaurant, stood. On the other side of the hill are "Sakura Park", "International House" and other Columbia University properties, themselves on a downslope leading to the access route for the Henry Hudson Parkway.
So few people make their way beyond the belvedere to see the "Amiable Child". I am glad that Beau and I do. When I look at the urn I am reminded of the mind-set of the late 18th and early 19th century, which celebrated the spirit of antiquity, that is to say ancient Greece and Rome. In imitation of classical models, stoicism and reserve in the face of grief was demanded, and it is present in the classical design of the monument to the "amiable child". Whether the man who put the tomb up was St. Clair's father or uncle doesn't matter: it is clear from the word of deliberate understatement used to describe the child --amiable, that is, "trying to please"-- that St. Clair was that and so much more.
As we live in an age where every tingle felt is made known to our brethren, that reserve in publicizing emotion by one who loved may be what draws me to the spot. Indeed, it may explain why I find the extremes of hot and cold so compelling: they expel all but the most tenacious. The quote from the screenplay of Lawrence of Arabia is apropos. It's perverse to want to be out in the coldest weather --or the hottest, both of which I would admit to. However, I find that only when a space is empty can I really find something interesting in it. That's a funny sense of fun.
On my morning outing with Beau, the weather is so cold and wet, ice drops freeze on my hat brim, glistening above my eyes. The predicted warmer weather that would melt the powdery snow that fell Friday has not materialized and all around is cold mush. Beau has to go out and neither rain, nor sleet, nor dark of night can stop the two of us from our appointed rounds three times a day.
Fortunately, I have two pairs of rugged boots I can alternate using until the warming trend arrives, supposedly tomorrow. Beau's first outings in the snow have given him great pleasure, although the ubiquitousness of salt thrown around by building and park staffs impeded an easy walk, as the burning in a paw made him stop in his tracks. I then had to put my gloved finger deep inside the paw to extract the offending crystal before we could continue. Even under the deepest snow on the park side of Riverside Drive, there is salt to be found.
So I bought snow boots for Beau yesterday afternoon, hoping they might solve the problem.These "boots" (Beau's are red), look like nothing more than colored balloons. Indeed, the material might be one and the same, save for the manufacturer's stamp --"PAWS"-- paw-side down. They are not as difficult to get on as I anticipated and better, once on, Beau is as comfortable in them as he is boot-less on unsnowy ground. He bounds and scampers once more, happy as ever, me even happier.
Our regular walk has become the walk up the park side of Riverside Drive past Grant's Tomb, past the belvedere as far as the monument to "Amiable Child". The "amiable child" is St. Clair Pollock, who is believed to have died of a fall from the cliffs to the rocks by the Hudson's shore on July 15, 1797. Servants found the child's body by the rocks that night.
St. Clair Pollock was five years old when he died. He is buried in a private grave marked by a large Grecian urn set on a plinth where Riverside Park meets the Drive. The land once belonged to George Pollock, a wealthy linen merchant from Dublin, either the uncle or father of the child. It was George Pollock's decision to bury St. Clair here, rather than in a church graveyard.
George Pollock sold the land not too many years after St. Clair was buried there, to a Mrs. Verplanck. The sale was made with the stipulation that the purchaser would care for the grave and leave it untouched. The parcel passed to a Mr. Claremont and then a Mr. Post before it was purchased by the City of New York, which continues to honor the request of St. Clair's relative. The memorial may be the only private grave on public land in the five boroughs of the City of New York.
Each time I pass it I have a sense of poignance. The front of the monument states the boy's name, the date of his death and describes him as an "amiable child". On the back is chiseled a verse from the Book of Job:
"Man that is born of woman is of a few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not."
The language of George Pollock's request to Mrs. Verplanck appears on the Landmark Department's sign beside the grave. The grave itself is enclosed by cast-iron rails and pickets painted black. Across the way, on a hill overlooking the monument, there is now a playground, although at the time Grant's Tomb was built directly south, the "Claremont Inn", a fancy restaurant, stood. On the other side of the hill are "Sakura Park", "International House" and other Columbia University properties, themselves on a downslope leading to the access route for the Henry Hudson Parkway.
So few people make their way beyond the belvedere to see the "Amiable Child". I am glad that Beau and I do. When I look at the urn I am reminded of the mind-set of the late 18th and early 19th century, which celebrated the spirit of antiquity, that is to say ancient Greece and Rome. In imitation of classical models, stoicism and reserve in the face of grief was demanded, and it is present in the classical design of the monument to the "amiable child". Whether the man who put the tomb up was St. Clair's father or uncle doesn't matter: it is clear from the word of deliberate understatement used to describe the child --amiable, that is, "trying to please"-- that St. Clair was that and so much more.
As we live in an age where every tingle felt is made known to our brethren, that reserve in publicizing emotion by one who loved may be what draws me to the spot. Indeed, it may explain why I find the extremes of hot and cold so compelling: they expel all but the most tenacious. The quote from the screenplay of Lawrence of Arabia is apropos. It's perverse to want to be out in the coldest weather --or the hottest, both of which I would admit to. However, I find that only when a space is empty can I really find something interesting in it. That's a funny sense of fun.
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