Could this be the saddest thing I’ve ever read?:

“Evening had worn into night. The busy city slept. Down by the wharves, now deserted, a poor boy sat on the bulwark, hungry, footsore, and shivering with cold. He sat thinking of friends and home, thousands of miles away over the sea, whom he had left six months before to go among strangers. He had been alone ever since, but never more so than that night. His money gone, no work to be found, he had slept in the streets for nights. That day he had eaten nothing; he would rather die than beg, and one of the two he must do soon.

“There was the dark river, rushing at his feet; the swirl of the unseen waters whispered to him of rest and peace he had not known since——it was so cold—and who was there to care, he thought bitterly. No one who would ever know. He moved a little nearer the edge, and listened more intently.

“A low whine fell on his ear, and a cold, wet face was pressed against his. A little, crippled dog that had been crouching silently beside him nestled in his lap. He had picked it up in the street, as forlorn and friendless as himself, and it had stayed by him. Its touch recalled him to himself. He got up hastily, and, taking the dog in his arms, went to the police station near by and asked for shelter. It was the first time he had accepted even such charity, and as he lay down on his rough plank he hugged a little gold locket he wore around his neck, the last link with better days, and thought, with a hard, dry sob, of home.

“In the middle of the night he awoke with a start. The locket was gone. One of the tramps who slept with him had stolen it. With bitter tears he went up and complained to the Sergeant at the desk, and the Sergeant ordered him to be kicked out in the street as a liar, if not a thief. How should a tramp boy have come honestly by a gold locket? The doorman put him out as he was bidden, and when the little dog showed its teeth, a policeman seized it and clubbed it to death on the step.”


By Jacob Riis, from his book, Children of the Tenements, “What the Christmas Sun Saw in the Tenements”

What I Hate About Books

What I hate about good books is that they end. It's like saying goodbye to a good friend - someone with whom you have shared something improtant, and you never know if you will see them again. We are guests in these people's lives - we are witnesses to their triumphs and failures, their most private moments. A good book leaves you with the feeling that these people are your friends (or your enemies) - you identify with them, so not only do you sympantize with them, but they, inevitably, sympathize with you. You've offered each other comfort. But then you get to the last page, and suddenly you are saying goodbye. Though you anticipate it, count down to it in some cases, it always comes as a shock - suddenly you turn the page and realize you've reached the end. A really good book will make you turn back, avoiding the last sentence, the point at which you must inevitably close the book, and put them back on the shelf.

Sometimes, it's not goodbye forever. How many times have I attended Gatsby's parties and sat with Gatsby, Daisy, Nick, Tom and Jordan at the Plaza when there wasn't any ice? How many times have I hitchhiked with Sal Paradise, and watched Dean receed into the horizon on our way to the opera? How many times have I sat with Hannah and Almsay in the Italian villa? How many times have their pain and suffering helped me through my own? How many times have they comforted me? So, sometimes you do get to meet again.

But inevitably, something changes. WE change, but they are static, stuck perpetually within the same set of circumstances. Along the way, we change perspectives - so the way that we feel about the characters, and how they react to their circumstances changes as well. But does there always come a point when you outgrow them? When they become childhood friends, with whom your common experiences are no longer relevant? The type of friends with whom you say hello in passing but move on quickly - sentimental but essentially unmoved. So maybe part of the sadness in the ending is that recognition - that there will come a day when you won't feel the same about the people that have allowed you into their lives. It's not the sadness of never seeing them again, but the sadness of realizing that your relationship will change, and that things will never be the same.