My first impressions of the skyscrapers in New York were a definite anticlimax. Like the pyramids and the Sphinx in Egypt they are over publicized and take fantastic proportion in the minds of people who have seen them. My first impressions of both are identical： .°Not bigger than that！?！繠ut soon I was caught by the special fascination of New York， that strange city with its Mediterranean faces and its cold， efficient， Nordic soul. In no other city do the human types more remind one of Naples， Tel Aviv
    Cairo. But these Mediterranean faces are without the warm， sensitive and paorssionate Mediterranean soul. The predominantly dark faces are， it were， a disguise，forthesoulbehindthemremindoneofLondonandBerlin.Thesasoul of New York is cold and indifferent， and brutally efficient， like the soul of Northern Europe. Cities like Rome or Paris or Vienna somehow seem to return one's love but New York does not. And yet it seems to me， paradoxically， eminently lovable and sometimes painfully beautiful， like a dazzling but aloof woman.
    There is other city in the world where feel more delightfully and absolutelyalnooneinNewYork，forinnoothercityaonerepecanople more indifferent toward each other. In other great cities in the world there people who are at least interestedinotherpeople'swallets，orcuriousabouteachareother for various reasons. Not so in New York， where the inhabitants not only ignore each other， but seem to look through each other， which is still a step father in the gradations of indifference. If somebody ignores you， he is still somehow ware of you， and you have at least a negative importance. But if he looks straight through you， as though you were invisible， you eventually begin to wonder if you really still cast a shadow.
    anticlimax 令人掃興，興趣驟降，虎頭蛇尾
    over publicize 過度宣傳
    proportion 比例，部分
    identical 同一的，不變的，相似的
    Mediterranean 地中海式的
    Nordic 北歐日耳曼民族的
    sensitive 敏感的
    passionate 熱情奔放的
    predominantly 絕大多數(shù)地，普遍地
    disguise 偽裝，假裝
    indifferent 冷漠的，無動于衷的
    brutally 殘忍地，蠻橫地
    paradoxically 自相矛盾地，似是而非地
    eminently 出眾地，超凡的
    dazzling 漂亮迷人的，令人?；蟮?BR>    aloof 冷淡的，清高的
    absolutely 絕對地
    inhabitant 居住者
    gradation 等級，程序
    Sphinx 獅身人面像
    Naples 那不勒斯
    Tel Aviv 特拉維夫
    Cairo 開羅
    Which is still a step farther in the gradations of indifference. 就冷漠程度而論是更進了一步。