title: Alexander's Bridge (The Art of the Novella)
author:  Willa Cather 
description: <b>Willa Cather</b> (1873&ndash;1947) was raised in Nebraska. She moved to New York to work for the renowned <i>McClure&rsquo;s Magazine</i>. Among her celebrated writing career are the novels <i>My Atnonia</i>, <i>O Pioneers!</i> and <i>Death Comes for the Archbishop.</i> She published <i>Alexander&rsquo;s Bridge</i>, her first book, in 1912.
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  # Alexander's Bridge
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Willa Cather
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER I
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  Late one brilliant April afternoon Professor
  
  
  Lucius Wilson stood at the head of Chestnut Street,
  
  
  looking about him with the pleased air of a man
  
  
  of taste who does not very often get to Boston.
  
  
  He had lived there as a student, but for
  
  
  twenty years and more, since he had been
  
  
  Professor of Philosophy in a Western
  
  
  university, he had seldom come East except
  
  
  to take a steamer for some foreign port.
  
  
  Wilson was standing quite still, contemplating
  
  
  with a whimsical smile the slanting street,
  
  
  with its worn paving, its irregular, gravely
  
  
  colored houses, and the row of naked trees on
  
  
  which the thin sunlight was still shining.
  
  
  The gleam of the river at the foot of the hill
  
  
  made him blink a little, not so much because it
  
  
  was too bright as because he found it so pleasant.
  
  
  The few passers-by glanced at him unconcernedly,
  
  