Beauty for Ashes

Nero Wolfe is reading this book in Before Midnight. I was curious as to if these books that Mr. Wolfe always reads in his mysteries really exist. Yes, they do. The book in Before Midnight is a book in verse (gulp!).

Beauty for Ashes
Christopher La Farge
New York: Coward McCann, 1953,

From my personal librarian at our local public library:

Author: La Farge, Christopher, 1897-1956.
Title: Beauty for ashes.
Publisher: New York, Coward-McCann [1953]

ITEM LOC CALL NO. STATUS
Central Adult 811 L161B CHECK SHELVES
Central Adult 811 L161B CHECK SHELVES

And, who the heck is Christopher La Farge?

• La Farge, Christopher, 1897-1956
• Born in Newport, Rhode Island
• American author, painter, and architect
• La Farge was an American author, painter, and architect, and was a graduate of the Harvard College Class of 1920.
• He was the grandson of author and artist John La Farge and the brother of author Oliver La Farge (H.C. 1924).
• Check @ http://www.nyc-architecture.com/ARCH/ARCH-HeinsLaFarge.htm
• La Farge worked on the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine (at Amsterdam Avenue and 112th Street)

Towards the end of the book, Beauty for Ashes:

“So fly up now, up . . . above, above, high . . .
Soon from on high . . . see it differently, the topographical
pattern . . .
laid out below . . . distant . . .
Seen from this height, down looking, steep, you fit
them to the pattern . . .
that’s your geography . . .
Remember them . . . but not as ants that crawled painfully
and small . . .
down infinite steeps of grass, not as the germs
that brilliance and clever glasses made manifest,
but as the echo . . . of the thing you lent
when, in participation, you descended to witness and
to know”.