The better of the two Fitzgerald collections I have read this year. (TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE being the other which I liked but did have a couple clunkers in it.) His language is often gorgeous.

 "And in front as a great mellow bell boomed the half -hour a swarm of black, human leaves were blown over the checker-board of paths under the courteous trees."

“This is the beauty I want. Beauty has got to be astonishing, astounding-- it's got to burst in on you like a dream, like the exquisite eyes of a girl.”

“This unlikely story begins on a sea that was a blue dream, as colorful as blue-silk stockings, and beneath a sky as blue as the irises of children's eyes. From the western half of the sky the sun was shying little golden disks at the sea--if you gazed intently enough you could see them skip from wave tip to wave tip until they joined a broad collar of golden coin that was collecting half a mile out and would eventually be a dazzling sunset.”

“Resignedly and with difficulty Tom removed the cigar—that is, he removed part of it, and then blew the remainder with a whut sound across the room, where it landed liquidly and limply in Mrs. Ahearn’s lap.”

All moments I loved. Every story a gem. Humor, heart and often with devastating insight.