The Great Gatsby


There was music from my neighbor's house through the
summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came
and went like moths among the whisperings and the cham-
pagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched
his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun
on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit
the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts 
of foam. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus,
bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the 
morning and and long past midnight, while his station wagon
scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on 
Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled 
all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and 
garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before.


    Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived
from a fruiterer in New York--every Monday these same
oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulp-
less halves. There was a machine in the kitchen which could
extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour if a 
little button was pressed two hundred times by a butler's 
thumb.


 I chose this passage, because this is a life I would like to live.
I could imagine myself sitting on the beach off of Gatsby's house,
tanning or swimming. I also imagine myself drinking glasses
and glasses of fresh orange juice. Although all of Gatsby's riches
and fancy parties were useless because when he died his so
called friends weren't there at his funeral. I think that I would
enjoy having money for a while, but I would want friends more
than I would want money. So either your rich and friendless, or
poor and have friends.