...absorbed in contemplation of the scene without. At first my observations took an abstract and generalizing turn. I looked at the passengers in masses, and thought...of those who went by had a satisfied business-like demeanor, and seemed to be thinking only of making their way through the press. Their brows were knit,...

...absorhed in contemplation of the scene without. At first my observations took an abstract and generalizing densely crowded, and in them heat feverisbly the...went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced numher of those who went by had a satisfied, business-like demeanor, and seemed to he thinking only...

...masses," to quote Edgar Allan Poe's phrase from "The Man of the Crowd," when closely watched presented "innumerable varieties of figure, dress, air, gait, visage and expression of countenance. 9 The sounds of English and foreign speech in the din of the streets packed with people multiplied...

...absorbed in contemplation of the scene without. At first my observations took an abstract and generalizing ate I have not included one hundred and ninety-seven...time had, in some measure, subsided, Legrand, who demeanor, and seemed to be thinking only of making their way through the press. Their brows were knit,...

...offer "naturally" two ways of viewing it. "At first my observations took an abstract and generalizing turn. I looked at the passengers in masses, and thought...air, gait, visage, and expression of countenance. " The descent "to details" defines a significant shift in the narrator's relation to the crowd. The...

...he had read the newspaper. "At first," he writes, "my observations took an abstract and generalizing turn. I looked at the passengers in masses, and thought...varieties of figure, dress, air, gait, visage, and expressions ot countenance." Observmg these details, he divides the crowd into abstract and general...

..."The Man of the Crowd," attends to the idiosyncrasies of physique; like Poe's narrator, it regards "with minute interest the innumerable varieties of...air, gait, visage, and expression of countenance"; and it peoples the fictional world with cripples, invalids, grotesques. But this attention serves foremost...

...window of a London coffeehouse, he remarks, "At first my observations took an abstract and generalizing turn. I looked at the passengers in masses, and thought...air, gait, visage, and expression of countenance" (IV, 135). Much like Sherlock Holmes, Poe's narrator infers from precise observation the occupations...

...looking at the "passengers in masses," thinking of them "in their aggregate relations." Soon, however, he "descended to details, and regarded with minute interest...air, gait, visage, and expression of countenance." The crowd becomes complex, a mixture of all urban types ranging from those "pointedly termed decent...

...and thinking of them in their "aggregate relations," soon begins to descend to details, "regarding] with minute interest the innumerable varieties of...air, gait, visage, and expression of countenance" (M, 2: 507). The middle-class strategy leads rather quickly to the mass-audience strategy. At a certain...