Charley noticed that everyone at the station was dressed like eighteen-ninety something.
He never saw so many beards, side burns, and fancy moustaches in his life. A woman he saw was wearing a dress with leg-of-mutton sleeves and a skirt to the top of her high-buttoned shoes.
On the tracks, he saw a locomotive, a very small Currier and Ives locomotive with a funnel shaped stack.
Despite Charley's efforts to go to the third level, he was unable to find it again. He shared his experience with his wife, who got worried. He went back to his stamps. His friend Sam had disappeared and nobody knew where he was but Charley was certain that he had found the third level and gone there. Charley's description of the place had fascinated him and he had gone there in 1894.
The narrator met a psychiatrist because he was sure he had been on the third level of the Grand Central Station. He was also aware of the fact that only two levels of the station existed and the presidents of the rail road would even swear on a stack of timetables to prove this point. The need to meet a psychiatrist became urgent because he was in a dilemma.
Charley felt there was a tunnel that nobody knew about, which was feeling its way under the city at that moment too, on its way to Times Square, and maybe another to Central Park. Grand Central, he felt, was like an exit, a way of escape and perhaps that's how he got into the tunnel. He didn't want to tell the psychiatrist, for he would not have believed him and would have wanted to treat him.
Charley loved stamp collecting. Charley argued that his own grandfather lived at a time when things were pretty nice and peaceful and he was the one who had actually started his collection of stamps. Charley refused to believe that his stamp collecting was 'a temporary refuge' from reality.
The man whom Charley met, wore a derby hat, a black four-button suit with tiny lapels, and he had a big, black handlebar moustache. He pulled out a golden watch from his vest pocket, looked at the time and frowned.
Charley read the note that confirmed the fact that the third level was true. The note signed by Sam also read that he had been at Galesburg for two weeks and was enjoying himself there. Sam had urged Charley and his wife Louisa to keep looking for the third level till they could find it and join him. It was worth the effort.
Charley had got his three hundred dollars out of the bank and got them changed into old-style currency so that he could go back to the third level and buy the tickets to Galesburg. For his three hundred dollars he had got only two hundred dollars old-style currency but he didn't mind that. The only consolation was that in the year 1894, the two hundred dollars would have more value, as things were much cheaper than they were now.
don't go on ships
The central message or lesson in a piece of literature can vary, but it often revolves around themes such as love, loss, redemption, or the human condition. It is up to the reader to interpret and extract the meaning or lesson that resonates most with them from the text.
The central idea or lesson of a story is the main theme or moral that the author is trying to convey to the reader. It is the underlying message that ties the story together and provides meaning or insight into the characters, plot, or setting.
Jack Finney Described Galesburg as follows, Galesburg was a wonderful town with big old frame houses, huge lawns, and tremendous trees whose branches met overhead and roofed over the streets. In 1894, summer evenings were twice as long, and people sat on their lawns, the men smoking.
The "theme" is what the author is trying to convey, the central idea or message of the story. Not to be confused with plot, which is what happens in the story or moral, which is the lesson that is learned from the story.