You can often tell what a word means by its context in a sentence.
In this passage, Nick reflects on what the landscape must have looked like when the Dutch explorers arrived to the continent. He is looking at Gatsby's house, and at this point in the novel, we know that Nick believes that New York, as well as the people he has met, are vile, corrupt and greedy. He contrasts this view with that of the pristine continent on the arrival of the European settlers.
The phrase "fresh, green breast of the New World" presents a view that is "fresh." The land is new, but it is also fresh in the sense that it is not rotten. The land has not yet been "infected" with the corruption of modern times. Therefore, the phrase is intended to represent a time before America had become a land of greed and vice.
In "the gift of the magi", the narrator, like a comfortable, old storyteller, explains and describes the fictional account of Della and Jim at Christmas time.
<u>Explanation:</u>
One of the ways in which O. Henry creates suspense and tension in the story "The Gift of the Magi" is by using what many story writers, including screen writers, which is called as "ticking clock."
Another way by which suspense is created in the story by the narrator is when Della got pair of tortoise shell combs as a gift, but didn't expect to receive them as a gift and she did not know whom did she get those from. So these were two situations of suspense in the story.
