o quote here.

The theatre was never a brilliant success. To be sure, such sterling
actors as Mr. and Mrs. John Barnes and the Hilsons played there, and
during a short season of Italian opera, in which Daponte was
enthusiastically interested, Adelaide Pedrotti was the prima donna.
And one of New York's first "opera idols" sang there--Luciano
Fornasari, generally acclaimed by New York ladies as the handsomest
man who had ever been in the city! For a wonder, he wasn't a tenor,
only a basso, but they adored him just the same.

Somehow it grows hard to write of Richmond Hill--a hill no longer, but
a shabby playhouse, which was not even successful. The art-loving
impresarios spent the little money they had very speedily and there
was no more Richmond Hill Theatre.

Then a circus put up there--yes, a circus--in the same house which had
made even sensible Mrs. Adams dream dreams, and where Theo Burr had
entertained her Indian Chief! In 1842, it was the headquarters of a
menagerie, pure and simple.

In 1849--thank God--its nightmare of desecration was over. It was
pulled down, and they built red-brick houses on its grave and left its
ancient memories to sleep in peace.

"And thus" [Wetmore once again] "passed away the glories and
the shadows of Richmond Hill. All that remains of them are
a few fleeting memories and a page or two of history fast
fading into oblivion."

For once, I cannot quite agree with him--not when he says that. For
surely the home of so much romance and grandeur and charm and
importance must leave something behind it other than a few fleeting
memories and a page or two of history. Houses have ghosts as well as
people, and if ever there stood a house with a personality, that was
sweet, poignant and indestructible, it was the House on Richmond Hill.

I, who tell you this, am very sure. Have I not seen it sketched in
bright, shadowy lines upon the air above Charlton and Varick
streets,--its white columns shining through all the modern city murk?
Go there in the right mood and at the right moment, and you will see,
too.

CHAPTER V

_"Tom Paine, Infidel."_

... These are the times that try men's souls. The summer
soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis,
shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands
it _now_, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman....
I have as little superstition in me as any man living; but