public
stair which let all come who might without question. This cost him
twenty-five dollars a month, but he thought he had better risk it. If he
could get a few commissions he could live.

CHAPTER XVI

The art world of New York is peculiar. It was then and for some time
after, broken up into cliques with scarcely any unity. There was a world
of sculptors, for instance, in which some thirty or forty sculptors had
part--but they knew each other slightly, criticised each other severely
and retired for the most part into a background of relatives and
friends. There was a painting world, as distinguished from an
illustrating world, in which perhaps a thousand alleged artists, perhaps
more, took part. Most of these were men and women who had some
ability--enough to have their pictures hung at the National Academy of
Design exhibition--to sell some pictures, get some decorative work to
do, paint some portraits. There were studio buildings scattered about
various portions of the city; in Washington Square; in Ninth and Tenth
Streets; in odd places, such as Macdougal Alley and occasional cross
streets from Washington Square to Fifty-ninth Street, which were filled
with painters, illustrators, sculptors and craftsmen in art generally.
This painting world had more unity than the world of sculptors and, in a
way, included the latter. There were several art clubs--the Salmagundi,
the Kit-Kat and the Lotus--and there were a number of exhibitions, ink,
water color, oil, with their reception nights where artists could meet
and exchange the courtesies and friendship of their world. In addition
to this there were little communal groups such as those who resided in
the Tenth Street studios; the Twenty-third Street Y. M. C. A.; the Van
Dyck studios, and so on. It was possible to find little crowds, now and
then, that harmonized well enough for a time and to get into a group,
if, to use a colloquialism, one _belonged_. If you did not, art life in
New York might be a very dreary thing and one might go a long time
without finding just the particular crowd with which to associate.

Beside the painting world there was the illustrating world, made up of
beginners and those who had established themselves firmly in editorial
favor. These were not necessarily a part of the painting or sculpture
worlds and yet, in spirit, were allied to them, had their clubs also,
and their studios were in the various neighborhoods where the painters
an