stand and deliver, though we were aware of a large, vague wisdom in our
words. But we perceived that our friend had no intention of helping us
out, and on the whole we thought it best to temporize.

"In the first place," we said, "we should like to know what impression
New York made on you when you arrived here, if there was any room left
on your soul-surface after the image of Boston had been imprinted
there."

No man is unwilling to expatiate concerning himself, even when he is
trying to corner a fellow-man. This principle of human nature perhaps
accounts for the frequent failure of thieves to catch thieves, in spite
of the proverb; the pursuit suggests somehow the pleasures of
autobiography, and while they are reminded of this and that the suspects
escape the detectives. Our friend gladly paused to reply:

"I wish I could say! It was as unbeautiful as it could be, but it was
wonderful! Has anybody else ever said that there is no place like it? On
some accounts I am glad there isn't; one place of the kind is enough;
but what I mean is that I went about all the next day after arriving
from Boston, with Europe still in my brain, and tried for something
suggestive of some other metropolis, and failed. There was no question
of Boston, of course; that was clean out of it after my first glimpse of
Fifth Avenue in taxicabbing hotelward from the Grand Central Station.
But I tried with Berlin, and found it a drearier Boston; with Paris, and
found it a blonder and blither Boston; with London, and found it
sombrely irrelevant and incomparable. New York is like London only in
not being like any other place, and it is next to London in magnitude.
So far, so good; but the resemblance ends there, though New York is
oftener rolled in smoke, or mist, than we willingly allow to Londoners.
Both, however, have an admirable quality which is not beauty. One might
call the quality picturesque immensity in London, and in New York one
might call it--"

He compressed his lips, and shut his eyes to a fine line for the greater
convenience of mentally visioning.

"What?" we impatiently prompted.

"I was going to say, sublimity. What do you think of sublimity?"

"We always defend New York against you. We accept sublimity. How?"

"I was thinking of the drive up or down Fifth Avenue, the newer Fifth
Avenue, which has risen in marble and Indiana limestone from the
brownstone and brick of a former age, the Augustan Fifth Avenue which
has re