calling a book "The Coast of Bohemia," even
though "Bohemia" was used in its figurative sense. What if the title had
been derived from a line in Shakespeare? That did not alter the fact
that ascribing a coast to Bohemia was like giving the Swiss Republic an
Admiralty and alluding to Berne as a naval base. What would that
censorious critic have to say of the association of Bohemia with stately
Fifth Avenue? For to him and his kind it is not given to realize that
Bohemia is a state of mind, a period of ardour and exaltation, a
reminiscence of youth rather than a material region.

The great stream has its tributaries. To Fifth Avenue belong the side
streets that feed it and in turn draw from it flavour and inspiration.
To it belong Washington Square, the south side as well as the north
side, and the street beyond, that today is known as West Broadway, and
yesterday was South Fifth Avenue, and before that, in the remote past,
was Laurens Street; and the crossing thoroughfares that constituted the
French Quarter of the late seventies and early eighties; and the
northeastern part of Greenwich Village, that was once the "American
Quarter," and is now masquerading as a super Monmartre, with its
"Vermillion Hounds," and "Purple Pups," and "Pirates' Dens."

Nor for the flavour of Bohemia is there actual need of leaving the
Avenue itself. It was more than twenty years ago that the writer,
turning into Fifth Avenue at Twenty-sixth Street of a sunshiny
afternoon, was confronted with an apparition, or rather with
apparitions, direct from the Latin Quarter of Paris. Three top-hatted
young men were walking arm in arm. One, of imposing stature, wore
conspicuously the type of side whiskers formerly known as "Dundrearys."
The second, of medium height, was adorned by an aggressive beard. The
third, small and slight, was smooth shaven. A similar trio was
encountered a dozen blocks farther up the Avenue, and, in the
neighbourhood of the Plaza, a third trio. It was a time when George Du
Maurier's "Trilby" was in the full swing of its great popularity, when
the name of the sinister Svengali was on every lip, and certain young
eccentrics found huge delight in attracting attention to themselves by
parading the Avenue attired as "Taffy," the "Laird," and "Little
Billee."

There is a stretch of the Avenue upon which the Fifth Avenue Association
frowns; which the native American avoids; and which the old-time New
Yorker regards with passionate