ars that separated the first visit of Dickens and the first
visit of Thackeray had wrought many changes. Thackeray, too, came to New
York from Boston, but in his case it was the matter of one unbroken
train journey, in the course of which he reread the "Shabby Genteel
Story" of a dozen years before. Dickens's transatlantic trip had
consumed nineteen days. The "Canada," which carried Thackeray, made the
crossing in thirteen. In New York Thackeray stayed at the Clarendon
Hotel, on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Eighteenth Street; but his
favourite haunt in the city was the third home of the Century, in
Clinton Place. Though not in the least given to flattery or
over-effusiveness in his comments on Americans and American
institutions, Thackeray wrote and spoke of the Century as "the best and
most comfortable club in the world."

CHAPTER II

_The Stretch of Tradition_

Stretches of the Avenue--The Stretch of Tradition--Washington Arch--Old
Homes and Gardens--The Mews and MacDougal Alley--In the Fourth Decade--A
Genial Ruffian of the Olden Time--Sailor's Snug Harbor--The Miss Green
School--Andrew H. Green, John Fiske, John Bigelow, Elihu Root, and
Others as Teachers--The Brevoort Farm--The First Hotel of the Avenue--A
Romance of 1840--"Both Sides of the Avenue."

A snug little farm was the old Brevoort
Where cabbages grew of the choicest sort;
Full-headed, and generous, ample and fat,
In a queenly way on their stems they sat,
And there was boast of their genuine breed,
For from old Utrecht had come their seed.
--_Gideon Tucker, "The Old Brevoort Farm."_

Passing under the Washington Arch, the march up the Avenue properly
begins. To commemorate the centenary of the inauguration of the nation's
first President a temporary arch was erected in the spring of 1889. The
original structure reached from corner to corner across Fifth Avenue,
opposite the Park, and the expense was borne by Mr. William Rhinelander
Stewart and other residents of Washington Square. It added so much to
the beauty of the entrance to the Avenue that steps were taken to make
it permanent, and the present Arch was the result of popular
subscription. One hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars was the cost
of the structure, which was designed by Stanford White. Comparatively
recent additions to the Arch are the two sculptured groups on northern
facade, to the right and left of the span. They are the work of H.A.