very-day sort
of a man. He carries about him in his manner and conversation more of
the sailor than the author, has nothing student-like in his appearance,
and savours more of the binnacle lamp than of the study." And again, six
months after the Lewistown flare-up: "It would have been better for both
parties if the sailor author had been known on this side of the Atlantic
only by his writings ... he has evidently not enjoyed the benefits of
refined society, or intercourse with people of literary talents."

The Knickerbocker Pepys grew mellower as he advanced in years. There is
a marked change in the tone of the Diary dating from the very time when
he himself suffered financial reverses. It was the test of the man that
misfortune did not embitter him, but made him more kindly in his
judgments of those about him. The smug self-satisfaction belonged to
the early days. In the closing years of his useful life there was but
one thing that disturbed him greatly. He foresaw the Deluge that was to
come. December 12, 1850, was his last Thanksgiving. He wrote: "The
annual time-honoured Thanksgiving-day throughout the state. No nation,
ancient or modern, ever had more causes for thanksgiving, and reasons to
praise the Author of all good, than the people of the United States. Yet
there are many, at the present time, ignorant and unworthy of the
blessings they enjoy, who would throw all things into confusion, break
up the blessed Union which binds the States, and should bind the
individuals forming their population; who would destroy the harmony, and
condemn the obligations, of Constitution and law. Factionists, traitors,
madmen--the Lord preserve us from the unholy influence of such
principles!"

CHAPTER IV

_Glimpses of the Sixties_

Glimpses of the Sixties--At the "Sign of the Buck-horn"--Madison Square
in Civil War Times--A Contemporary Chronicler--Mushroom
Fortunes--Foreign Adventurers--Filling the Ballroom--Brown of Grace
Church--Sunshine and Shadow--The Avenue and the Five Points--The Old
Bowery--Blackmail--The Haunts of Chance--Two Famous Poems, William Allen
Butler's "Nothing to Wear," and Edmund Clarence Stedman's "The Diamond
Wedding."

It seems but yesterday that the old Fifth Avenue Hotel passed to the
limbo of bygone things. When "Victoria's Royal Son" came to visit us it
was new and stately, and held by loyal patriots to be something for
strangers from beyond the seas to behold and wonder at. But before