F 128 •^^^14 Castle Solitude Copy 1 Tn the metropolis A STUDY IN SOCIAL SCIENCE By KARL KRON AuTHOK OF "Four Years at Yale, by a Graduate of '69 ' PRICE, twenty-five CENTS, POSTPAID Copyrighted, 1884, as a Chapter in " Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle ' PUBLISHED BY KARL KROX THE UNIVERSITY BUILDING, WASHINGTON SQUARE NEW VORK 1888 BRIEFS FROM THE REVIEWERS. Taking all things into consideration, strong and weak points alike, we believe that the author has most faithfully kept his promise and that " Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle " will always hold the undisputed place of the first great work on the subject of cycling, Ijearing to all wheelmen that rela- tion that Isaac Walton's Complete Angler bears to fishermen, the world over. — IVkeelmen's R<:corJ, Indianapolis. An olla podrida of endless variety. — Scientific American. As comprehen- sive as a file of newspajjers. — Baltimore American. Most useful to those wishing such information. — Tlie Times, N. Y. Invaluable to one contemplat- ing a tour. — The Bicycle South. A valuable encyclopaedia, well worth the price asked for it. — L. A. IV. Bulletin. For the public it seeks it will be a handy volume. — The A'ation, N'. Y. Invaluable to all who follow in his footsteps, or wheel-tracks. — Lippincott^s Maj^azine. Those who are just beginning the sport will find it a work of . absorbing interest. — N'ew Englander. Although a veritable cycling encyclopaedia, it is really of especial value to all horse- men who drive for pleasure. — Spirit of the Times, N. Y. This manual will prove indispensable to the wheelman. It is most valuable to the bicycler who has time for riding long distances. — Boston Advertiser. The chief characteristic is its comprehensiveness. — Canadian Wheelman. Unique in literature and unsurpassed in its line. — McGregor iVews, la. The largest and most complete work on cycling ever published. — The Cyclist, Coi'enfry, Eng. The most thorough book that any recreative sport has ever had published. — Boonvillc Advertiser, Mo. Not alone unique, but prodigious; this monument of cycling n'lnst stand. — Anstrali^m Cycling N^e^vs. A really wonderful work, the first classic of cycling literature. — JFheeling, London. The work will stand as " the Domesday Book of Cycling." — Sezaiug Machine &= Cycle News, London.. As an insight into American cycling, the volume is very valuable. — Irish Cyclist 6^ Athlete, Dublin. Statistical and- historical, amusing and pathetic, it has charms for every reader. — Saturday Night, Bir- mingham, Eng. Whatever has been said in way of praise of this book, by the wheel literature of the world, is well merited. — New Zealand' Referee. A masterpiece of egotism. — Pall Mall Gazette, London. The most ridic- ulous book of the season. — Philadelphia Press. His individuality has asserted itself, and some of his literary excursions are exquisite. — Hartford Courant. A monument only to be compared with Webster's Dictionary or the Great Pyramid. — The Bookmart, Pittsburg. One of the most worthless volumes ever written ; it is the work of an idiot, not of a sane man. — Boston Herald. Cyclists of all nations may get from it many useful "wrinkles." To Ameri- cans, especially, it will be invaluable and almost indispensable. The author is a genial and kindly philosopher, who makes no false or undue pretensions of any kind. — The Saturday Re^new, London. An autobiography of a sin- gularly self-sufficient mediocrity; a faddist of the worst order; an egotistical nonentity; a gigantic sham; the self-confessed committer of every literary crime. — Bicycling News, London organ of" the Coventry ring" D3 Castle Solitude IN THE METROPOLIS A STUDY IN SOCIAL SCIENCE Bv KARL KRON Author of "Four Years at Yale, by a Graduate of '69 " PRICE, TWENTY-FIVE CENTS, POSTPAID Copyrighted, 18S4, as a Chapter in "Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle" PUBLISHED BY KARL KRON THE UNIVERSITY BUILDING, WASHINGTON SQUARE NEW YORK (F) ADVERTISEMENT OF ''CASTLE SOLITUDEr Competent critics of that monumental volume have given a favorable ver- dict on this chapter of it, and their comments are now presented as a preface to the present pamphlet. Several of them say, however, that, though interesting enough to deserve buying on its own account, the act of inserting it in such a book was hardly a proper one, because of its irrelevancy to the main purpose thereof. They thus ignore the fact that it could not have been profitably printed in any other way, — since it is too long to be available for magazine use, and too limited in scope for wide circulation as an independent book. Having, as publisher, staked $12,000 on the first edition of the book (in the hope of so thoroughly pleasing my 3000 " copartners " in all quarters of the globe that they will force a demand for later editions until the total sale reaches 30,000 copies), the main problem before me was to get my money back. If the insertion of a few extraneous chapters seemed conducive to this, — because allowing a readable and amusing style of literary treatment, which the nature of the subject forbade in the bulk of the book, — I certainly had a right to insert them. As I remark in the preface to the companion reprint, "Curl," in answer to a similar criticism of irrelevancy, " A good dog-story is always in order." If Artemus Ward was right in declaring, " It isn't a bad idea for a comic paper to print a joke, once in a while," surely the compiler of a cycling encyclopaedia need not be condemned for presuming to enliven it with a few really readable chapters. " As almost all books are written as a matter of vanity, I fear few jjeo- ple will believe me when I declare that this one is written as a matter of busi- ness ; and that its chief significance, so far as concerns the outside world, is as a unique business enterprise rather than as a literary curiosity. I have a right to insist that the solid phalanx of 3000 advance subscribers, represent- ing every State and Territory of the Union and almost every section of Europe and Australasia, shall never be ignored in the judgment of any one who assumes fairly to judge the book which has been produced by their encour- agement. Unless denial be made in advance that I have any right to persuade these people to serve me freely as book-agents, my mere attempt to jjlacate them, by showing the sort of person they are serving, cannot be condemned." Finally, if there is enough of interest in this sketch of the Castle to win the attention of college-bred men, as such, there is a chance of thus indirectly winning them to the cause of bicycling; and if there is any value in securing newspaper mention of my scheme for pushing a bicycle book round the world, there is an evident economy in sending to reviewers the two " literary " chapters of it (in an easily-read pamphlet edition, containing also specimens of the general text and the indexes), rather than the massive tome itself. Re- cipients of it have given a sutificiently favorable verdict, — as shown in the appendix of this pamphlet, — but in most cases there is the underlying senti- ment : " We cannot really be expected to review an encyclopaedia." THE PUBLISHER. Washington Square, N. Y., Jan. 24, 1888. S2 COMMENTS ON " CASTLE SOLITUDES It must be said that fair warning is given in the Preface, both in the text and conspicuously in the sub-headings, that this book was written for a special class — "for men who travel on the bicycle" — and that in general no effort has been made to make it readable. Whoever is fortunate enough to begin by reading this Preface may thus be prepared and propitiated for what follows; for it is very exhaustive and straightforward. But the usual point of beginning probably is at the first chapter, and that is decidedly well writ- ten and amusing — well calculated to hold the reader's attention to the end, and to raise expectations which the succeeding chapters, with two exceptions, will be likely to disappoint. One exception is the engaging story of the dog, and the other an interesting and pleasantly discursive history of the quaint old University Building on Washington Square, New York, a building at present inhabited chiefly by artists and college-bred men who value its re- markable seclusion and peculiar traditions. To many readers who might care little for the rest of the book, these two irrelevant chapters, together with the first, — the only ones which have much literary merit, — would be worth the price of all. — Boston Advertiser. For the general reader into whose hands the book may fall there are two chapters of a more literary character. "Curl, the Best of Bull-Dogs," an old pet of the author's, is honored by a humorous and sympathetic biog- raphy ; while the chapter entitled "Castle Solitude in the Metropolis " is an interesting study of Bohemian life in New York. — New Englander. We have been reading Karl Kron's great book slowly but surely, and can thoroughly recommend it. There are blemishes, of course, such as the multiplicity of detail introduced, but most of it is excellent, especially the chapter on "Curl." We shall review the volume later We have again been dipping into the great book, though the immense size of the mon- ster has as yet prevented us from grappling with the whole. Since we noticed the chapter on " The Best of Bull-Dogs," we have reached another equal to it in interest, styled "Castle Solitude in the Metropolis." What it or the Bull-dog have to say to cycling we know not, but both these chapters are full of interest as literary works. — Irish Cyclist &• Athlete, DtiNin. A very cleverly written sketch of queer life at the University Building. — Cape Ann Breeze, J\Iass. Two chapters of the book — one devoted to the biography of Curl, " My Bull-Dorg, the very best dog whose presence ever blessed this planet " (to whose memory the book is dedicated), the other, called "Castle Solitude in the Metropolis," and giving an account of life in the New York University building — seem quite irrelevant to the volume's purpose and to be introduced without sufficient reason. — The Nation, A''. Y. Last Tuesday, our Financier became a hopeless ruin, with water welling from his gentle eyes. He loves dogs, does the Financier, and he had read Karl Kron's chapter on " Curl," and after his guffaws had assembled a kind of Derby Day crowd under the windows, he fell a-crying. — Wheeling, London. (L) COMMENTS ON ''CASTLE SOLITUDE:' To the non-rider there is much of interest, sometimes whole chapters, such as the one called " Castle Solitude in the Metropolis," and at other points very readable and suggestive pages. — St. Louis Spectator. Kron is careful to assure his readers that he does not crave a " literary " reputation, yet, although he has carried compression to the point of eliminat- ing every " Mr.," he inflicts two long and utterly irrelevant chapters, one about his dog, the other about the University Building. — T/i^ Epoch, N. Y. Karl Kron gives a chapter to the cryptic building on Washington Square wherein was laid the scene of " Cecil Dreeme " ; and no one can grudge the score of pages devoted to the humors and virtues of a companion of his boy- hood, to wit, a bull-dog. This is the only portion of the book done with any literary skill. The rest is in excellent guide-book style, and derives its virtue from its correctness and its mass. — The Times, N. Y. What this extraordinary gem has to do with cycling it is difficult to dis- cover, but those condemned for their sins to peruse this work will welcome the restful pause which it affords. "Castle Solitude" belongs to the same category as "Curl's" biography, though of less merit, as being more labored and artificial. These two chapters are like the much-quoted flies in amber, with '. modification : — " neither rich nor rare. One only wonders 'how the devil they got there.' " — Bicycling N'ews, London organ of ''the Coventry ring." " Curl " and " Castle Solitude in the Metropolis " are well worth read- ing, but of doubtful appropriateness in " a book of American roads." — IVhect/ncn's Gazette, Indianapolis. We have perused three or four of its chapters (from advance sheets) with the greatest pleasure, — being particularly impressed with the one which contains the biography of "Curl," a pet bull-dog to whom the book is dedi- cated and whose heliotype forms its frontisjiiece. — Tricycling Journal, London. The author's style may be sampled from the dedication of the book, "To the Memory of My Bull-Dorg," &c. — Neivark Advertiser, N.J. The general reader is quite as likely as the cycling reader to be amused by what I have said in these two extraneous chapters concerning the dear dog that I loved and the queer house that I live in. — Author''s Preface. The portions of the book that I most particularly liked were, first of all, the opening chapter, " On the Wheel," which I consider the masterjiiece ; then the chapters on " Curl," " White Flannel and Nickel Plate," " Castle Solitude," " Bermuda " and " Bone-Shaker Days," — preference given according to the order named. The extraneous chapters are certainly amusing. All lovers of the dog must like to read the chapter on " Curl," — and who is there that does not love a dog } I think one could find a greater number who do not love their own race. I should have preferred the author's picture instead of Curl's as a frontispiece, but of course acknowledge the author's right to keep his face from becoming familiar to the public— _/.y. B., San Francisco. (M) COMPLIMENTS FOR " CURW The unique frontispiece of "Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle," — a clip- ped-eared bull-dog, done by the new process called photogravure, — is some- thing of a surprise in a book on such a subject, and the question as to its meaning is not answered by reference to some 20 pages of the dog's biogra- phy to which attention is called. The volume is inscribed to the memory of "the very best dog whose presence ever blessed this planet." Well, he cer- tainly does not look it, but the account of his life — and death — is the very best thing, from a literary point of view, in a volume of 900 pages. It is capital in itself, but its excellence must be the chief reason for its appearance in the midst of a tedious record of roads and journeys with which it has no sort of connection. That the dog thus immortalized was a great favorite of the author's in his youth, and that the author himself is popular with wheel- men and now avowedly wishes to make money upon his popularity, are facts hardly sufificient to justify the insertion of such a sketch in the body of a work so different in style and purpose. It is a piece of egotism that by no means stands alone. Yet, in view of the great quantity of matter here con- densed and classified, the picture of the bull-dog which embellishes the first page, would seem to be a fitting emblem of the perseverance with which the author has pushed to completion his three years' task. — Boston Advertiser. The extraordinary author dedicates his work to " The Memory of My Bull-Dorg." — Boston Post. The dedication of the book to the author's bull-dog may have merit as a sentimental freak, but it is a literary execration. — McGi-egor A'eius, la. The author is possessed of a vein of smart American humor, which illu- minates the dry text of his book from beginning to end. In places, such as the inimitable chapter devoted to his bull-dog " Curl," he soars to a pitch which reminds the reader very forcibly of Mark Twain and Max Adeler; and the cyclist who loves his dog will read this chapter over more than once. To " Curl," whose noble and expressive features act as frontispiece, the book is dedicated, and there is a certain pathos in the selection. — Wheelinq; London. Admirers of dogs, and of out-door sports, will take kindly to the book. — Neiv Orleans Picaytcne. " Curl " and " Castle Solitude in the Metropolis " are well worth read- ing, but of doubtful appropriateness in " a book of American roads." — IV/iee/men^s Gazette, Indianapolis. A frontispiece, representing the head of a particularly ill-favored bull- dog, to whose memory the book is lovingly dedicated, forewarns the reader that the intellectual rambles of a bicycler did not necessarily share in the directness and regularity of his routes. The claim of this pet dog to public notice is not clearly established ; but his interesting physiognomy, confront- ing the reader, in some measure compels a perusal of the chapter devoted to the uneventful career of the animal ; and the theme apparently draws out the author's best literary powers. — Alia California, San Francisco. (J) TITLES OF THE 42 CHAPTERS. "Ten T/iousand Jtiles on a Bicycle " (908 pages of 675,000 words ; pub. May 25, 1887; price $2) is characterized as "A Gazetteer of Anterican Roads in Many States; an En- cyclopcedia of Wheeling Progress in Many Countries^ Of its 20 local indexes, the chief one gives 8418 references to 3482 towns ; and its chief personal index gives 3126 references to 1476 individuals. There are 1555 subjects catalogued in its general index, with 3330 references, and its table-of-contents shows 857 descriptive head-lines to principal paragraphs. An idea of the book's general scope, and of the regions and subjects to which it gives greatest prominence, may be gained by inspecting the titles of its 41 chapters, which stand as follows: On the Wheel (essay) — After Beer (verse) — White Flannel and Xickel Plate — A Birthday Fantasie (verse) — Four Seasons on a Fort~\'-Six — Columbia, No. 234 — My 234 Rides on " Ko. 234 " — Around New York — Out From Boston — The Environs OF Springfield — Shore and Hilltop i.n Connecticut — Lo.ng Island and Staten Island — Coasting o.v the Jersey Hills — Lake George and the Hudson — The Erie Canal and Lake Erie — Niagara and Some Lesser Waterfalls — Along the Poto- mac — Kentucky and its Mammoth Cave — Wi.vter Wheeling — In the Down East Fogs — Nova Scotia and the Isl.\nd3 Beyond — Straightaway for Forty Days — A Fortnight is Ontario — From the Thousand Isla.nds to the Natural Bridge — The Coral Reefs of Bermud.a — Bull Run, Lur.\y Cavern and Gettysburg — Bone- shaker Days — Curl, the Best of Bull-Dogs — Castle Solitude i.n the Metropolis — Long-Distance Routes and Riders — Statistics from the Veterans — British and Colonial Records — Australasian Reports — Summ.\ry by States — The Transpor- tation Tax — The Hotel Question — The League of American Wheelme.v — Mi.nor Cycling Institutions — Literature of the Wheel — This Book of Mine, and the Next — The Three Thousand Subscribers — Directory of Wheelmen — The Last Word (verse). These chapters cover 8do pp. of 585,000 words ; the Preface and .Addenda, 33 pp. of 27,000 words ; and the Indexes, 75 pp. "Ten Thousatul Jtiles on a Sicycle " h^s been produced at an exp>ense consid- erably in excess of $12,000 (representing a cash outlay of $6200, and four years' ail-absorbing work). It will not be exposed at the bookstores, but an ultimate sale of 30,000 copies will be enforced by the unpaid efforts of the 3000 " co-partners " whose subscriptions combined to cause its publication. In more than 150 of the 852 towns represented on the subscription list, volun- teer agents of this sort have consented to serve regularly as depositaries. A circular containing their names will be mailed on application. The chief agencies are as follows : Sew Tork, 12 Warren st., 313 W. 58th St., 49 Cortlandt st. : Boston, 79 Franklin St., 309 Tremont St., 107 Washington st. ; Baltimore, 2 & 4 Hanover st. ; Buffalo, 5S5 Main st. ; Chicago, 291 Wabash ave., 222 N. Franklin st., 108 Madison St., 77 State st. : Cincinnati, 6 E. 4th st. ; CleTeland, 1222 Euclid ave.; Indianapolis, office of lyheelmen's Gazette, Sentinel Building: Xewark. Broad & Bridge sts. ; Xew Orleans, 115 Canal st. : Philadelphia, Sii Arch st. ; Portland. Or., 145 Fifth St. ; St. LoniS, 310 N. Eleventh st. : San Francisco, 228 Phelan Building; Wa.sh- ington, 1713 New York ave. BHabc to •»MC 6i4 ?)lli.. dv+tfvor a>vi> Sufi^oPier. XXIX. CASTLE SOLITUDE IN THE METROPOLIS.^ That subtle essence which, in lack of a more graphic term, we call " character," though it is sufficiently rare among men, and rarer yet among women, is rarest of all among the buildings which the human race erect for their habitations. However greatly the houses of men may differ in size or architecture, — in outward appearance or inner arrangement, — one house is apt to be very much like another in its lack of inherent distinctiveness. The reader must be a very exceptional and widely-traveled person if he can recall as many as a dozen abodes which have impressed him as endowed with a genuine individuality, — as having a nature essentially different from that of every other house in the world. It is within the experience of al- most every one to occasionally meet with a man whose peculiar traits and end.''wments create this impression, that he is the only one of his kind that ever existed or ever could exist; but an inanimate building possessed of this indescribable attribute of " character " is so rare an object — especially in a new country like America — that I presume a great majority of the people whose lives have been spent here have never formed the acquaint- ance of even one such specimen. Grotesque and singular mansions, whose exact types of grandeur or ugliness or absurdity are known to be unique, may be found on both slopes of the continent; but they all afflict the nos- trils with so strong an odor of fresh paint and varnish as to render them in a moral sense quite colorless. " Character " is a product of age and ex- perience, and it can no more be attached to a house by artificial process than a " moss-grown, historic ruin " can be incorporated into a landscape by contract with the nearest stone-cutter. London is to me the most interesting city in the world, because of the amount of "character" which seems to have accumulated there as a gift of all the ages. It is this, I take it, which gives the touch of truth to Dr. Johnson's oft-quoted remark to the effect that it is all things to all men ; that each individual's conception of it reflects his own nature ; that it is a city of banks, or a city of book-shops, or a city of taverns, or a city of horse- markets, or a city of theaters, or a city of a hundred other things, according to one's personal point-of-view. The Modern Babylon is certainly the only inhabited spot in Europe where a man may mind his own business, and iso late himself almost as completely from observation as if in a desert solitude. The fact that it contains more people than the cities of Paris, Berlin, Vienna, 'Copyrighted, 1S84, as Chapter XXIX of " Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle." CASTLE SOLITUDE LN THE METROPOLIS. 3 Rome, Dresden and Turin combined, suggests " the boundless contiguity of siiade " that renders possible a degree of seclusion which is quite unat- tainable in those lesser cities. The immensity of London was the charac- teristic of it which never left my consciousness during the half-year that it was my good-fortune to be hidden there, — without once setting eyes upon a single personal acquaintance ; and I do not pretend that my persistent ex- plorations of its mysteries revealed to me a one-hundredth part of them. I know that there are secret chambers, in the " inns-of-court " and other se- cluded buildings, where men may live peacefully for years without having their existence or their daily movements known to more than a very few people. But I am confident that there is no place in London where the habit of bodily self-suppression can be maintained with such a degree of complete- ness as is possible to tenants of a certain Building in America whose phe- nomenal queerness it is my present object to exhibit and explain. The two millions of people who dwell upon Manhattan Island and the opposite shores — though equal in number to the combined inhabitants of Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston and Baltimore — form but a twenty-fifth part of the nation's population, whereas a fifth of all the people of England are concentrated at London. Nevertheless, New York is the exact counterpart of the latter city in respect to the obliteration of the sense of locality. It is certainly the only inhabited spot in the western hemisphere where a man is allowed to live as he likes, without question, or criticism or notice from his next-door neighbor. I have visited all but two of the other twenty cities here which have a population in excess of a hundred thousand ; and I know it is not possible for even the obscurest person to live as much as a week in any one of them without attracting remark or recognition. No visitor who walks along Broadway, or any other great thoroughfare of the metropolis, can fail to feel impressed, if not oppressed, by his own relative insignificance to the mass, in a far more intense degree than he is ever conscious of when elsewhere. An entire change in the moral atmosphere, — a subtle sense of greater strangeness, and remoteness, and "unhumanity" in the active life around him, — must be perceptible to any one who comes here after visiting a smaller city. This metropolitan characteristic of indifference and imperson- ality is appreciatively shown by a certain accomplished Bostonian, when he describes, as a part of his "midsummer day's dream of 97° in the shade," the business-like and effective, but entirely unsympathetic, way in which the wants of a victim of sun-stroke were attended to in a Broadway drug-store ; " Did you see how the people looked, one after another, so indifferently at that couple, and evidently forgot them the next histant ? It was dreadful. I shouldn't like to have _><«< sun- struck in New York." " That 's very considerate of you ; but, place for place, if any accident must happen to me among strangers, I think I should prefer to have it in New York. The biggest place is always the kindest as well as the crudest place. Amongst the thousands of spectators the Good Samaritan as well as the Levite would be sure to be. As for a sun-stroke, it requires peculiar gifts. But if you compel me to a choice in the matter, then I say, give me the busiest part of Broadway for a sun-stroke. There is such experience of calamity there that 4 TEN THOUSAND MILES ON A BICYCLE. you could hardly fall the first victim of any misfortune. Probably the gentleman at the apothe- cary's was merely exhausted by the heat, and ran in there for revival. The apothecary has a case of the kind on his hands every blazing afternoon, and knows just what to do. The crowd may be a little enmiyt of sun-strokes, and to that degree indiflferent, but they most likely know that they can only do harm by an expression of sympathy, and so they delegate their pity as they have delegated their helpfulness to the proper authority, and go about their business. If a man was overcome in the middle of a village .street, the blundering country druggist would n't know what to do, and the tender-hearted people would crowd about so that no breath of air cou'.d reach the victim." — "Their Wedding Journey," by W. D. Howells, 1871, pp. 53, 54. Now, in just the same unique degree that New York is distinguished above all other American cities for the lightness of its " social pressure," so is the particular Building which I have in mind to describe distinguished above all other abodes in New York. It offers the nearest approximation to a home of perfect individual liberty that has ever been heard of outside of a wilderness. I have said that nothing comparable to it is contained in Lon- don, — which is the only European city where the existence of its counterpart could be conceived of as possible, — and I insist upon again designating it as the freest place to be found anywhere — not simply in free America but on the whole habitable globe. So singular a structure could not well survive the sto"" IS of fifty years without attracting the notice of the story-tellers; and one of them made it serve effectively as the scene of a society novel. I quote his descriptions, written a quarter of a century ago, as showing with almost literal truthfulness the facts of to-day : " There's not such another Rubbish Palace in America," said he, as we left the Chuzzle- wit [New York Hotel] by the side door on Mannering [Waverley] Place and descended from Broadway as far as Ailanthus Square. On the comer, fronting that mean, shabby enclosure, Stillfleet pointed out a huge granite or rough marble building. " There I live," said he. " It 's not a jail, as you might suppose from its grimmish aspect. Not an Asylum. Not a Retreat. No lunatics, that I know of, kept there, nor anything myste- rious, guilty, or out of the way." " Chrysalis College, is it not? " " You have not forgotten its monastic phiz ?" "No; I remember the sham convent, .sham castle, modem-antique affair. But how do you happen to be quartered there ? Is the college defunct ? " " Not defunct ; only without vitality. The Trustees fancied that, if they built roomy, their college would be populous; if they built marble, it would be permanent ; if they built Gothic, it would be scholastic and medieval in its mfluences ; if they had narrow, mullioned windows, not too much disorganizing modern thought would penetrate." " Well, and what was the result ? " " The result is that the old nickname of Chrysalis sticks to it, and whatever real name it may have is forgotten. There it stands, big, battlemented, buttressed, marble, with windows like crenelles ; and inside they keep up the traditional methods of education." " But pupils don't beleaguer it ? " "That is the blunt fact. It stays an ineffectual high-low school. The halls and lecture- rooms would stand vacant, so they let them to lodgers." " You are not very grateful to your landlords." " I pay my rent and have a right to criticise." " Who live there besides you ? " " Several artists, a brace of young doctors, one or two quiet men-about-town, Churm, ar.d myself. But here we are, I'yng, at the grand portal of the grand front." " I see the front and the door. Where is the grandeur? " " Don't put on airs, stranger. We call this imposing, magniflque, in short, pretty good. CASTLE SOLITUDE IN THE METROPOLIS. 5 Up goes your nose ! You have lived too long in Florence. Brunelleschi and Giotto have spoilt you. Well, I will show you something better inside. Follow me ! " We entered the edifice, half college, half lodging-house, through a large doorway, under a pointed arch. The interior was singularly iil-contrived. A lobby opened at the door, communi- cating with a dim corridor running through the middle of the building, jjarallel to the front. A fan-tracery vaulting of plaster, peeled and crumbling, ceiled the lobby. A marble stairway, with iron hand-rails, went squarely and clumsily up from the door, nearly filling the lobby. Stillfleet led the way upstairs. He pointed to the fan-tracery. " This of course reminds you of King's College Chapel," said he. " Entirely," replied I. "Pity it is deciduous! " and I brushed off from my coat several flakes of its whitewash. The stairs landed us on the niain floor of the building. Another dimly lighted corridor, answermg to the one below, but loftier, ran from end to end of the building. This also was paved with marble tiles. Large Gothicish doors opened along on either side. The middle room on the rear of the corridor was two stories high, and served as chapel and lecture-room. On either side of this a narrow staircase climbed to the upper floors. By the half-light from the great window over the doorway where we had entered, and from a single mullioned window at the northern end of the corridor, there was a bastard mediavalism of effect in Chrysalis, rather welcome after the bald red-brick houses without. " How do you like it ? " asked Stillfleet. " It's not old enough to be romantic. But then it does not smell of new paint, as the rest of America does." We turned up the echoing corridor toward the north window. We passed a side staircase and a heavily padlocked door on the right. On the left was a class-room. The door was open. We could see a swarm of collegians buzzing for such drops of the honey of learning as they could get from a lank plant of a professor. We stopped at the farther door on the right, adjoining the one so carefully padlocked. It bore my friend's plate. Stillfleet drew a great key, aimed at the keyhole and snapped the bolt, all with a mysterious and theatrical air. " Shut your eyes now, and enter into Rubbish Palace ! " exclaimed he, leading me several steps forward before he commanded " Open sesame ! " "Where am I?" I cried, staring about in surprise. "This is magic, phantasmagoria, Harry. Outside was the nineteenth century ; here is the fifteenth. When I shut my eyes, I was in a seedy building in a busy modern town. I open them, and here I am in the Palazzo Sforza of an old Italian city, in the great chamber where there was love and hate, passion and despair, revelry and poison, long before Columbus cracked the egg." " It is a rather rum old place," said Stillfleet, twisting his third mustache, and enjoying my surprise. " You call it thirty feet square and seventeen high? Built for some grand college purpose, I suppose ? " "As a hall, I believe, for the dons to receive lions in on great occasions. But lions and great occasions never came. So I have inherited. It is the old story. Sic vos 7ion vobis cedificatis cedes. How do you like it? Not too somber, eh? with only those two narrow windows open- ing north ? " " Certainly not too somber. I don't want the remorseless day staring in upon my studies. How do I like it? Enormously. The place is a romance. It is Dantesque, Byronic, Victor Hugoish. I shall be sure of rich old morbid fancies under this ceiling, with its frescoed arabesques, faded and crumbling. But what use has Densdeth for the dark room with the padlocked door, next to yours ? — here, too, in this public privacy of Chrysalis ? " " The publicity makes privacy. Densdeth says it is his store-room for booksand furniture. ' " Well, why not ? You speak incredulously." " Because there's a faint suspicion that he lies. The last janitor, an ex-servant of Densdeth's, is dead. None now is allowed to enter there except the owner's own man, a horrid black creature. He opens the door cautiously, and a curtain appears. He closes the door before he lifts it. Densdeth may pestle poisons, grind stillettos, sweat eagles, revel by gas-light there. What do I know ? " " You are not inquisitive, then, in Chrysalis? " " No. We have no coticierge by the street-door to spy ourselves or our visitors. We can live here in completer privacy than anywhere in Christendom. Daggeroni, De Bogus, or Mademoiselle des Mollets might rendezvous with my neighbor, and I never be the wiser." — "Cecil Dreeme," by Theodore Winthrop, 1861, pp. 32-42 (N. Y. : H. Holt, 1876, pp. 360). 6 TEN THOUSAND MILES ON A BICYCLE. That final paragraph is the most significant one of the entire qiDted de- scription, for it can be applied with similar truthfulness to no other habila- tion on the planet ; but, before attempting any commentary on the words of the novelist, I wish to compare w-ith them the words which other well-in- formed writers have printed, beginning with those of the present editor of the Atlantic Monthly. They appeared a half-decade later than the novel, in a series of sketches which he prepared concerning the young artists of New York for a youths' magazine. He was then not quite thirty years old. An ill-drawn northwest view of the University accompanied one of his articles, and a well-drawn picture of an artist's chamber therein embellished the other : Trades of a feather, like the birds, are fond of flocking together, and have a habit of light- ing on particular spots without any particular reason for so doing. Our friends, the artists, possess the same social tendencies, and, in the selection of their studios, often display the same eccentricity. We shall never be able to understand why eight or ten of these pleasant fellows have located themselves in the New York University. There isn't a more gloomy structure outside of one of Mrs. Radcliffe's romances ; and we hold that few men could pass a week in those lugubrious chambers without adding a morbid streak to their natures, — the present genial inmates to the contrary notwithstanding. There is something himian in the changes which come over houses. Many of them keep up their respectability for a long period, and ripen gradually into ■ cheery, dignified old-age ; even if they become dilapidated and threadbare, you see at once that they are gentlemen, in spite of their shabby coats. Other buildings appear to suffer disappointments in life, and grow saturnine, and, if they happen to be the scene of some tragedy, they seem never to forget it. Something about them tells you, " As plain as whisper in the ear, the place is haunted." The University is one of those buildings that have lost their enthusiasm. It is dingy and despondent, and doesn't care. It lifts its raachicolated tiu-rets above the tree tops of Washing- ton Square with an air of forlorn indifference. Summer or winter, fog, snow, or sunshine, — they are all one to this dreary old pile. It ought to be a cheerful place, just as some morose people ought to be light-hearted, having everything to render them so. The edifice faces a beautiful park, full of fine old trees, and enlivened by one coffee-colored squirrel, who generously tnakes himself visible for nearly half an hour once every summer. As we write, his advent is an.xiously expected, the fountain is singing a silvery prelude, and the blossoms are flaunting themselves under the very nose, if we may say it, of the University. But it refuses to be merry, looming up there stiff and repellant, with the soft spring gales fanning its weather-beaten turrets, — an archi- tectural example of ingratitude. Mr. Longfellow says that "All houses wherein men have lived and died are haunted houses." In one of those same turrets, many years ago, a young artist grew very weary of this life. Per- haps his melancholy spirit still pervades the dusty chambers, goes wearily up and down the badly-lighted staircases, as he used to do in the flesh. If so, that is what chills us, as we pass through the long uncarpeted halls, leading to the little nookery tenanted by Mr. Winslow Homer. The University is not monopolized by artists, however. The ground floor is used for a variety of purposes. We have an ill-defined idea that there is a classical school located somewhere on the premises, for we have now and then met files of spectral little boys, with tattered Latin grammars under their arms, gliding stealthily out of the somber doorway, and disappearing in the simshine. Several theological and scientific societies have their meetings here, and a literary club sometimes holds forth upstairs in a spacious lecture-room. Excepting the studios there is little to interest us, unless it be the locked apartment in wliich a whimsical virtuoso has stored a great quantity of curiosities, which he brought from Europe, years ago, and has since left to the mercy of the rats and m