gazing through glass at Fifth Avenue, and I ventured to say to him,
"There are fine women on Fifth Avenue." "By Jove!" he exclaimed, with
deep conviction, and his eyes suddenly fired, "there are!" On the whole,
I think that, in their carriages or on their feet, they know a little
better how to do justice to a fine thoroughfare than the women of any
other capital in my acquaintance. I have driven rapidly in a fast car,
clinging to my hat and my hair against the New York wind, from one end
of Fifth Avenue to the other, and what with the sunshine, and the flags
wildly waving in the sunshine, and the blue sky and the cornices jutting
into it and the roofs scraping it, and the large whiteness of the
stores, and the invitation of the signs, and the display of the windows,
and the swift sinuousness of the other cars, and the proud opposing
processions of American subjects--what with all this and with the
supreme imperialism of the mounted policeman, I have been positively
intoxicated!

And yet possibly the greatest moment in the life of Fifth Avenue is at
dusk, when dusk falls at tea-time. The street lamps flicker into a
steady, steely blue, and the windows of the hotels and restaurants throw
a yellow radiance; all the shops--especially the jewelers' shops--become
enchanted treasure-houses, whose interiors recede away behind their
façades into infinity; and the endless files of innumerable vehicles,
interlacing and swerving, put forth each a pair of glittering eyes. Come
suddenly upon it all, from the leafy fastnesses of Central Park, round
the corner from the Plaza Hotel, and wait your turn until the arm of the
policeman, whose blue coat is now whitened with dust, permits your
restive chauffeur to plunge down into the main currents of the city....
You will have then the most grandiose impression that New York is, in
fact, inhabited; and that even though the spectacular luxury of New York
be nearly as much founded upon social injustice and poverty as any