honeycombed with narrow, teeming alleys, grimed with the
sediment of centuries, colored like old Stilton, and
smelling much worse. But where is there another Cottage
Grove avenue! Sylvan misnomer! A hideous street, and
sordid. A street of flat-wheeled cars, of delicatessen
shops and moving picture houses, of clanging bells, of
frowsy women, of men who dart around corners with pitchers,
their coat collars turned up to hide the absence of linen.
One day Fanny found herself at Fifty-first street, and there
before her lay Washington Park, with its gracious meadow,
its Italian garden, its rose walk, its lagoon, and drooping
willows. But then, that was Chicago. All contrast. The
Illinois Central railroad puffed contemptuous cinders into
the great blue lake. And almost in the shadow of the City
Hall nestled Bath-House John's groggery.

Michigan Avenue fascinated her most. Here was a street
developing before one's eyes. To walk on it was like
being present at a birth. It is one of the few streets in
the world. New York has two, Paris a hundred, London none,
Vienna one. Berlin, before the war, knew that no one walked
Unter den Linden but American tourists and German
shopkeepers from the provinces, with their fat wives. But
this Michigan Boulevard, unfinished as Chicago itself,
shifting and changing daily, still manages to take on a
certain form and rugged beauty. It has about it a gracious
breadth. As you turn into it from the crash and thunder of
Wabash there comes to you a sense of peace. That's the
sweep of it, and the lake just beyond, for Michigan avenue
is a one-side street. It's west side is a sheer mountain