There is a little magazine published in New York designed to entertain and instruct those who view from the top of a bus of one of the various lines that are the outgrowth of the old Fifth Avenue stage line.  The magazine is called “From a Fifth Avenue Bus,” and a feature from month to month is the department known as “Both Sides of Fifth Avenue.”  In the stretch between the Square and Eleventh Street, it points out as residences of particular interest those of Paul Dana, No. 1, George T. Bestle, No. 3, F. Spencer Witherbee, No. 4, and Lispenard Stewart, No. 6; all below Eighth Street.  Then, between Eighth and Ninth, Pierre Mali, No. 8, John C. Eames, No. 12, Miss Abigail Burt, No. 14, Dr. J. Milton Mabbott, No. 17, Dr. Edward L. Partridge, No. 19, and Dr. Robert J. Kahn (former Mark Twain home), No. 21.  Between Ninth and Tenth, Charles De Rham, No. 24, Mrs. George Ethridge, No. 27, Mrs. Peter F. Collier, No. 29, and Edwin W. Coggeshall, No. 30.  On the next block, Frank B. Wiborg, No. 40, Gen. Rush Hawkins, No. 42, Miss Elsie Borg, No. 43, Howard Carter Dickinson, No. 45, Mrs. J.P.  Cassidy, No. 49, and William W. Thompkins, No. 68.  Besides the private residences are mentioned the Hotel Brevoort (the traditional name is used), the Berkeley at No. 20, and the Church of the Ascension, at Tenth Street, one of the very first of the Fifth Avenue churches, and the scene, on June 26, 1844, of the marriage of President John Tyler and Miss Julia Gardiner, the first marriage of a President of the United States during his term of office.  The church a block farther north, on the same side of the Avenue is the First Presbyterian, dating from 1845, when the congregation moved uptown from the earlier edifice on Wall Street, just east of New Street.

CHAPTER III

A Knickerbocker Pepys

A Knickerbocker Pepys—­The Span of a Life—­A Man of Many Responsibilities—­Storm and Stress—­Political Protestations—­Hone and the Journalists—­Contemporary Impressions of Bryant and Bennett—­Hone and the Men of Letters—­The Ways of British Lions.

There is one kind of immortality that is not so much a matter of amount and quality of achievement as of the particular period of achievement.  That, for example, of Samuel Pepys.

Pepys, living in the turbulent, densely populated London of our time, and recording day by day the events coming under his observation, would probably have his audience of posterity limited to a little circle of venerating descendants who would certainly bore the neighbours.  It is quite easy to picture the members of that circle in the year 1998, or 2024.  “Listen to what Grandpapa’s Diary says of the awful Zeppelin raids of February, 1917,” or, “But Great-grandpapa, who had just finished his walk in the Park, and was passing Downing Street when the news came, etc.”  “Il est fatiguant,” whispered Mr. St. John of General Webb at one of the dinners in “Henry Esmond,” “avec sa trompette de Wynandael.”  That persistent blowing of the “trompette” of grandpapa would likewise be voted “fatiguant.”  “Grandpapa!  A plague upon their grandpapa!”