Curzon Street

“ In the succeeding reign of James I., the high ruff worn by males was styled a piccadilly, though the lace had disappeared from its edge. Curzon Street was named after George Augustus Curzon, third Viscount Howe, the ground landlord. Charles Street and Queen Street were first built upon in the reign of Charles II., in honour of whom and his queen they were designated. Shepherd Street, Shepherd’s Market, and Market Street faithfully preserve the memory of the owner of the land upon which the ancient “May Fair” was held. ”

“ A tall, strikingly handsome man, with the face of a patrician and the shoulders of an athlete, Curzon Street—or such of the street as took the slightest notice of anything—observed him to be extremely well dressed on all occasions. ”

“ Shepherd’s Market is, in fine, a collection of lively odours bounded on the north side by Curzon Street, on the south by Piccadilly, on the west by Hertford Street, and on the east by Half-Moon Street; and rejoices, therefore, in the polite direction of Mayfair, as you will see printed on the notepaper of any of its residents. A flower-shop which was opened in our lane lived for only six months, and that in spite of the gardenia gallantly affected by{14} the old nobleman from Curzon Street every day. ”

“ Many men and many women prominent in the life of London have lived in houses looking upon this Square during its two hundred years of existence.
Mayfair, an aristocratic residential section of London, has Bond Street and Park Lane on the east and west; with Piccadilly and Oxford Street on the south and north. It is named for a fair held where Shepherd's Market is now in each May until about the middle of the 18th century.
[Pg 149]
Through the Mayfair district stretches Curzon Street named for the third Viscount Howe—George Augustus Curzon ”

“ The whole neighbourhood, indeed, is full of memories of old days when life in London was totally different from that of the present time—witness the stout iron bar which stands in the doorway of Lansdowne Passage in Berkeley Street. This was put up to hamper highwaymen, one of these gentry having effected his escape after a robbery in Piccadilly by galloping through the passage from Curzon Street, his horse successfully negotiating the steps. ”

“ So many illustrious people have lived and died in Curzon Street that pages might easily be filled with their names; but a few must here suffice, and appropriately, as living once at [Pg 132] No. 1, since demolished, I find that great actress, Madame Vestris; and at No. ”

“ On the lower rungs of the political ladder it is in the debating society, at the street corner, in clubs, and on platforms that the ambitious artisan acquires the training which takes him from the secretaryship of his Union to the Town Council, from the latter to the House of Commons, and from the back benches to the front. ”

“ Foul slums there are in the East End, of course, as there are in the West; want and misery there are, as wherever a host is gathered together to fight for food. But they are not often spectacular in kind.
Of this street there are about one hundred and fifty yards—on the same pattern all. It is not pretty to look at. A dingy little brick house twenty feet high, with three square holes to carry the windows, and an oblong hole to carry the door, is not a pleasing object; and each side of this street is formed by two or three score of such houses in a row, with one front wall in common. ”

“ Many more are the names that might be mentioned, for the street has ever been a magnet, and even those who toil in the attics of Bohemia find their way here, in the hours of leisure, to see and to be observed. Grub Street has assumed the garments of propriety, and shorn itself of its long hair, and in the prosperous, well-dressed throng that surges up and down the Fifth Avenue pavement, its denizens pass to and fro, no longer shyly, furtively, and conspicuously out of place, but with the easy assurance of those who are "to the manor born." ”

“ Each different district of the city is separated from the adjoining one by strong gates at the end of the streets: these are all closed at night, and are guarded by a drowsy old man with a long beard, who acts as porter, and who is roused with difficulty by the promise of a small coin when any one wants to pass. These gates contribute greatly to the peace and security of the town; for as the Turks, Arabs, Christians, Jews, Copts, and other religious sects reside each in a different quarter, any disturbance which may arise in one district is prevented from extending to another ”

“ The true suburbs lie farther out. You have to go well beyond the Brixton Bon Marché before you can find such a place as Streatham, with its endless, well-kept, villa streets of red brick houses, nearly all alike, creeper and grass plot complete. Those suburbs outline a new social order; with a little experience you can easily tell the thirty-five-pounds-a-year street from the fifty-two-pounds-a-year street; you come with a feeling of familiarity upon the corner house, where lives the doctor or the surgeon. ”

“ Uptown life seemed on its surface to be lighter, and the curse of Adam to rest more easily on the shoulders of his children.
Of Fifth Avenue this was especially true. It was not a canyon of brick and stone in those days. Trade had just begun its invasion and had gained a foothold only in the few blocks above and below Twenty-third Street, and for the rest it was still a street of homes, where people moved in a more leisurely fashion than in the crowded thoroughfares downtown. ”

“ To those who really understand them, every one of the great, vital streets of the world has a soul as well as a body. The social invader from the West, the merchant whose establishment still found profit in Grand Street, the banker from Broad Street, or the ship's chandler from South, the club awakening to the fact that its quarters on Broadway or in one of the side streets near Irving Place was too far downtown, or in size inadequate to its growing membership—those were the agencies that wrought the Avenue's material development. ”

“ Do you know Abingdon Square? It is a small, irregularly shaped triangle of asphalt situated on the lower West Side, and at the intersecting-point of Eighth Avenue and Hudson Street. The houses that front upon it have seen better days. Many of them are now the quarters of cheap political clubs or centres of foreign revolutionary propaganda. It is a neighborhood that has finally lost all semblance to gentility and has become frankly and unreservedly shabby. A square, mind you, and not a park, for there is neither blade of grass nor tree in all of its dreary expanse. ”

“ The Dock Road is a fascinating place if you are in good health and spirits, and if the day is fine, but there is no fascination about Churles Street, a gloomy, evil looking cul-de-sac, not rowdy, but quiet with the quietude of vice reduced to misery and crouching in a corner. ”

“ An hour later when Stuart, seated by Nan's side, reached Union Square, the automobile was stopped by the police and turned into Seventeenth Street.
Every inch of space in the Square seemed blocked by a solid mass of motionless humanity. Stuart left the car in Seventeenth Street and succeeded finally in forcing a way through the crowd to a position within a hundred feet of the rude platform that had been erected for the orators. ”

“ Miss Curzon is a real handsome woman, and always wuz when she was a neighborin’ girl, as you may say, in Chicago, but the high position she’s in now has gin nobility to her mean, and the mantilly of dignity she wears sets well on her. ”

“ Curwood.—It was not a very uncommon thing to see suspicious men walking about.
Henry Gillan examined by Mr. Bolland.—I [Pg 162] am a servant to Mr. Whittle, apothecary, at 15, Mount-street, Grosvenor-square. I sometimes use the Rising-sun public-house. It is in Charles-street, which runs into Grosvenor-square and Mount-street. I was there on Tuesday the 22d of February. I saw that short man (pointing to the prisoner Brunt) there. There was a tall man with him. ”

“ This Nancy trudged for hours through straight and terrible streets called avenues, with a dismal husband and a tired baby at her side. Third Avenue, Fourth Avenue, then quickly across Fifth Avenue, which had nothing to do with us, and again across to Sixth Avenue ... and everywhere dirty shops, screaming children, jostling girls, rude men, trains rushing overhead, street-cars screeching and clanging. Then, at last, Seventh Avenue, where there were streets full of quiet, squalid boarding-houses, fewer screaming children, fewer dirty shops, and no trains. ”

“ At six o'clock Fourteenth Street pours up from its basements, down from its lofts, and out from its five-and-ten-cent stores, shows, and arcades, in a great homeward torrent—a sweeping torrent that flows full flush to the Subway, the Elevated, and the surface car, and then spreads thinly into the least pretentious of the city's homes—the five flights up, the two rooms rear, and the third floor back. ”

“ Well, that being so, there was all the more reason why the identity of poor Jean de Courtois should be established beyond doubt, and this reflection appealed so strongly that, when the cab stopped, Curtis was once more reconciled to the policy hurriedly arrived at while he was standing at the corner of Broadway and 27th Street.
He opened the door, alighted, glanced up at a rather imposing block of flats, and said to the driver:
"Is this 1000 West 59th Street?"
"Yes, sir. Quite a bunch of people live here," was the answer. ”

“ There is, it seems, a high tower over the gate of the town of Tricala, and when the Pasha caught any people whom he thought worthy of the distinction, he had them taken up to the top of this tower and thrown from it against the city walls, which his provident care had furnished with numerous large iron hooks, projecting about the length of a man's arm, which caught the bodies of the culprits as they fell, and on which they hung on either side of the town gate, affording a pleasing and instructive spectacle to the people who came in to market of a morning. ”

“ Reginald winced, and then replied, “Oh, certainly; the sooner we get down to our right level the better.”
That evening the three Crudens arrived in London.
Chapter Three. Number Six, Dull Street.
Probably no London street ever rejoiced in a more expressive name than Dull Street. It was not a specially dirty street, or a specially disreputable street, or a specially dark street. ”

“ Each little suburb has its own corporation, and its own municipal government, while even its mayor and aldermen may do daily business in the large city below it.
In the city itself Pearl street is noted for its wholesale [Pg 129] trade, and for the uniform elegance of its buildings. Third street, between Main and Vine, contains the banking, brokering, and insurance offices. Fourth street is the fashionable promenade and business street. Freeman street, in the neighborhood of Lincoln Park, is also a favorite promenade. Both the East and West Ends contain many fine residences. ”

“ Susan got on the car, leaning back for a long, goodbye look at the shabby block, duller than ever in the grimy winter light, and at the dirt and papers and chaff drifting up against the railings, and at the bakery window, with its pies and bread and Nottingham lace curtains. Fulton Street was a thing of the past. ”

“ Sir George Curzon for me; you are more used to that sort of thing than I."
All my eloquence being thrown away upon him, and on that instant thinking of my little lady in the grove, I walked towards the group with my hat in my hand, without further hesitation.
"If you please, Sir George Curzon, there is a young lady in the shrubberies who wants you."
"I think, young sir," replied Sir George, "you must make a mistake."
"No, sir. She has lost you, she says; it is Miss Curzon." ”

“ Webster, a little plaintively.
"That we haven't got?"
"Oh, May, you know quite well what I mean! It must be the heat that is making you so argumentative. Mr. Curzon always has some pet hobby on hand for which he wants money, and of course he ought to have it; but really, just now, what with a trip abroad, and the London house to paint and paper throughout, I've not so much in hand as usual."
"Enough for the rector's last hobby, I dare say. At any rate let's risk it. If we all air our different views we might have an exciting evening."
"I wish things were as they used to be. ”

“ She dresses in a hurry and goes out, walks down Fifth Avenue and east along Eighth Street without looking to the right or left. The sun already hot simmers slatily on the pavements, on plateglass, on dustmarbled enameled signs. Men’s and women’s faces as they pass her are rumpled and gray like pillows that have been too much slept on. ”

“ It is a kind of murky drain, which, flowing between, catches the refuse from Fifth Avenue and the leavings from Broadway. To Sixth Avenue drift men who, for the first time in a Miss-spending life, are feeling the prick of a fraying collar. Even Fifth Avenue is constantly feeding it. A couturier's model gone hippy; a specialty-shop gone bankrupt; a cashier's books gone over. Its shops are second-hand, and not a few of its denizens are down on police records as sleight-of-hand. At night women too weary to be furtive turn in at its family entrances. ”

“ People going and coming through the arches are silhouettes. Overhead it is like the grumbling of a thunder storm. Wagons going over the stones rattle tremendously, and they carry lanterns swung beneath to be lighted at night. The streets have fine names: there is Gold Street, and then Jacob Street. Frankfort Street widens out and becomes a generous thoroughfare, all in sunlight. There is a huge, gay hoarding to the right as you go down. ”