CHAPTER X.
_Trails of Bohemia_ Trails of Bohemia--The Avenue and its Tributaries--The "Musketeers of the Brush"-- The Voice of the Ghetto--South Fifth Avenue and the Old French Quarter--The Garibaldi--"A la Ville de Rouen "-- The Restaurant du Grand Vatel--The New Bohemia--The Lane of the Mad Eccentrics--Sheridan Square--"The Pirate's Den"-- Absolam, a Slave--Gonfarone's--Maria's.
Once upon a time an over-astute critic found grave fault with the title of a novel by Mr.William Dean Howells.

There was to his mind at least an unfortunate suggestion in calling a book "The Coast of Bohemia," even though "Bohemia" was used in its figurative sense.

What if the title had been derived from a line in Shakespeare?
That did not alter the fact that ascribing a coast to Bohemia was like giving the Swiss Republic an Admiralty and alluding to Berne as a naval base.

What would that censorious critic have to say of the association of Bohemia with stately Fifth Avenue?
For to him and his kind it is not given to realize that Bohemia is a state of mind, a period of ardour and exaltation, a reminiscence of youth rather than a material region.
The great stream has its tributaries.

To Fifth Avenue belong the side streets that feed it and in turn draw from it flavour and inspiration.
To it belong Washington Square, the south side as well as the north side, and the street beyond, that today is known as West Broadway, and yesterday was South Fifth Avenue, and before that, in the remote past, was Laurens Street; and the crossing thoroughfares that constituted the French Quarter of the late seventies and early eighties; and the northeastern part of Greenwich Village, that was once the "American Quarter," and is now masquerading as a super Monmartre, with its "Vermillion Hounds," and "Purple Pups," and "Pirates' Dens." Nor for the flavour of Bohemia is there actual need of leaving the Avenue itself.