Yet, such as it is, this square brown box contains a flower of American civilization. And flowers are gay, conspicuous, noteworthy in themselves; but the more noteworthy as bearing the seeds that shall be multiplied in next year’s crop. No one would perhaps think that this house, standing unadorned and unnoteworthy on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Thirty-second Street, was so rare a possession, or contained in itself so much; that this square box, valued solely because of its proximity to other similar square boxes, represented the American social apotheosis--the pure spheres of perfect democratic joy, the acme, in this republic of terrestrial success. Yet of the fact there can be no question. That little vertebral ridge named Fifth Avenue, with its one or two similar ridges, its few timid excursions and venturings in by-streets to the east and west, represents the flower and the crown of things; only those there live who can command at least wealth or power at will; neither blood nor brains nor breeding can maintain themselves upon that vantage-coin unaided and alone. So have we seen some bed of oysters, planted at just the proper level of the shoal, look down with superiority and scorn upon those below, cumbered with the sea-weed, and those above, left awash at low spring tides. Merely to own this house, and not to live in it; to own it only as some miser owns a picture or a rare gem, for the pleasure of possession--would cost, in interest and taxes, the labor of some score of able-bodied men each year. To live in it, with servants trained to feudal manners and address, with the necessary wines and equipage and flowers and feathers that attend so rare a gem, would cost the earnings of an army. Has the fortunate possessor of the house such an army at his call? Surely; else how could he keep it? We shall see them shortly. And what of the inside of the house?--is it suited to the high position of the inmates? Softly, my good madam; a stranger can hardly know how difficult it is to gain access to this mansion, and how exclusive is the set which Mrs. Gower leads. For the pedestrians on the pavement look up to No. 2002 with an air of respect. Few of them but know the house as Mrs. Levison Gower’s. And even the pedestrians on the pavement, in this select spot, are of a picked and chosen class. Many of them are young girls, robed for this winter (it is the fashion) in trailing gowns of deep-blue velvet; many more are young men, carrying their arms bow-leggedly, as it were, as if not satisfied with the natural stiffness of their starch and buckram, but adding the conscious poise of art, to make you note that they are dressed, not clothed alone. And not one of them that passes but knows and values at its due the house in which you take so little interest. This is the respectable quarter; and the great, ugly house stands insolently, as of social position assured.