Therefore when he remarks, in that superior manner which insures for him the instant credulity of the women in the company, that it is not worth an author’s while to study the social structure of New York, he is right from his own point of view, and it ill becomes our young friend from Park Row to despise him for it. And when he goes on to say that our beloved city has no individuality of its own, and is permeated through and through with the awful flavor of commerce, while its society is nothing but a plutocracy, I would advise my young friend of the city department to draw him out and make careful notes of what he says about life and literature. This young man of letters is merely echoing the opinions of those at whose feet he has sat, humbly and reverently acknowledging their literary supremacy, and fondly hoping that they will purchase his manuscript. He knows that Johnson does not like low life, just as Jack Moran knew that Bonner would not tolerate second marriages or fast horses; and so far as his own literary ambitions are concerned, a thorough knowledge of New York would prove about as useful to him as a familiarity with the customs and beliefs of the Mormons or the names of the Derby winners would have been to the old-time _Ledger_ poets. But the young reporter, who hears him with feelings of either amusement or contempt or indignation, as the case may be, has already seen enough of New York--it may be that he is able to compare it with foreign capitals--to know that there is an abundance of material within its limits which native writers of fiction have not only left untouched, but of whose very existence most of them are absolutely unaware. But it would be useless for him to say so in this company, for he who has just spoken so decisively is a “literary man,” whose work will one day be printed on the finest quality of paper and perhaps adorned with beautiful pictures. And besides, do not all the nice people live north of Washington Square? Ah! those nice people and that supercalendered paper--what an influence they exert in our literary Vanity Fair!