Page:Fifty years hence, or, What may be in 1943 - a prophecy supposed to be based on scientific deductions by an improved graphical method (IA fiftyyearshenceo00grim).pdf/25

 ures, with generous doors and wide und abundant windows, which the wealthy New Yorker of three generations ago, be he merchant prince or landed proprietor, built for himself and intended for his descendants, but which have been crowded out of notice by towering factories, storehouses and tenement buildings. Its wide granite steps and curiously-wrought iron railings, its great doorway, upheld by pairs of fluted pillars enclosing narrow lights at each side of the silver-handled single door, and capped by a semi-circular transom, whispered of the quiet dignified early days of the century; while the puffing of the exhaust steam across the way, and the snarling and buzzing of the machinery in the piano factory next door, spoke of its noisy and commonplace close.

Musk-rose and woodbine formerly luxuriated in its garden; star-proof elms once threw bluetinted moonlight shadows on its now-mellowing walls; and high-bred dames once trod with dainty feet its smooth and polished floors. The glory of the neighborhood, like that of Ichabod, had departed—but the scrupulous neatness of the old mansion stood out among the dirt and squalor of its surroundings.