She thought the region was unhealthy.
Now when Titania thinks that a place is unhealthy no further argument is
possible. Just on what data she bases these deductions I have never been
able to learn. I think she can tell by the shape of the houses, or the
lush quality of the foliage, or the fact that the garbage men collect
from the front instead of from the back. But however she arrives at the
conclusion, it is immutable.
Any place that I think is peculiarly amusing, or quaint, or
picturesque, Titania thinks is unhealthy.
Sometimes I can see it coming. We are on our way to Mulberry Bend, or
the Bowery, or Farrish's Chop House. I see her brow begin to pucker. "Do
you feel as though it is going to be unhealthy?" I ask anxiously. If she
does, there is nothing for it but to clutch at the nearest subway
station and hurry up to Grant's Tomb. In that bracing ether her spirits
revive.
So it was on this afternoon. My Utopian vision of a Chelsea in New York,
outdoing the grimy salons of Greenwich Village, fell in splinters at the
bottom of my mind. Sadly I looked upon the old Carl Schurz mansion on
the hill, and we departed for the airy plateaus of Central Park.
Desperately I pointed to the fading charms of East River Park--the
convent round the corner, the hokey pokey cart by the curbstone.