There are many of these old houses upon this really fine street, and you crane your neck at the first intersection to catch its name upon the sign-post. "Charles Street" it reads and with a little gladsome memory you recall a bit of verse that you saw a long time ago in the _Baltimore Sun_. It reads somewhat after this fashion:
Its heart is in Mount Vernon square, Its head is in the green wood: Its feet are stretched along the ways Where swarms the foreign brood; A modicum of Bon Marche, That sublimated store-- And Oh, the treasure that we have In Charles street, Baltimore!
I love to watch the moving throng, The afternoon parade; The coaches rolling home to tea, The young man and the maid; The gentlemen who dwell in clubs, The magnates of the town-- Oh, Charles street has a smile for them, And never wears a frown!
The little shops, so cool and sweet; The finesse and the grace Which mark the mercantility Of such a market-place; And then beyond the tempting stores The quietness that runs Into the calm and stately square With marble denizens.
The little and the larger stores Are tempting, to be sure; But they are only half the charm That Charles street holds to lure; For here and there along the way, How sweet the homes befall-- The domicile that holds his Grace, The gentle Cardinal.
The mansions with pacific mien Whose windows say "Come in!" The touches of colonialness, The farness of the din That rolls a city league away And leaves this dainty street A cool and comfortable spot Where past and present meet.
A measure of la boulevard Before whose windows pass The madame and the damoisel, The gallant and the lass; The gravest and the most sedate, The young and gay it calls; And, oh, how proper over it-- The shadows of St. Paul's!
Dip down the hill and well away, The southward track it takes, O fickleness, how many quips, How many turns it takes! But ever in its greensward heart, From head to foot we pour The homage of our love of it-- Dear Charles street, Baltimore!
[Illustration: Charles Street--Baltimore]
You are standing in Mount Vernon square, the very heart of Charles street. It is a little open place, shaped like a Maltese cross rather than a real square or oblong, with a modern apartment house looming up upon it, whose façades of French Renaissance give a slightly Parisian touch to that corner of the square. To the rest of it, bordered with sober, old-time mansions there is nothing Parisian, unless you stand apart and gaze at the Monument, which sends its great shaft some two hundred feet up into the air. There are such columns in Paris.