The scene is semi-rural. Ornamental trees
overshadow the sidewalks, and grassy margins border the wheel-tracks.
The houses, to be sure, have certain points of difference from those
of an American village, bearing tokens of architectural design, though
seldom of individual taste; and, as far as possible, they stand aloof
from the street, and separated each from its neighbor by hedge or fence,
in accordance with the careful exclusiveness of the English character,
which impels the occupant, moreover, to cover the front of his dwelling
with as much concealment of shrubbery as his limits will allow. Through
the interstices, you catch glimpses of well-kept lawns, generally
ornamented with flowers, and with what the English call rock-work, being
heaps of ivy-grown stones and fossils, designed for romantic effect in
a small way. Two or three of such village-streets as are here described
take a collective name,--as, for instance, Blackheath Park,--and
constitute a kind of community of residents, with gate-ways, kept by
policemen, and a semi-privacy, stepping beyond which, you find yourself
on the breezy heath.
On this great, bare, dreary common I often went astray, as I afterwards
did on the Campagna of Rome, and drew the air (tainted with London smoke
though it might be) into my lungs by deep inspirations, with a strange
and unexpected sense of desert-freedom.
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