My book was of the dullest, yet had a sort of
sluggish flow, like that of a stream in which your boat is as often
aground as afloat. Had there been a more impetuous rush, a more
absorbing passion of the narrative, I should the sooner have
struggled out of its uneasy current, and have given myself up to the
swell and subsidence of my thoughts. But, as it was, the torpid life
of the book served as an unobtrusive accompaniment to the life within
me and about me. At intervals, however, when its effect grew a
little too soporific,--not for my patience, but for the possibility
of keeping my eyes open, I bestirred myself, started from the
rocking-chair, and looked out of the window.
A gray sky; the weathercock of a steeple that rose beyond the
opposite range of buildings, pointing from the eastward; a sprinkle
of small, spiteful-looking raindrops on the window-pane. In that
ebb-tide of my energies, had I thought of venturing abroad, these
tokens would have checked the abortive purpose.
After several such visits to the window, I found myself getting
pretty well acquainted with that little portion of the backside of
the universe which it presented to my view. Over against the hotel
and its adjacent houses, at the distance of forty or fifty yards, was
the rear of a range of buildings which appeared to be spacious,
modern, and calculated for fashionable residences. The interval
between was apportioned into grass-plots, and here and there an
apology for a garden, pertaining severally to these dwellings.
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