From the upper story to the first floor, they were so much
alike, that I could only conceive of the inhabitants as cut out on
one identical pattern, like little wooden toy-people of German
manufacture. One long, united roof, with its thousands of slates
glittering in the rain, extended over the whole. After the
distinctness of separate characters to which I had recently been
accustomed, it perplexed and annoyed me not to be able to resolve
this combination of human interests into well-defined elements. It
seemed hardly worth while for more than one of those families to be
in existence, since they all had the same glimpse of the sky, all
looked into the same area, all received just their equal share of
sunshine through the front windows, and all listened to precisely the
same noises of the street on which they boarded. Men are so much
alike in their nature, that they grow intolerable unless varied by
their circumstances.
Just about this time a waiter entered my room. The truth was, I had
rung the bell and ordered a sherry-cobbler.
"Can you tell me," I inquired, "what families reside in any of those
houses opposite?"
"The one right opposite is a rather stylish boarding-house," said the
waiter. "Two of the gentlemen boarders keep horses at the stable of
our establishment. They do things in very good style, sir, the
people that live there."
I might have found out nearly as much for myself, on examining the
house a little more closely, in one of the upper chambers I saw a
young man in a dressing-gown, standing before the glass and brushing
his hair for a quarter of an hour together.
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