You feel that nothing in the lives of the people who live in these
wonderful tenements can be commonplace. However unconscious they may be
of the refining influence, it is there, and it must leave its mark upon
them.

At least, you think so. You know what the effect would be upon yourself.
You know that if you could transport this street bodily to some quiet
nook in England and surround it by velvety lawns and ancient trees that
have grown and spread with the lapse of ages, your existence would
become a long and romantic daydream, and you would be in danger of
living the life of a recluse and never separating yourself from these
influences. Custom would never stale their infinite variety; familiarity
would never breed contempt. Who tires of wandering through a gallery of
the old masters? who can endure the modern in comparison? It is not the
mere antiquity of all these things that charm; it is that they are
beautiful in themselves, and belong to an age when the Spirit of Beauty
was poured out upon the world from full vials held in the hands of
unseen angels, and what men touched and created they perfected.

But the vials have long been exhausted and the angels have fled back to
heaven.

The houses all bear a strong family resemblance to each other, which
adds to their charm and harmony. Most of them possess two doors, one
giving access to the shop we have just described, the other admitting to
a hall or vestibule, panelled, and often richly sculptured. Above the
_rez-de-chaussee_, two or three stories rise, supported by enormous
beams richly moulded and sculptured, again supported in their turn by
other beams equally massive, whose massiveness is disguised by rich
sculpture and ornamentation: a profusion of boughs, of foliage, so
beautifully wrought that you may trace the veins in the leaves of
niches, pinnacles and statues: corner posts ornamented with figures of
kings, priests, saints, monsters, and bagpipers. The windows seem to
multiply themselves as they ascend, with their small panes crossed and
criss-crossed by leaden lines: the fronts of many are slated with slates
cut into lozenge shapes; and many possess the "slate apron" found in
fifteenth century houses, with the slates curved outwardly to protect
the beam.

By the second door you pass down a long passage into what originally was
probably a small yard, but has now been turned into a living-room or
kitchen covered over at the very top of the house by