The daily life into which people are born, and into which they are absorbed before they are well aware, forms chains which only one in a hundred has moral strength enough to despise, and to break when the right time comeswhen an inward necessity for independent individual action arises, which is superior to all outward conventionalities. The traditions of those bygone times, even to the smallest social particular, enable one to understand more clearly the circumstances which contributed to the formation of character. The body of the houses was too solidly grand to submit to alteration so people were occasionally surprised, after passing through a commonplacelooking shop, to find themselves at the foot of a grand carved oaken staircase, lighted by a window of stained glass, storied all over with armorial bearings. In short, by mutual consent, the whole front of one side of the street was pulled down, and rebuilt in the flat, mean, unrelieved style of George the Third.
The shopkeepers found out that the once fashionable street was dark, and that the dingy light did not show off their goods to advantage the surgeon could not see to draw his patients' teeth the lawyer had to ring for candles an hour earlier than he was accustomed to do when living in a more plebeian street.
#Muck definition professional
And when the county town lost its attraction for the Astleys, the Dunstans, the Waverhams, how could it be supposed that the Domvilles, the Bextons, and the Wildes would continue to go and winter there in their secondrate houses, and with their increased expenditure? So the grand old houses stood empty awhile and then speculators ventured to purchase, and to turn the deserted mansions into many smaller dwellings, fitted for professional men, or even bend your ear lower, lest the shade of Marmaduke, first Baron Waverham, hear into shopsĮven that was not so very bad, compared with the next innovation on the old glories. The Astleys, the Dunstans, the Waverhamsnames of power in that districtgo up duly to London in the season, and have Sold their residences in the county town fifty years ago, or more. The picturesqueness of those ancient streets has departed now. Some employed the time in eating their bread and cheese, with as measured and incessant a motion of the jaws and almost as stupidly placid an expression of countenance, as you may see in cows ruminating in the first meadow you happen to pass.
Two or three others huddled over the scanty fireplace, which, with every possible economy of space, and no attempt whatever at anything of grace or ornament, was inserted in the slight, flatlooking wall, that had been run up by the present owner of the property to portion off this division of the grand old drawingroom of the mansion. Mason's returning footstep, even while it was still far off on the echoing stairs. One fat, particularly heavylooking damsel laid her head on her folded arms and was asleep in a moment refusing to be wakened for her share in the frugal supper, but springing up with a frightened look at the sound of Mrs.
It was curious to watch the young girls as they instantaneously availed themselves of Mrs.
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