There are likewise side-streets
and cross-streets, many of which are bordered with the beautiful
Warwickshire elm, a most unusual kind of adornment for an English town;
and spacious avenues, wide enough to afford room for stately groves,
with foot-paths running beneath the lofty shade, and rooks cawing and
chattering so high In the tree-tops that their voices get musical before
reaching the earth. The houses are mostly built in blocks and ranges, in
which every separate tenement is a repetition of its fellow, though the
architecture of the different ranges is sufficiently various. Some of
them are almost palatial in size and sumptuousness of arrangement. Then,
on the outskirts of the town, there are detached villas, inclosed within
that separate domain of high stone fence and embowered shrubbery which
an Englishman so loves to build and plant around his abode, presenting
to the public only an iron gate, with a gravelled carriage-drive winding
away towards the half-hidden mansion. Whether in street or suburb,
Leamington may fairly be called beautiful, and, at some points,
magnificent; but by-and-by you become doubtfully suspicious of a
somewhat unreal finery: it is pretentious, though not glaringly so; it
has been built, with malice aforethought, as a place of gentility and
enjoyment.
Pages:
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199