Judging by the patches of repair, the oak seems to be the more
durable part of the structure. Some of the roofs are covered with
earthen tiles; others (more decayed and poverty-stricken) with thatch,
out of which sprouts a luxurious vegetation of grass, house-leeks, and
yellow flowers. What especially strikes an American is the lack of that
insulated space, the intervening gardens, grass-plots, orchards,
broad-spreading shade-trees, which occur between our own village-houses.
These English dwellings have no such separate surroundings; they all
grow together, like the cells of a honey-comb.
Beyond the first row of houses, and hidden from it by a turn of the
road, there was another row (or block, as we should call it) of small,
old cottages, stuck one against another, with their thatched roofs
forming a single contiguity. These, I presume, were the habitations of
the poorest order of rustic laborers; and the narrow precincts of each
cottage, as well as the close neighborhood of the whole, gave the
impression of a stifled, unhealthy atmosphere among the occupants. It
seemed impossible that there should be a cleanly reserve, a proper
self-respect among individuals, or a wholesome unfamiliarity between
families, where human life was crowded and massed into such intimate
communities as these.
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