The architectural expression of the town was on a different
scale, beginning with "frame," rising through the
semidetached, culminating expensively in Mansard roofs,
cupolas and modern conveniences, and blossoming, in
extreme instances, into Moorish fretwork and silk portieres
for interior decoration. The Murchison house gained by
force of contrast: one felt, stepping into it, under
influences of less expediency and more dignity, wider
scope and more leisured intention; its shabby spaces had
a redundancy the pleasanter and its yellow plaster cornices
a charm the greater for the numerous close-set examples
of contemporary taste in red brick which made, surrounded
by geranium beds, so creditable an appearance in the West
Ward. John Murchison in taking possession of the house
had felt in it these satisfactions, had been definitely
penetrated and soothed by them, the more perhaps because
he brought to them a capacity for feeling the worthier
things of life which circumstances had not previously
developed. He seized the place with a sense of opportunity
leaping sharp and conscious out of early years in the
grey "wynds" of a northern Scottish town; and its
personality sustained him, very privately but none the
less effectively, through the worry and expense of it
for years.
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