XI.
1 OAKLEY VILLAS, BIRCHESPOOL, 29th May, 1882.
Birchespool is really a delightful place, dear
Bertie; and I ought to know something about it, seeing
that I have padded a good hundred miles through its
streets during the last seven days. Its mineral springs
used to be quite the mode a century or more ago; and it
retains many traces of its aristocratic past, carrying it
with a certain grace, too, as an emigre countess
might wear the faded dress which had once rustled in
Versailles. I forget the new roaring suburbs with their
out-going manufactures and their incoming wealth, and I
live in the queer health-giving old city of the past.
The wave of fashion has long passed over it, but a
deposit of dreary respectability has been left behind.
In the High Street you can see the long iron
extinguishers upon the railings where the link-boys used
to put out their torches, instead of stamping upon them
or slapping them on the pavement, as was the custom
in less high-toned quarters. There are the very high
curbstones too, so that Lady Teazle or Mrs. Sneerwell
could step out of coach or sedan chair without soiling
her dainty satin shoes. It brings home to me what an
unstable chemical compound man is. Here are the stage
accessories as good as ever, while the players have all
split up into hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and
carbon, with traces of iron and silica and phosphorus.
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