MR. URBAN AND A COUNTRY HOUSE 



lay in a cuhiculum, if not a dormitoriuni on 

 the first floor; and with a door half open (such 

 doors as they had) they might go to sleep, 

 lulled by the tinkle of a fountain in the hall. 

 I don't think any of Pliny's villas were as high 

 as those of a great many (in sight from my 

 door) who don't know whether he was Greek 

 dr Chinaman. 



Of course we don't want, in this age of the 

 world, to take our building fancies from the 

 dead men of Pompeii or of Tusculum; and I 

 have only interpolated this allusion to show 

 that a man's dignity is not necessarily meas- 

 ured by the height of the house he lives in. 

 All the strong, robber classes of the world, 

 whenever they have lived in houses, have, I 

 think, inclined to tall ones. Such were those 

 German barons who perched their eyries along 

 the Rhine, and the thievish borderers by the 

 Tweed who have left us such precious speci- 

 mens as "Johnny Armstrong's Tower." On 

 the other hand, the domesticity of the old Sax- 

 ons expressed itself in low, wide-spreading 

 buildings, t3^pical of a quiet life, and of a coun- 

 try abundance that came by peaceful labor. 



There are robber classes in our day, and 

 they live (many of them) in tall houses; so 

 do a great many honest people, for that matter. 



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