University of Virginia Library

NEIGHBORHOODS I HAVE MOVED FROM.

1. I

A bay window once settled the choice of my
house and compensated for many of its inconveniences.
When the chimney smoked, or the doors alternately
shrunk and swelled, resisting any forcible attempt
to open them, or opening of themselves with
ghostly deliberation, or when suspicious blotches
appeared on the ceiling in rainy weather, there was
always the bay window to turn to for comfort. And
the view was a fine one. Alcatraz, Lime Point, Fort
Point and Saucelito were plainly visible over a restless
expanse of water that changed continually, glittering
in the sunlight, darkening in rocky shadow,
or sweeping in mimic waves on a miniature beach
below.

Although at first the bay window was supposed to
be sacred to myself and my writing materials, in
obedience to some organic law, it by-and-bye became
a general lounging-place. A rocking-chair and
crochet-basket one day found their way there. Then

the baby invaded its recesses, fortifying himself behind
interenchments of colored worsteds and spools of
cotton, from which he was only dislodged by concerted
assault, and carried lamenting into captivity.
A subtle glamour crept over all who came within
its influence. To apply oneself to serious work there
was an absurdity. An incoming ship, a gleam on
the water, a cloud lingering about Tamaulipas, were
enough to distract the attention. Reading or writing,
the bay window was always showing something
to be looked at. Unfortunately, these views were
not always pleasant, but the window gave equal
prominence and importance to all, without respect to
quality.

The landscape in the vicinity was unimproved,
but not rural. The adjacent lots had apparently just
given up bearing scrub-oaks, but had not seriously
taken to bricks and mortar. In one direction the
vista was closed by the Home of the Inebriates, not
in itself a cheerful-looking, building, and, as the apparent
terminus of a ramble in a certain direction,
having all the effect of a moral lesson. To a certain
extent, however, this building was an imposition.
The enthusiastic members of my family, who confidently
expected to see its inmates hilariously disporting
themselves at its windows in the different stages
of inebriation portrayed by the late W. E. Burton
were much disappointed. The Home was reticent of
its secrets. The County Hospital, also in range of
the bay window, showed much more animation. At
certain hours of the day convalescents passed in review

before the window on their way to an airing.
This spectacle was the still more depressing from a
singular lack of sociability that appeared to prevail
among them. Each man was encompassed by the
impenetrable atmosphere of his own peculiar suffering.
They did not talk or walk together. From
the window I have seen half a dozen sunning themselves
against a wall within a few feet of each other,
to all appearance utterly oblivious of the fact. Had
they but quarreled or fought—anything would have
been better than this horrible apathy.

The lower end of the street on which the bay window
was situate, opened invitingly from a popular
thoroughfare; and after beckoning the unwary stranger
into its recesses, ended unexpectedly at a frightful
precipice. On Sundays, when the travel North-Beachwards
was considerable, the bay window delighted
in the spectacle afforded by unhappy pedestrians
who were seduced into taking this street as a
short cut somewhere else. It was amusing to notice
how these people invariably, on coming to the precipice,
glanced upward to the bay window and endeavored
to assume a careless air before they retraced
their steps, whistling ostentatiously, as if they had
previously known all about it. One high-spirited
young man in particular, being incited thereto by a
pair of mischievous bright eyes in an opposite window,
actually descended this fearful precipice rather
than return, to the great peril of life and limb, and
manifest injury to his Sunday clothes.

Dogs, goats and horses constituted the fauna of

our neighborhood. Possessing the lawless freedom
of their normal condition, they still evinced a tender
attachment to man and his habitations. Spirited
steeds got up extempore races on the sidewalks, turning
the street into a miniature Corso; dogs wrangled
in the areas; while from the hill beside the house' a
goat browsed peacefully upon my wife's geraniums
in the flower-pots of the second-story window. “We
had a fine hail-storm last night,” remarked a newly-arrived
neighbor, who had just moved into the adjoining
house. It would have been a pity to set him right,
as he was quite enthusiastic about the view and the
general sanitary qualifications of the locality. So I
didn't tell him anything about the goats who were in
the habit of using his house as a stepping stone to
the adjoining hill.

But the locality was remarkably healthy. People
who fell down the embankments found their wounds
heal rapidly in the steady sea breeze. Ventilation
was complete and thorough. The opening of the
bay window produced a current of wholesome air
which effectually removed all noxious exhalations,
together with the curtains, the hinges of the back
door, and the window shutters. Owing to this peculiarity,
some of my writings acquired an extensive
circulation and publicity in the neighborhood, which
years in another locality might not have produced.
Several articles of wearing apparel, which were mysteriously
transposed from our clothes-line to that of
an humble though honest neighbor, was undoubtedly
the result of these sanitary winds. Yet in spite
of these advantages I found it convenient in a few

months to move. And the result whereof I shall
communicate in other papers.

2. II.

“A house with a fine garden and extensive shrubbery,
in a genteel neighborhood,” were, if I remember
rightly, the general terms of an advertisement
which once decided my choice of a dwelling. I
should add that this occurred at an early stage of my
household experience, when I placed a trustful reliance
in advertisements. I have since learned that
the most truthful people are apt to indulge a slight
vein of exaggeration in describing their own possessions,
as though the mere circumstance of going into
print were an excuse for a certain kind of mendacity.
But I did not fully awaken to this fact until a much
later period, when, in answering an advertisement
which described a highly advantageous tenement, I
was referred to the house I then occupied, and from
which a thousand inconveniences were impelling me
to move.

The “fine garden” alluded to was not large, but
contained several peculiarly-shaped flower beds. I
was at first struck with the singular resemblance
which they bore to the mutton-chops that are usually
brought on the table at hotels and restaurants—a resemblance
the more striking from the sprigs of parsley
which they produced freely. One plat in particular
reminded me, not unpleasantly, of a peculiar
cake, known to my boyhood as a bolivar. The

owner of the property, however, who seemed to be
a man of original æsthetic ideas, had banked up one
of these beds with bright-colored sea-shells, so that
in rainy weather it suggested an aquarium, and offered
the elements of botanical and conchological
study in pleasing juxtaposition. I have since thought
that the fish geraniums, which it also bore to a surprising
extent, were introduced originally from some
such idea of consistency. But it was very pleasant,
after dinner, to ramble up and down the gravelly
paths, (whose occasional boulders reminded me of
the dry bed of a somewhat circuitous mining stream,)
smoking a cigar, or inhaling the rich aroma of fennel,
or occasionally stopping to pluck one of the holly-hocks
with which the garden abounded. The prolific
qualities of this plant alarmed us greatly, for
although, in the first transport of enthusiasm, my
wife planted several different kinds of flower seeds,
nothing ever came up but hollyhocks; and although,
impelled by the same laudable impulse, I procured
a copy of Downing's Landscape Gardening, and a few
gardening tools, and worked for several hours in the
garden, my efforts were equally futile.

The extensive shrubbery consisted of several
dwarfed trees. One was very weak young weeping
willow, so very limp and maudlin, and so evidently
bent on establishing its reputation, that it had to be
tied up against the house for support. The dampness
of that portion of the house was usually attributed
to the presence of this lachrymose shrub. And
to these a couple of highly objectionable trees, known,
I think, by the name of Malva, which made an inordinate

show of cheap blossoms that they were continually
shedding, and one or two dwarf oaks, with
scaly leaves and a generally spiteful exterior, and
you have what was not inaptly termed by one Milesian
handmaid “the scrubbery.”

The gentility of our neighbor suffered a blight
from the unwholesome vicinity of McGinnis Court.
This court was a kind of cul de sac that, on being
penetrated, discovered a primitive people living in
a state of barbarous freedom, and apparently spending
the greater portion of their lives on their own
door-steps. Many of those details of the toilette which
a popular prejudice restricts to the dressing-room in
other localities, were here performed in the open court
without fear and without reproach. Early in the week
the court was hid in a choking, soapy mist, which
arose from innumerable wash-tubs. This was followed
in a day or two later by an extraordinary exhibition
of wearing apparel of divers colors, fluttering
on lines like a display of bunting on ship-board,
and whose flapping in the breeze was like irregular
discharges of musketry. It was evident also that the
court exercised a demoralizing influence over the
whole neighborhood. A sanguine property-owner
once put up a handsome dwelling on the corner of
our street, and lived therein; but although he appeared
frequently an his balcony, clad in a bright
crimson dressing-gown, which made him look like
a tropical bird of some rare and gorgeous species, he
failed to woo any kindred dressing-gown to the vicinity,
and only provoked opprobrious epithets from

the gamins of the court. He moved away shortly after,
and on going by the house one day, I noticed a
bill of “Rooms to let, with board,” posted conspicuously
on the Corinthian columns of the porch. McGinnis
Court had triumphed. An interchange of
civilities at once took place between the court and
the servants' area of the palatial mansion, and some of
the young men boarders exchange playful slang with
the adolescent members of the court. From that moment
we felt that our claims to gentility were forever
abandoned.

Yet, we enjoyed intervals of unalloyed contentment.
When the twilight toned down the hard outlines
of the oaks, and made shadowy clumps and
formless masses of other bushes, it was quite romantic
to sit by the window and inhale the faint, sad
odor of the fennel in the walks below. Perhaps this
economical pleasure was much enhanced by a picture
in my memory, whose faded colors the odor of
this humble plant never failed to restore. So I often
sat there of evenings and closed my eyes until the
forms and benches of a country school-room came
back to me, redolent with the incense of fennel covertly
stowed away in my desk, and gazed again in silent
rapture on the round, red cheeks and long black
braids of that peerless creature whose glance had often
caused my cheeks to glow over the preternatural
collar, which at that period of my boyhood it was my
pride and privilege to wear. As I fear I may be
often thought hypercritical and censorious in these
articles, I am willing to record this as one of the advantages

of our new house, not mentioned in the advertisement
nor chargeable in the rent. May the
present tenant, who is a stock-broker, and who impresses
me with the idea of having always been called
“Mr.” from his cradle up, enjoy this advantage,
and try sometimes to remember he was a boy!

3. III.

Soon after I moved into Happy Valley I was
struck with the remarkable infelicity of its title.
Generous as Californians are in the use of adjectives,
this passed into the domain of irony. But I was inclined
to think it sincere—the production of a weak
but gushing mind, just as the feminine nomenclature
of streets in the vicinity was evidently bestowed by
one in habitual communion with “Friendship's Gifts”
and “Affection's Offerings.”

Our house on Laura Matilda Street looked somewhat
like a toy Swiss Cottage—a style of architecture
so prevalent, that in walking down the block it
was quite difficult to resist an impression of fresh
glue and pine shavings. The few shade trees might
have belonged originally to those oval Christmas
boxes which contain toy villages; and even the people
who sat by the windows had a stiffness that made
them appear surprisingly unreal and artificial. A
little dog belonging to a neighbor was known to the
members of my household by the name of “Glass,”
from the general suggestion he gave of having been

spun of that article. Perhaps I have somewhat exaggerated
these illustrations of the dapper nicety of
our neighborhood—a neatness and conciseness which
I think has a general tendency to belittle, dwarf and
contract their objects. For we gradually fell into
small ways and narrow ideas, and to some extent
squared the round world outside to the correct angles
of Laura Matilda Street.

One reason for this insincere quality may have
been the fact that the very foundations of our neighborhood
were artificial. Laura Matilda Street was
“made ground.” The land, not yet quite reclaimed,
was continually struggling with its old enemy. We
had not been long in our new home before we found
an older tenant, not yet wholly divested of his
rights, who sometimes showed himself in clammy
perspiration on the basement walls, whose damp
breath chilled our dining-room, and in the night
struck a mortal chilliness through the house. There
were no patent fastenings that could keep him out—
no writ of unlawful detainer that could eject him.
In the winter his presence was quite palpable; he
sapped the roots of the trees, he gurgled under the
kitchen floor, he wrought an unwholesome greenness
on the side of the verandah. In summer he became
invisible, but still exercised a familiar influence over
the locality. He planted little stitches in the small
of the back, sought out old aches and weak joints,
and sportively punched the tenants of the Swiss
Cottage under the ribs. He inveigled little children
to play with him, but his plays generally ended in

scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping cough, and measles.
He sometimes followed strong men about
until they sickened suddenly and took to their beds.
But he kept the green-plants in good order, and was
very fond of verdure, bestowing it even upon lath
and plaster and soulless stone. He was generally
invisible, as I have said; but some time after I had
moved, I saw him one morning from the hill, stretching
his grey wings over the valley, like some fabulous
vampire, who had spent the night sucking the
wholesome juices of the sleepers below, and was
sluggish from the effects of his repast. It was then
that I recognized him as Malaria, and knew his
abode to be the dread Valley of the shadow of Miasma—miscalled
the Happy Valley!

On week days there was a pleasant melody of boiler-making
from the foundries, and the gas works in the
vicinity sometimes lent a mild perfume to the breeze.
Our street was usually quiet, however—a foot-ball
being sufficient to draw the inhabitants to their front
windows, and to oblige an incautious trespasser to
run the gauntlet of batteries of blue and black eyes
on either side of the way. A carriage passing
through it communicated a singular thrill to the
floors, and caused the china on the dining-table to
rattle. Although we were comparatively free from
the prevailing winds, wandering gusts sometimes got
bewildered and strayed unconsciously into our street,
and finding an unencumbered field, incontinently set
up a shriek of joy and went gleefully to work on
the clothes-lines and chimney-pots, and had a good

time generally until they were quite exhausted. I
have a very vivid picture in my memory of an organ-grinder
who was at one time blown into the end of
our street, and actually blown through it in spite of
several ineffectual efforts to come to a stand before
the different dwellings, but who was finally whirled
out of the other extremity, still playing and vainly
endeavoring to pursue his unhallowed calling. But
these were noteworthy exceptions to the calm and
even tenor of our life.

There was contiguity but not much sociability in
our neighborhood. From my bed-room window I
could plainly distinguish the peculiar kind of victuals
spread on my neighbor's dining table; while, on the
other hand, he obtained an equally uninterrupted
view of the mysteries of my toilette. Still that
“low vice, curiosity,” was regulated by certain laws,
and a kind of rude chivalry invested our observations.
A pretty girl, whose bed-room window was
the cynosure of neighboring eyes, was once brought
under the focus of an opera glass in the hands of one
of our ingenious youth; but this act met such
prompt and universal condemnation as an unmanly
advantage, from the lips of married men and bachelors
who didn't own opera glasses, that it was never
repeated.

With this brief sketch I conclude my record of
the neighborhoods I have moved from. I have
moved from many others since then, but they have
generally presented features not dissimilar to the
three I have endeavored to describe in these pages.

I offer them as types containing the salient pecularities
of all. Let no inconsiderate reader rashly
move on account of them. My experience has not
been cheaply bought. From the nettle Change I
have tried to pluck the flower Security. Draymen
have grown rich at my expense. House-agents have
known me and were glad, and landlords have risen
up to meet me from afar. The force of habit impels
me still to consult all the bills I see in the streets,
nor can the war telegrams divert my first attention
from the advertising columns of the daily papers. I
repeat, let no man think I have disclosed the weaknesses
of the neighborhood, nor rashly open that
closet which contains the secret skeleton of his dwelling.
My carpets have been altered to fit all sized
odd shaped apartments from parallelopiped to hexagons.
Much of my furniture has been distributed
among my former dwellings. These limbs have
stretched upon uncarpeted floors, or have been let
down suddenly from imperfectly-established bedsteads.
I have dined in the parlor and slept in the
back kitchen. Yet the result of these sacrifices and
trials may be briefly summed up in the statement
that I am now on the eve of removal from my
Present Neighborhood.