This was sometimes the effect of a jealous
rivalry; sometimes of imitation. In one dozen houses there was a costly
struggle for supremacy in window curtains. In another dozen, the
harmless contest pertained to Grecian urns crowned with flowers, or dry
dolphins, tritons, or naiads, rising from the bosoms of little gravel
beds in miniature front yards. In a third dozen, there was a perspective
of broad iron balconies elegantly constructed for show, and sometimes
put to hazardous use, on warm summer nights, by venturesome gentlemen
with cigars, or ladies with fans.
About the middle of the block was a colony of doctors, who had
increased, in five years, from two to ten. Their march was eastward, and
it could be calculated to a nicety how long it would be before the small
black, gilt-lettered signs of their profession would press hard upon the
great house at the corner. Why they thus congregated together, unless
with the friendly purpose of relieving each other's patients in each
other's absence, and so saving humanity from sudden suffering and death,
was a mystery to everybody but themselves.
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