essly through the narrow streets and
lanes below. How small men seem, how like a swarm of ants sweltering in
endless confusion on their tiny hill! How petty seems the work on which
they are hurrying and skurrying! How childishly they jostle against
one another and turn to snarl and scratch! They jabber and screech and
curse, but their puny voices do not reach up here. They fret, and fume,
and rage, and pant, and die; "but I, mein Werther, sit above it all; I
am alone with the stars."

The most extraordinary attic I ever came across was one a friend and I
once shared many years ago. Of all eccentrically planned things, from
Bradshaw to the maze at Hampton Court, that room was the most eccentric.
The architect who designed it must have been a genius, though I cannot
help thinking that his talents would have been better employed in
contriving puzzles than in shaping human habitations. No figure in
Euclid could give any idea of that apartment. It contained seven
corners, two of the walls sloped to a point, and the window was just
over the fireplace. The only possible position for the bedstead was
between the door and the cupboard. To get anything out of the cupboard
we had to scramble over the bed, and a large percentage of the various
commodities thus obtained was absorbed by the bedclothes. Indeed, so
many things were spilled and dropped upon the bed that toward night-time
it had become a sort of small cooperative store. Coal was what it always
had most in stock. We used to keep our coal in the bottom part of the
cupboard, and when any was wanted we had to climb over the bed, fill
a shovelful, and then crawl back. It was an exciting moment when we
reached the middle of the bed. We would hold our breath, fix our eyes
upon the shovel, and poise ourselves for the last move. The next instant
we, and the coals, and the shovel, and the bed would be all mixed up
together.

I've heard of the people going into raptures over beds of coal. We slept
in one every night and were not in the least stuck up about it.

But our attic, unique though it was, had by no means exhausted the
architect's sense of humor. The arrangement of the whole house was a
marvel of originality. All the doors opened outward, so that if any
one wanted to leave a room at the same moment that you were coming
downstairs it was unpleasant for you. There was no ground-floor--its
ground-floor belonged to a house in the next court, and the front
door opened direct