The world flows past the
window, that small and (as it seems to me) particularly select
portion of the world which finds itself in our quiet street; I
can see it as I drink my tea. When I lived in a flat (days and
days ago) anything might have happened to London, and I should
never have known it until the afternoon. Everybody else could
have perished in the night, and I should settle down as
complacently as ever to my essay on making the world safe for
democracy. Not so now. As soon as I have reached the bottom of my
delightful staircase I am one with the outside world.
Also one with the weather, which is rather convenient. On the
third floor it is almost impossible to know what sort of weather
they are having in London. A day which looks cold from a third-
floor window may be very sultry down below, but by that time one
is committed to an overcoat. How much better to live in a house,
and to step from one's front door and inhale a sample of whatever
day the gods have sent. Then one can step back again and dress
accordingly.
But the best of a house is that it has an outside personality as
well as an inside one. Nobody, not even himself, could admire a
man's flat from the street; nobody could look up and say, "What
very delightful people must live behind those third-floor
windows." Here it is different. Any of you may find himself some
day in our quiet street, and stop a moment to look at our house;
at the blue door with its jolly knocker, at the little trees in
their blue tubs standing within a ring of blue posts linked by
chains, at the bright-coloured curtains.
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