But apparently those York women resisted it and remained of
a tenderness which contrasted to their advantage with the summer
hardness of our women.
VII
It was a pleasure, which I should be glad to share with the
reader, to lose one's self in the streets of York. They were all
kinds of streets except straight, and they seemed not to go
anywhere except for the joke of bringing the wayfarer
unexpectedly back to, or near, his starting-point and far from
his goal. The blame of their vagariousness, if it was a fault, is
put upon the Danes, who found York when they captured it very
rectangular, for so the Romans built it, and so the Angles kept
it; but nothing would serve the Danes but to crook its streets
and call them gates, so that the real gates of the city have to
be called bars, or else the stranger might take them for streets.
If he asked another wayfarer, he could sometimes baffle the
streets, and get to the point he aimed at, but, whether he did or
not, he could always amuse himself in them; they would take a
friendly interest in him, and show him the old houses and
churches which the American stranger prefers.
Pages:
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82