On every side
the seven gables pointed sharply towards the sky, and presented the aspect
of a whole sisterhood of edifices, breathing through the spiracles of one
great chimney. The many lattices, with their small, diamond-shaped panes,
admitted the sunlight into hall and chamber, while, nevertheless, the
second story, projecting far over the base, and itself retiring beneath
the third, threw a shadowy and thoughtful gloom into the lower rooms.
Carved globes of wood were affixed under the jutting stories. Little
spiral rods of iron beautified each of the seven peaks. On the triangular
portion of the gable, that fronted next the street, was a dial, put up
that very morning, and on which the sun was still marking the passage of
the first bright hour in a history that was not destined to be all so
bright. All around were scattered shavings, chips, shingles, and broken
halves of bricks; these, together with the lately turned earth, on which
the grass had not begun to grow, contributed to the impression of
strangeness and novelty proper to a house that had yet its place to make
among men's daily interests.
EXERCISES
_A._ Select the sentence or part of a sentence which gives the fundamental
image in each of the following selections:--
1. It was a big, smooth-stone-faced house, product of the 'Seventies,
frowning under an outrageously insistent Mansard, capped by a cupola, and
staring out of long windows overtopped with "ornamental" slabs.
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