CELLARS
in the brickwork. We can keep our neighbour out of our dining-room, but we cannot barricade our cellars against his atmosphere. These, for the most part, are run out beneath the street; the never-ending flow of traffic keeps up a perpetual perturbation over our stacks of bottles, and, as over the engaging Williams, “drives for ever the uproar of unresting London,” so that our wine, being never utterly reposed, is never wholly clarified. Moreover, unless our walls and our floors be damp enough, our corks will grow thin, and the wood of darling vat or cherished cask contract and gape; and the essence, the animula, within escapes; and the New Humourist is there to talk of whines from the wood. On the other hand, an excess of moisture breedeth mildew, which warps for wrong and rottenness
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