Considering our ideals, it is a wonder that no one has provided a law
forbidding the erection of all the architecturally attractive, or
sumptuous houses in one neighborhood. It ought not to be possible in a
republic for such a state of affairs to exist as existed in Benham. That
is to say all the wealth and fashion of the city lay to the west of
Central Avenue, which was so literally the dividing line that if a
Benhamite were referred to as living on that street the conventional
inquiry would be "On which side?" And if the answer were "On the east,"
the inquirer would be apt to say "Oh!" with a cold inflection which
suggested a ban. No Benhamite has ever been able to explain precisely
why it should be more creditable to live on one side of the same street
than on the other, but I have been told by clever women, who were good
Americans besides, that this is one of the subtle truths which baffle
the Gods and democracies alike. Central Avenue has long ago been
appropriated by the leading retail dry-goods shops, huge establishments
where everything from a set of drawing-room furniture to a hair-pin can
be bought under a single roof; but at that time it was the social
artery. Everything to the west was new and assertive; then came the
shops and the business centre; and to the east were Tom, Dick, and
Harry, Michael, Isaac and Pietro, the army of citizens who worked in the
mills, oil yards, and pork factories.
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