For all the Cricket tribe are potent Spirits , even though the people who hold converse with them do not know it -LRB- which is frequently the case -RRB- , and there are not in the unseen world voices more gentle and more true , that may be so implicitly relied on , or that are so certain to give none but tenderest counsel , as the Voices in which the Spirits of the Fireside and the Hearth address themselves to humankind . Caleb and his daughter were at work together in their usual working-room , which served them for their ordinary living-room as well ; and a strange place it was . There were houses in it , finished and unfinished , for Dolls of all stations in life . Suburban tenements for Dolls of moderate means ; kitchens and single apartments for Dolls of the lower classes ; capital town residences for Dolls of high estate . Some of these establishments were already furnished according to estimate , with a view to the convenience of Dolls of limited income ; others could be fitted on the most expensive scale , at a moment 's notice , from whole shelves of chairs and tables , sofas , bedsteads , and upholstery . The nobility and gentry and public in general , for whose accommodation these tenements were designed , lay here and there , in baskets , staring straight up at the ceiling ; but in denoting their degrees in society , and confining them to their respective stations -LRB- which experience shows to be lamentably difficult in real life -RRB- , the makers of these Dolls had far improved on Nature , who is often froward and perverse ; for they , not resting on such arbitrary marks as satin , cotton print , and bits of rag , had superadded striking personal differences which allowed of no mistake . Thus , the Doll-lady of distinction had wax limbs of perfect symmetry ; but only she and her compeers . The next grade in the social scale being made of leather , and the next of coarse linen stuff . As to the common people , they had just so many matches out of tinder-boxes for their arms and legs , and there they were -- established in their sphere at once , beyond the possibility of getting out of it . There were various other samples of his handicraft besides Dolls in Caleb Plummer 's room . There were Noah 's arks , in which the Birds and Beasts were an uncommonly tight fit , I assure you ; though they could be crammed in , anyhow , at the roof , and rattled and shaken into the smallest compass . By a bold poetical licence , most of these Noah 's arks had knockers on the doors ; inconsistent appendages , perhaps , as suggestive of morning callers and a Postman , yet a pleasant finish to the outside of the building . There were scores of melancholy little carts , which , when the wheels went round , performed most doleful music . Many small fiddles , drums , and other instruments of torture ; no end of cannon , shields , swords , spears , and guns . There were little tumblers in red breeches , incessantly swarming up high obstacles of red tape , and coming down , head first , on the other side ; and there were innumerable old gentlemen of respectable , not to say venerable appearance , insanely flying over horizontal pegs , inserted , for the purpose , in their own street-doors . There were beasts of all sorts ; horses , in particular , of every breed , from the spotted barrel on four pegs with a small tippet for a mane , to the thorough-bred rocker on his highest mettle . As it would have been hard to count the dozens upon dozens of grotesque figures that were ever ready to commit all sorts of absurdities on the turning of a handle , so it would have been no easy task to mention any human folly , vice , or weakness that had not its type , immediate or remote , in Caleb Plummer 's room . And not in an exaggerated form , for very little handles will move men and women to as strange performances as any Toy was ever made to undertake . In the midst of all these objects , Caleb and his daughter sat at work . The Blind Girl busy as a Doll 's dressmaker ; Caleb painting and glazing the four-pair front of a desirable family mansion .
The care imprinted XXXXX the lines of Caleb 's face , and his absorbed and dreamy manner , which would have sat well on some alchemist or abstruse student , were at first sight an odd contrast to his occupation and the trivialities about him .
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