“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.”
—–Shakespeare, Henry V, Act-III, Scene-I
There are a lot of brick walls in my part of town (inner-ring suburb) dividing the houses and yards from the every-mile streets – dividing the neighborhood from the outside world.
If you look at these walls, especially at places where streets dead-end into the surrounding road – you will see an odd variation in the types of bricks used. People don’t stop. Cars veer out of control. Then it is time to repair the wall – and exact matches of brick are impossible to find.
On a bike ride I came across an intact breaching – waiting for a work crew to come out in the summer heat and mortar new almost-matching bricks back into the breach.
It’s impossible not to look through the hole – sometimes it’s surprising what’s on the other side.