"With halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign of the "The Crossed Harpoons"—but it looked too expensive and jolly there."
—from chapter 2 of Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, "The Carpet-Bag"
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Then Ishmael passes on another inn, the "Sword-Fish Inn," for the same reason: "too expensive and jolly again. So he eventually settles upon The Spouter Inn, which he come across upon "such dreary streets! blocks of blackness" as he heads for the waterfront and the cheapest places to stay for the night. But these streets appear to be much more in keeping with his depressive state. The exterior landscape reflects his interior landscape. (Or vice versa.)
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