age comes over me as I
think of the wrongs the roof has suffered. It is the only part of the
house that has not kept pace with the times. To say that you have a good
roof is taken as meaning that your roof is tight, that it keeps out the
water, that it excels in those qualities in which it excelled equally
three thousand years ago. What you ought to mean is that you have a roof
that is flat and has things on it that make it livable, where you can
walk, disport yourself, or sleep; a house-top view of your neighbors'
affairs; an airy pleasance with a full sweep of stars; a place to listen
of nights to the drone of the city; a place of observation, and if you are
so inclined, of meditation.

Everything but the roof has been improved. The basement has been coddled
with electric lights until a coal hole is no longer an abode of mystery.
Even the garret, that used to be but a dusty suburb of the house and
lumber room for early Victorian furniture, has been plastered and strewn
with servants' bedrooms.

There _was_ a garret once: somewhat misty now after these twenty years. It
was not daubed to respectability with paint, nor was it furnished forth as
bedrooms; but it was rough-timbered, and resounded with drops when the
dark clouds passed above. On bright days a cheerful light lay along the
floor and dust motes danced in its luminous shaft. And always there was
cobwebbed stillness. But on dark days, when the roof pattered and the
branches of trees scratched the shingles and when windows rattled, a
deeper obscurity crept out of the corners. Yet was there little fear in
the place. This was the front garret where the theatre was, with the
practicable curtain. But when the darker mood was on us, there was the
back garret. It was six steps lower and over it the roof crouched as if to
hide its secrets. The very men that built it must have been lowering,
bearded fellows; for they put into it many corners and niches and black
holes. The wood, too, from which it was fashioned must have been gnarled
and knotted and the nails rusty and crooked. One window cast a narrow
light down the middle of this room, but at both sides was immeasurable
night. When you had stooped in from the sunlight and had accustomed your
eyes to the dimness, you found yourself in an uncertain anchorage of old
furniture, abandoned but offering dusty covert for boys with the light of
brigands in their eyes. A pirates' den lay safe behind the chimney,
protected by a