g, the more do the owls build their nests in it, the more do
the excursionists munch in it their sandwiches. Thus, year by year, its
fame increases, till it looks back with contempt on the days when it
was a mere upright waterproof. Local guide-books pander more and more
slavishly to its pride; leader-writers in need of a pathetic metaphor
are more and more frequently supplied by it. If there be any sordid
question of clearing it away to make room for something else, the
public outcry is positively deafening.

Not that we are still under the sway of that peculiar cult which beset
us in the earlier part of the nineteenth century. A bad poet or painter
can no longer reap the reward of genius merely by turning his attention
to ruins under moonlight. Nor does any one cause to be built in his
garden a broken turret, for the evocation of sensibility in himself and
his guests. There used to be one such turret near the summit of Campden
Hill; but that familiar imposture was rased a year or two ago, no one
protesting. Fuit the frantic factitious sentimentalism for ruins. On
the other hand, the sentiment for them is as strong as ever it was.
Decrepit Carisbrooke and its rivals annually tighten their hold on
Britannia's heart.

I do not grudge them their success. But the very fact that they are so
successful inclines me to reserve my own personal sentiment rather for
those unwept, unsung ruins which so often confront me, here and there,
in the streets of this aggressive metropolis. The ruins made, not by
Time, but by the ruthless skill of Labour, the ruins of houses not old
enough to be sacrosanct nor new enough to keep pace with the demands of
a gasping and plethoric community--these are the ruins that move me to
tears. No owls flutter in them. No trippers lunch in them. In no
guide-book or leading-article will you find them mentioned. Their
pathetic interiors gape to the sky and to the street, but nor gods nor
men hold out a hand to save them. The patterns of bedroom wall-papers,
(chosen with what care, after how long discussion! only a few short
years or months ago) stare out their obvious, piteous appeal to us for
mercy. And their dumb agony is echoed dumbly by the places where doors
have been--doors that lately were tapped at by respectful knuckles; or
the places where staircases have been--staircases down whose banisters
lately slid little children, laughing. Exposed, humiliated, doomed, the
home throws out a hundred pleas