336 MORE POT-POURRI 



Temple Bar because it was thought too expensive to make 

 a road each side of it. Also the clearing away of sixteen 

 or eighteen of Wren's beautiful churches. I would far 

 rather see them used in some way for the people's good 

 than destroyed. I cannot see why they should not be put 

 to some useful service, as the monasteries and convents 

 have been in France and Italy. If this is sacrilege, surely 

 it is much more so wantonly to destroy ! At least, we 

 might still have the beautiful spires of the kind which Mr. 

 Watson describes : 



It soars like hearts of hapless men who dare 

 To sue for gifts the gods refuse to allot ; 



Who climb for ever toward they know not where, 

 Baffled for ever by they know not what. 



Not to speak of the hideous spoiling of the Thames 

 by the railway and other bridges, narrow streets and 

 old houses are constantly pulled down. Only the other 

 day the picturesque almshouses of Westminster ceased to 

 exist. Last, but not least, Wren's work is being disfigured, 

 as most people feel, by the modern decorations in St. 

 Paul's. I often wish a deputation of influential Italians, 

 with a petition signed by hundreds of non-influential 

 names, would come here and protest against this destruc- 

 tion of old buildings and our many other municipal 

 short-comings. May the Italians respect their lovely 

 buildings ! and I believe they will better than we do. 

 They certainly restore with apparently only the wish to 

 copy and maintain a great deal better than any other 

 European nation I know. I cannot make up my mind 

 that in this they are wrong, in spite of the constant 

 protests of the Anti-Bestoration Society, with whose work 

 I have been in much sympathy all my life. It seems 

 hard to say that the beautiful buildings of the Middle 

 Ages ought to be allowed to fall into ruins, and the effort 

 to preserve what we admire will, I think earn the gratitude 



