But, alas! Gray's Inn Walks are curtailed, and its gardens deserted enough, at the present day! No more does Fashion walk there, unless it be the "fashion" of the Gray's Inn Road. Many of the solid brick squares are fallen, like Mr. Tulkinghorn's haunt of "Allegory," into comparative decay; others, perhaps, are still more or less substantial; but the grime of many unpainted years of occupation must, one thinks, be more or less conducive to midnight gloom, or even to the before-mentioned complaint of "the 'orrors!" And yet, with all these drawbacks, do not the suites of rooms in the Inn emanate a semi-historic charm, a charm that the newer "flats" can never, never possess? Even apart from mere history, places where people have lived and experienced and suffered, always, I think, breathe a certain humanity.... And I would rather, for my part, have a dinner of herbs in Gray's Inn, in a low-roofed panelled parlour, with windows open on to the green enclosure below, than enjoy all the dainties of the clubs in a "Palace Mansions," with all the newest electric appliances.... I would rather hear the dim echoes of the past in the rustle of the Gray's Inn elm-trees, or the plash of the Temple Fountain, than boast of a theatre agency next door, or live in a West End street of ever so desirable people.... I would rather breathe the sweet and solitary content of a City quadrangle, than the fevered and stormy dissipation of Mayfair ... I would rather.... But the day darkens, and reminds me that I have wandered long enough in these City closes. Farewell, old Inns! haunts of ancient peace, goodnight! You will, surely, not always remain as you have been in the past. For some of you, that all-invading iconoclast, the builder, will alter and destroy old landmarks; for others, but few springs, maybe, will return to awake and gladden you into green beauty of plane and elm. Yet, even then, the memories of past glories will haunt the sacred place, and fill it with "a diviner air"; even then, will surely never wholly be abolished or destroyed those traditions of former greatness that "--like the actions of the just, Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust." CHAPTER VIII THE EAST AND THE WEST "Behold how far the East is from the West!" "A forest of houses, between which ebbs and flows a stream of human faces, with all their varied passions--an awful rush of love, hunger, and hate--for such is London."--_Heine._