Whatever may be the way out of the difficulty, let us hope that it may come before great evil is done by the massing together of herds of untrained people, and by the ghastly abuse of staircases, open all night but not under public inspection, not easily inspected even if nominally so placed. The problem is one we ought all, so far as in us lies, to lay to heart and do what we can to solve. I have not dwelt here on what may be called the “sentimental” objections to blocks. The first is the small scope they give for individual freedom. The second is their painful ugliness and uninterestingness in external look, which is nearly always connected with the first. For difference is at least interesting and amusing, monotony never. Let us hope that when we have secured our drainage, our cubic space of air, our water on every floor, we may have time to live in our homes, to think how to make them pretty, each in our own way, and to let the individual characteristics they take from our life in them be all good, as well as healthy and beautiful, because all human life and work were surely meant to be like all Divine creations, lovely as well as good. V SMALL HOUSES IN LONDON (1886) “Land is too valuable in London for us to build cottages, we must have blocks.” Let that be granted for the moment; but that does not preclude those who own such cottages from keeping them where they are built. And I wish that any words of mine might avail with even one such owner, to induce him to pause and consider, very seriously, whether, at any rate for a time, he might not manage to drain and improve water supply and roofs, and thoroughly clean such old buildings, instead of sweeping them away. As to cost, the cottages are far more valuable than the cleared space; as to health, they may be made, at a small cost, far more healthy than any but the very best constructed and best managed blocks. As to the life possible in them—of which the charitable and reforming and legislating bodies know so little—it is incomparably happier and better. Let us keep them while we can.