Rarely, nowadays, do I feel despondent; but when the fit comes over me, I open the box in which I still keep the papers relating to the time when I was planning my garden cities. I finger my documents and turn over my sketches, ever amazed at the gulf which lies between my hopes of that day and our achievements of the present. Here and there, on the margin of some modest ground-plan, I find scribbled notes of caution to myself not to expect such vast projects to be practicable in the near future. And then, after losing myself in this atmosphere of the past, I go to the great windows and look down upon Asgard. For once, at least, in this world, hope has been far outrun by achievement. Splendours of which I never dreamed have come into being and lie before my eyes as I gaze. With all this confronting me, my despondency slips away and I regain sure confidence in the future. Cities and gardens have I raised in Dreamland. Other cities and other gardens I have seen spring from the ground of this world in answer to my call. But of all these, Asgard is nearest to my heart; for it is the last which I shall create. Other men will surpass me; new wonderlands will rise in the future: but Asgard is my masterpiece and I shall build no more. Ten years have gone by since the last stone was laid in my city; yet every morning as I come to my windows, I find in it fresh beauties to delight my eyes. Fronting the sea it stands; and its fore-court is a vast stretch of silver sand between the horns of the bay. Behind it the ground rises to a semicircle of low hills set here and there with groves and fretted with silver waterfalls. Through all the changes of the year these slopes are green; for snow never drifts upon them nor do mists gather to hide them from my view. Only the swift cloud-shadows flitting athwart them bring fresh lights and shades into the picture as they pass. Nor do I weary of this greenery. Slowly vegetation is creeping back upon the face of the world; but still there are vast deserts where no blade grows: and in my own cities I planned masses of verdure so that they might be like oases among the barren spaces of the earth. Between the hills and the sea, the city stands--a vast space of woods and fields and gardens from among the greenery of which rise here and there high halls and palaces of rose-tinted stone. Here and there amid the green lie broad lakes to catch the sun; and great tree-shadowed pools, like crystal mirrors, stand rippleless among the groves. And throughout the city there is ever the sound of streams and rivulets falling from the hills and making music for us with their murmurings as they pass.