I dwell on these points in order to show how hopeless it is to catch any of the real spirit and message of the Tower when to-day, to-day, to-day, is ever intruding itself. We ask for leisure to contemplate a far-off yesterday, and to teach the boys and girls we take to the Tower something of the value of the Tower buildings as concrete embodiments of England’s noble history; but we are only permitted to walk hurriedly in one specified direction, and illusion is destroyed at every point. I should like, however, to say, lest I may be misunderstood, that from the Tower officials one receives nothing but courtesy. They are not to blame. They are performing the duties imposed on them from without. The pity is that the restless spirit of the age should have found its way within walls hallowed to memories of England’s kings, and the sufferings of her greatest and worthiest men. Were that spirit denied all access to this one spot, lying in the heart of modern London, a visit to the Tower would mean to young and old alike very much more than it means to-day. The feeling of reverence, which is so sadly lacking in people of all ranks of life, might once again be shown by all who entered these solemn portals. It is in the hope that a record of Tower history and romance presented anew, in the form which this volume takes, may deepen the interest in and the love for the Tower of London, that this book was written. It does not attempt within its narrow limits to give a detailed and exhaustive account of occurrences; that has been admirably done by others before now. But it does attempt, by the aid of carefully prepared pictures, to recreate not only what has been bequeathed to us from a fascinating past, but also the life and colour of the Tower as it stands to-day, in its less-spoiled aspects. A dry repetition of facts and dates may make an accurate history for the scholar’s shelves, but it would remain unread by all else. Such books have their place, and a worthy place, but they would not convey to the mind of one who has never seen the Tower, a really adequate conception of its past and present. This book may fail to bring the Tower in all its strange charm to the heart and mind of a lonely reader on the prairies of Manitoba or in the Australian bush, but the attempt has been made, and it is not for writer or artist to say whether it has been achieved or not.