All you can do is to make your
friends uncomfortable and spoil their dinner for them. Young Bute
said that, so far as he was concerned, he would always rather have
spent the evening with his little nephews and nieces, playing at
horses; it seemed to him a more sensible game.
Young Bute said that, speaking as an architect, he of course admired
the ancient masterpieces of his art. He admired the Erechtheum at
Athens; but Spurgeon's Tabernacle in the Old Kent Road built upon the
same model would have irritated him. For a Grecian temple you wanted
Grecian skies and Grecian girls. He said that, even as it was,
Westminster Abbey in the season was an eyesore to him. The Dean and
Choir in their white surplices passed muster, but the congregation in
its black frock-coats and Paris hats gave him the same sense of
incongruity as would a banquet of barefooted friars in the dining-
hall of the Cannon Street Hotel.
It struck me there was sense in what he said. I decided not to
mention my idea of carving 1553 above the front-door.
He said he could not understand this passion of the modern house-
builder for playing at being a Crusader or a Canterbury Pilgrim. A
retired Berlin boot-maker of his acquaintance had built himself a
miniature Roman Castle near Heidelberg. They played billiards in the
dungeon, and let off fireworks on the Kaiser's birthday from the roof
of the watch-tower.
Another acquaintance of his, a draper at Holloway, had built himself
a moated grange.
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