Now there may be some here who have the good luck to dwell in those noble buildings which our forefathers built, out of their very souls, one may say; such good luck I call about the greatest that can befall a man in these days.  But these happy people have little to do with our troubles of to-night, save as sympathetic onlookers.  All we have to do with them is to remind them not to forget their duties to those places, which they doubtless love well; not to alter them or torment them to suit any passing whim or convenience, but to deal with them as if their builders, to whom they owe so much, could still be wounded by the griefs and rejoice in the well-doing of their ancient homes.  Surely if they do this, they also will neither be forgotten nor unthanked in the time to come.

There may be others here who dwell in houses that can scarcely be called noble—­nay, as compared with the last-named kind, may be almost called ignoble—­but their builders still had some traditions left them of the times of art.  They are built solidly and conscientiously at least, and if they have little or no beauty, yet have a certain common-sense and convenience about them; nor do they fail to represent the manners and feelings of their own time.  The earliest of these, built about the reign of Queen Anne, stretch out a hand toward the Gothic times, and are not without picturesqueness, especially when their surroundings are beautiful.  The latest built in the latter days of the Georges are certainly quite guiltless of picturesqueness, but are, as above said, solid, and not inconvenient.  All these houses, both the so-called Queen Anne ones and the distinctively Georgian, are difficult enough to decorate, especially for those who have any leaning toward romance, because they have still some style left in them which one cannot ignore; at the same time that it is impossible for any one living out of the time in which they were built to sympathise with a style whose characteristics are mere whims, not founded on any principle.  Still they are at the worst not aggressively ugly or base, and it is possible to live in them without serious disturbance to our work or thoughts; so that by the force of contrast they have become bright spots in the prevailing darkness of ugliness that has covered all modern life.

But we must not forget that that rebellion which we have met here, I hope, to further, has begun, and to-day shows visible tokens of its life; for of late there have been houses rising up among us here and there which have certainly not been planned either by the common cut-and-dried designers for builders, or by academical imitators of bygone styles.  Though they may be called experimental, no one can say that they are not born of thought and principle, as well as of great capacity for design.  It is nowise our business to-night to criticise them.  I suspect their authors, who have gone through so many difficulties (not of their own breeding) in producing them, know their shortcomings much better than we can do, and are less elated by their successes than we are.  At any rate, they are gifts to our country which will always be respected, whether the times better or worsen, and I call upon you to thank their designers most heartily for their forethought, labour, and hope.