cathedral. I have to carve the
gargoyles, because I can carve nothing else; I leave to others the
angels and the arches and the spires. But I am very sure of the style of
the architecture, and of the consecration of the church.

The Surrender of a Cockney

Evert man, though he were born in the very belfry of Bow and spent his
infancy climbing among chimneys, has waiting for him somewhere a country
house which he has never seen; but which was built for him in the very
shape of his soul. It stands patiently waiting to be found, knee-deep in
orchards of Kent or mirrored in pools of Lincoln; and when the man sees
it he remembers it, though he has never seen it before. Even I have been
forced to confess this at last, who am a Cockney, if ever there was one,
a Cockney not only on principle, but with savage pride. I have always
maintained, quite seriously, that the Lord is not in the wind or thunder
of the waste, but if anywhere in the still small voice of Fleet Street.
I sincerely maintain that Nature-worship is more morally dangerous
than the most vulgar man-worship of the cities; since it can easily be
perverted into the worship of an impersonal mystery, carelessness, or
cruelty. Thoreau would have been a jollier fellow if he had devoted
himself to a greengrocer instead of to greens. Swinburne would have
been a better moralist if he had worshipped a fishmonger instead of
worshipping the sea. I prefer the philosophy of bricks and mortar to
the philosophy of turnips. To call a man a turnip may be playful, but is
seldom respectful. But when we wish to pay emphatic honour to a man, to
praise the firmness of his nature, the squareness of his conduct, the
strong humility with which he is interlocked with his equals in silent
mutual support, then we invoke the nobler Cockney metaphor, and call him
a brick.

But, despite all these theories, I have surrendered; I have struck my
colours at sight; at a mere glimpse through the opening of a hedge. I
shall come down to living in the country, like any common Socialist or
Simple Lifer. I shall end my days in a village, in the character of
the Village Idiot, and be a spectacle and a judgment to mankind. I have
already learnt the rustic manner of leaning upon a gate; and I was thus
gymnastically occupied at the moment when my eye caught the house that
was made for me. It stood well back from the road, and was built of a
good yellow brick; it was narrow for its height, like the tower