o has been dabbling in some other manner. Every
street in London is being converted into a battlefield of styles, all
shrieking at one another, all murdering one another. The tumult may be
exciting, especially to the architects, but it is not beautiful. It is
not good to live in.

However, I am no propagandist. I am not sanguine enough to suppose that
I could do anything to stop either the adulteration or the demolition
of old streets. I do not wish to infect the public with my own
misgivings. On the contrary, my motive for this essay is to inoculate
the public with my own placid indifference in a certain matter which
seems always to cause them painful anxiety. Whenever a new highway is
about to be opened, the newspapers are filled with letters suggesting
that it ought to be called by this or that beautiful name, or by the
name of this or that national hero. Well, in point of fact, a name
cannot (in the long-run) make any shadow of difference in our sentiment
for the street that bears it, for our sentiment is solely according to
the character of the street itself; and, further, a street does nothing
at all to keep green the memory of one whose name is given to it.

For a street one name is as good as another. To prove this proposition,
let us proceed by analogy of the names borne by human beings. Surnames
and Christian names may alike be divided into two classes: (1) those
which, being identical with words in the dictionary, connote some
definite thing; (2) those which, connoting nothing, may or may not
suggest something by their sound. Instances of Christian names in the
first class are Rose, Faith; of surnames, Lavender, Badger; of
Christian names in the second class, Celia, Mary; of surnames, Jones,
Vavasour. Let us consider the surnames in the first class. You will
say, off-hand, that Lavender sounds pretty, and that Badger sounds
ugly. Very well. Now, suppose that Christian names connoting unpleasant
things were sometimes conferred at baptisms. Imagine two sisters named
Nettle and Envy. Off-hand, you will say that these names sound ugly,
whilst Rose and Faith sound pretty. Yet, believe me, there is not, in
point of actual sound, one pin to choose either between Badger and
Lavender, or between Rose and Nettle, or between Faith and Envy. There
is no such thing as a singly euphonious or a singly cacophonous name.
There is no word which, by itself, sounds ill or well. In combination,
names or words may be made to soun