They were more rural than the open country, and gave a greater impression of antiquity than the oldest _land_ upon the High Street.

They too, like Fergusson's butterfly, had a quaint air of having wandered far from their own place; they looked abashed and homely, with their gables and their creeping plants, their outside stairs and running mill-streams; there were corners that smelt like the end of the country garden where I spent my Aprils; and the people stood to gossip at their doors, as they might have done in Colinton or Cramond.
In a great measure we may, and shall, eradicate this haunting flavour of the country.

The last elm is dead in Elm Row; and the villas and the workmen's quarters spread apace on all the borders of the city.

We can cut down the trees; we can bury the grass under dead paving-stones; we can drive brisk streets through all our sleepy quarters; and we may forget the stories and the playgrounds of our boyhood.

But we have some possessions that not even the infuriate zeal of builders can utterly abolish and destroy.