when the festival is over however added mr bird the two cottages � belonging to the on the site of which the library is to be built will certainly come down the remaining cottage � that next to the garden � is the property of the of the and will be spared for a while but will ultimately be pulled down also to increase the size of the garden curiously enough mr flower a prominent is of the of the trust while his son mr flower is the of the library committee it was the latter gentleman who first and practically approached mr on the subject of the library and he suggested as a site a little of land between the school and a larger cottage which the three which are now doomed exception was taken to this as the larger cottage is really an old structure from the year before shakespeare was born hence the other cottages were selected why people wish to save them said the mayor yesterday i cannot understand they are very ugly and there is nothing about them for they have not been standing more than a hundred years at the outside we only se to erect in their stead a very modest building see and one which will be far more in keeping with the atmosphere of the street to this view however there is very strong opposition even in � daily mail by the above extract it will be again made plainly evident that the intention of all parties concerned was to entirely the old houses m street after the public luncheon on april i wished to speak mr mr before he returned to london but he told me he feared he � would have no time to give me i thought this rather extraordinary as i had been the first to warn him respecting the intended in and had received from him the following letter dated march � thk plain truth of the intended his first letters mr deserts his former dear madam � many thanks for the information contained in your letter of the th i hope that by calling a little more attention to the flower scheme we may get it modified to the extent of having no new buildings put up in street � yours very faithfully the letter which mr wrote to the times on march and which has already been set before the reader followed this letter to myself in another letter to me he wrote � the only body in the country really fit to have charge of such a site is the national trust not a body such as the actual but such as they are we must try and prevail with them but after spending nearly the whole day of april with mr d flower mr on his return to london from me the following letter � copy british museum london w c april dear miss � i was very sorry to be prevented coming to tea with you yesterday but my time was taken up first making a thorough examination of the premises in street and next waiting to try and find my friend who was due at the red horse at six but for whom i waited in vain until six twenty when it was time to catch my train for london and now first let me congratulate you again on a speech delivered with a very remarkable beauty of voice and utterance for which i own i was not prepared � it was admirable and next i have to confess what will not please you that having carefully examined the houses and gone into all the points of the matter on the spot i am no longer on your side as i was and regret that i should have taken part in the public discussion as i was for long unwilling to do without first hand study of the facts and conditions i find these to be much more complicated than i supposed the maintenance of the actual which i should prefer much more difficult and the mischief of the proposed scheme much less than it has been represented so please do not count on me in future as an active ally in this matter � yours very truly signed it will be noticed that in this letter mr does not say one word about the associations and tradition of street moreover he says he was making a thorough examination of the premises � that he carefully examined the houses and went into all the his points of the matter on the spot what is mainly in this episode is that he failed to ascertain the history of the old houses altogether a very few days after he had written this letter to me full proofs of the antiquity of the houses in question mistake at on and their connection with the shakespeare family were established the day after the public luncheon i received a letter from mr dr william edward a martin brother of dr william martin hon sec of the london shakespeare league with whom i had had some little correspondence relative to my becoming a member of the league dr william martin was much interested in the effort i was making to save the old houses and would have assisted the work more but for representations made to him that members of the flower family belonged to the league i have never been able to understand why undue consideration for a person or persons should enter into a matter which is purely national especially into such a matter as affects historical literary or connection with shakespeare and times dr martin was however seriously in his own intention to the strict preservation of street and did the best thing he could do under the peculiar circumstances of the case by referring it on to his brother he wrote me a letter containing the passage � it is indeed time 