University Missourian. [volume] (Columbia, Mo.) 1908-1916, 1912-10-02
PRICELESS HOUSES

ing or two and with his pigments an(
a brush. painted the sunset on it, OF
the towers, minarets, and palaces oi
Venice, he made that piece of canvas
practically priceless. 1t is the touch ol
genius which alone can work this mir
acle, and, as many holiday wandereI
discovers, it has worked its enchant-
ing spell on bricks and mortar. as
we'll as upon fiimsier material.
About two miles from the town OF
Ayr stands little unpicturesque clay
built cottage. reared by the horny
hands of the father of Robert Burns
and which the poet himself refers to
as an "auld clay biggin." There the
national bard of Scotland came into
rough and stormy world on Janu-
airy %, 1883, and spent the first seven
years of his life beneath it's thatch.
| What is that cottage worth? In mud
and thatch and moldering timber
practically nothing. Yet, by reason
of its being the birthplace of Robert
Burns it is priceless to the people of
the poets native land.
Tucked away under the lee of the
mountains, which stand like sentinels
round the charming lakes of Rydal
Water and Grasmere. stands very
unpretentious but very picturesque
house which. if it had not once been
the abode of genius. might probably
be bought lock, stock and barrel for
a few hundred pounds. Its name is
Dove Cottage. and William Words
worth. the great Nature poet. lived
there for some years with his sister,
and beneath its roof and i'm its steep
little garden. laid out by the poets
own hands, many of his most memoir
able poems were written. Doubtless
the thousands of American tourists
who make pilgrimage to Dove Cottage
would dearly like to transport the sa-
cred stones to the states. But the
price is too heavy even for Rockefel-
ler.
There is a quiet and eminently re-
spectacle street in chelsea Opposite
the end of it. in the Embankment Gar
dens, sits the rugged stone effigy,
carved by master sculptor, of man
who used to live at the house num-
bered "a.
The price of all the other houses in
Cheyne Row could not suffice to buy
Thomas Carlyle's house, because there
he lived many years, and there he
wrote his French Revolution" and
his Frederick the Great" and his
"Cromwell.' The visitors book which
lies upon the table of the old Sage's
dining room contains the names Of
prince and peasant from every coun-
try on the globe.
At the corner of an old-fashioned
Georgian square in the sleepy cathe-
dral city of I.ichfield stands another
priceless house. II is priceless just
as the portrait OF the man who was
born there. painted by his friend Sir
Joshua Reynolds. one of the chief
treasurers of our National Gallery,
is priceless. People from the ends of
the earth go to Lichtield primarily to
see the house in which Or. Samue!
Johnson was born. and then, as an
they go round the cor
ner and visit the cathedral.
About a mile out OF Stratford-on-
Avon. in typical Warwickshire vii
lage. stands low, long thatched cot
tage which would command a rental
nf half crown week at the most /
Yet all the wealth of the world could /
not buy it. In that cot and its pretty |
rustic garden the greatest OF the |
worlds poets. the sweet Swan of Avon /
the immortal Shakespeare, did his
1t is the cottage of Ann !
Hathaway. And if that cottage is
priceless, what must be asked for the
Did timbered Elizabethan house in
Stratford itself where the great play
wright was born? 1t is literally worth
its weight in rubies.
The house in Broad Street, in the
City of London, where John Milton
was born, perished. like thousands of
It's kind, in the fire of London, still
,ommemorated b. the monument on
Fish Street Hill. But there is a cot
age rendered priceless. nevertheless,
)y the touch of the blind bard's gen.
US. 1t is at Chalfont ST. Giles, in
Bucks. 1t was Millions country re-
reat. and thousands make pilgrimage
o it because Milton there finished his
yreat epic, Paradise Lost."-Kansas
'ity Star.