Waterhouse, Percy Leslie: The story of architecture throughout the ages: an introduction to the study of the oldest of the arts for students and general readers (London: B. T. Batsford, 1924)

x THE STORY OF ARCHITECTURE
or the Tiber. For it is at last being recognised
that Architecture is not a matter of styles and
mouldings and students’ terms : it has a human
quality : it touches us at every point, and, of
all the fine arts, is the one most intimately
associated with the lives of all of us.
The reader is asked to bear in mind this close
association between Architecture and its creators,
between Architecture and the civilisation which
produced it : to remember that through it,
more readily than by any other means, we may
grasp the spirit of the past. For Architecture
has always been an expression of human life,
the medium by which nations have recorded,—
truly, because unconsciously,—their emotions,
their aspirations, their beliefs. Viewed in this
light, old buildings acquire an added charm,
as the civilisations which they mark pass in
review before us ;—Egyptian, Greek or Roman :
the genius of the Gothic constructors, expressed
in those buildings which represent the “ triumph
of science and the incarnation of romance ” ;
all the varied energies of the artists of the
Renaissance. . . .
And so, down to the present time. For the
glamour of the past must not be allowed to blind
us to the claims of the present. The Architecture
of to-day vitally concerns every householder
and every citizen. We must learn,—indeed, we
are learning,—to take an intelligent interest in
all that is going on around us ; to discriminate,
to take pride in the glory of every new building
in our midst which successfully claims to