Hever Castle- The Italian Garden

[poliphilo]

The Astors went to Italy- and came back with crateloads of bits of ancient monument- rather like Citizen Kane (they too were in the newspaper business). The result was Hever's fabulous Italian Garden

Comments

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

What wonderful photographs!

(I must tell you that in our news last night was another vandalism of an old graveyard--lambs' heads sheered off children's headstones, some stones just chopped in half, and these were very old graves dating back to the early 1800s. I am glad these fine statues are in such untouched, if weathered, condition!)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's a shame when old things get smashed.

I guess this is the work of some very angry, kids. I wonder how they got that way.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

And maybe just bored kids, who have somehow never developed empathy or any sense of consequences.

Scary, and hard not to extrapolate that this is an indicator of horrors to come!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Horrors to come? I don't think so. Bored kids have always smashed up graveyards- at least they've been doing it for as long as I can remember. It's a phase of adolescent nihilism that most of them will grow out of.

I read somewhere that there's a time during adolescence when the brain undergoes changes which- for a short time- turn off the centre that controls empathy- with the result that the person becomes a temporary psychopath. We've all been there.