Folly

Alistair died that winter, penniless and alone. Decades later, the tower became a local landmark—a "conversation piece" for hikers who marveled at the strange, beautiful ruin in the woods. It stood as a reminder that while wisdom builds a house to live in, folly builds a monument to the things we do when we forget we have to survive.

Sir Alistair Thorne was a man of vast wealth and even vaster certainty. To Alistair, the world was a series of problems to be solved with stone and mortar. His final project, he decided, would be his masterpiece: "The Spire of Perpetual Silence," a towering, mock-Gothic lighthouse built in the center of a landlocked forest, miles from any ocean. Alistair died that winter, penniless and alone

The traveler looked at the empty hearth and the stone walls that held no heat, then back at the starving old man."I see," the traveler said. "The building is a folly, but the man who built it... he is the true work of art." Sir Alistair Thorne was a man of vast