Amroth stopped at the third of the chapels, and said, “Here, this will do.”  We came in, and as before there was a courteous notice taken of us.  A man in black came forward, and led us to a high seat, like a pew, near the preacher, from which we could survey the crowd.  I was struck with their look of weariness combined with intentness.

The lecturer, a young man, had made a pause, but upon our taking our places, he resumed his speech.  It was a discourse, as far as I could make out, on the development of poetry; he was speaking of lyrical poetry.  I will not here reproduce it.  I will only say that anything more acute, delicate, and discriminating, and, I must add, more entirely valueless and pedantic, I do not think I ever heard.  It must have required immense and complicated knowledge.  He was tracing the development of a certain kind of dramatic lyric, and what surprised me was that he supplied the subtle intellectual connection, the missing links, so to speak, of which there is no earthly record.  Let me give a single instance.  He was accounting for a rather sudden change of thought in a well-known poet, and he showed that it had been brought about by his making the acquaintance of a certain friend who had introduced him to a new range of subjects, and by his study of certain books.  These facts are unrecorded in his published biography, but the analysis of the lecturer, done in a few pointed sentences, not only carried conviction to the mind, but just, so to speak, laid the truth bare.  And yet it was all to me incredibly sterile and arid.  Not the slightest interest was taken in the emotional or psychological side; it was all purely and exactly scientific.  We waited until the end of the address, which was greeted with decorous applause, and the hall was emptied in a moment.

We visited other chapels where the same sort of thing was going on in other subjects.  It all produced in me a sort of stupefaction, both at the amazing knowledge involved, and in the essential futility of it all.

Before we left the building we went up to the statue, which represented a female figure, looking upwards, with a pure and delicate beauty of form and gesture that was inexpressibly and coldly lovely.

We went out in silence, which seemed to be the rule of the place.

When we came away from the building we were accosted by a very grave and courteous person, who said that he perceived that we were strangers, and asked if he could be of any service to us, and whether we proposed to make a stay of any duration.  Amroth thanked him, and said smilingly that we were only passing through.  The gentleman said that it was a pity, because there was much of interest to hear.  “In this place,” he said with a deprecating gesture, “we grudge every hour that is not devoted to thought.”  He went on to inquire if we were following any particular line of study, and as our answers were unsatisfactory, he said that we could