within this hallowed precinct naturally bring a higher rent than those of the unsanctified and unprotected region outside of its walls.  It is a realm of peace, glorified by the divine edifice, which lifts the least imaginative soul upward to the heavens its spire seems trying to reach; beautified by rows of noble elms which stretch high aloft, as if in emulation of the spire; beatified by holy memories of the good and great men who have worn their lives out in the service of the church of which it is one of the noblest temples.

For a whole week we lived under the shadow of the spire of the great cathedral.  Our house was opposite the north transept, only separated by the road in front of it from the cathedral grounds.  Here, as at Stratford, I learned what it was to awake morning after morning and find that I was not dreaming, but there in the truth-telling daylight the object of my admiration, devotion, almost worship, stood before me.  I need not here say anything more of the cathedral, except that its perfect exterior is hardly equalled in beauty by its interior, which looks somewhat bare and cold.  It was my impression that there is more to study than to admire in the interior, but I saw the cathedral so much oftener on the outside than on the inside that I may not have done justice to the latter aspect of the noble building.

Nothing could be more restful than our week at Salisbury.  There was enough in the old town besides the cathedral to interest us,—­old buildings, a museum, full of curious objects, and the old town itself.  When I was there the first time, I remember that we picked up a guide-book in which we found a verse that has remained in my memory ever since.  It is an epitaph on a native of Salisbury who died in Venice.

  “Born in the English Venice, thou didst dye
  Dear Friend, in the Italian Salisbury.”

This would be hard to understand except for the explanation which the local antiquarians give us of its significance.  The Wiltshire Avon flows by or through the town, which is drained by brooks that run through its streets.  These, which used to be open, are now covered over, and thus the epitaph becomes somewhat puzzling, as there is nothing to remind one of Venice in walking about the town.

While at Salisbury we made several excursions:  to Old Sarum; to Bemerton, where we saw the residence of holy George Herbert, and visited the little atom of a church in which he ministered; to Clarendon Park; to Wilton, the seat of the Earl of Pembroke, a most interesting place for itself and its recollections; and lastly to Stonehenge.  My second visit to the great stones after so long an interval was a strange experience.  But what is half a century to a place like Stonehenge?  Nothing dwarfs an individual life like one of these massive, almost unchanging monuments of an antiquity which refuses to be measured.  The “Shepherd of Salisbury Plain” was represented by an old man, who told all he knew and a good deal more about the great stones, and sheared a living, not from sheep, but from visitors, in the shape of shillings and sixpences.  I saw nothing that wore unwoven wool on its back in the neighborhood of the monuments, but sheep are shown straggling among them in the photographs.