one is in the Close, with trees and flowers and green grass, with quaint Prebendal houses of every style and date, breathing peace and prosperity.  A genial parson or two pace gravely about; and above you soars the huge church, with pinnacle and parapet, the jackdaws cheerily hallooing from the lofty ledges.  You are a little weary of air and sun; you push open the great door, and you are in the cool, dark nave with its holy smell; you sit for a little and let the spirit of the place creep into your mind; you walk hither and thither, read the epitaphs, mourn with the bereaved, give thanks for the record of long happy lives, and glow with mingled pain and admiration for some young life nobly laid down.  The monuments of soldiers, the sight of dusty banners moving faintly in the slow-stirring air, always move me inexpressibly; the stir and fury of war setting hither, like a quiet tide, to find its last abiding-place.  Then there is the choir to visit.  I do not really like the fashion which now generally prevails of paying a small sum, writing your name in a book, and being handed over to the guidance of some verger, a pompous foolish person, who has learnt his lesson, delivers it like a machine, and is put out by any casual question.  I do not want to be lectured; I want to wander about, ask a question if I desire it, and just have pointed out to me anything of which the interest is not patent and obvious.  The tombs of old knights, the chantries of silent abbots and bishops, are all very affecting; they stand for so much hope and love and recollection.  Then sometimes one has a glow at seeing some ancient and famous piece of history presented to one’s gaze.  The figure of the grim Saxon king, with his archaic beard and shaven upper-lip, for all the world like some Calvinistic tradesman; or Edward the Second, with his weak, handsome face and curly locks; or the mailed statue of Robert of Normandy, with scarlet surcoat, starting up like a warrior suddenly aroused.  Such tombs send a strange thrill through one, a thrill of wonder and pity and awe.  What of them now?  Sleepest thou, son of Atreus?  Dost thou sleep, and dream perchance of love and war, of the little life that seemed so long, and over which the slow waves of time have flowed?  Little by little, in the holy walls, so charged with faith and tenderness and wistful love, the pathetic vision of mortality creeps across the mind, and one loses oneself in a dream of wonder at the brief days so full of life, the record left for after time, and the silence of the grave.

Then, when I have drunk my fill of sweet sights, I love to sit silent, while the great bell hums in the roof, and gathering footsteps of young and old patter through the echoing aisles.  There is a hush of expectation.  A few quiet worshippers assemble; the western light grows low, and lights spring to life, one after another, in the misty choir.  Then murmurs a voice, an Amen rises in full concord, and as it dies away the slumberous thunder of a pedal