ess of
what any one thinks or feels about it, putting forth no claim, having no
beauty nor desirableness, pride nor grace; yet neither asking for pity;
not, as ruins are, useless and piteous, feebly or fondly garrulous of
better days; but useful still, going through its own daily work,--as
some old fisherman beaten grey by storm, yet drawing his daily nets: so
it stands, with no complaint about its past youth, in blanched and
meagre massiveness and serviceableness, gathering human souls together
underneath it; the sound of its bells for prayer still rolling through
its rents; and the grey peak of it seen far across the sea, principal of
the three that rise above the waste of surfy sand and hillocked
shore,--the lighthouse for life, and the belfry for labor, and this for
patience and praise.

Sec. 3. I cannot tell the half of the strange pleasures and thoughts that
come about me at the sight of that old tower; for, in some sort, it is
the epitome of all that makes the Continent of Europe interesting, as
opposed to new countries; and, above all, it completely expresses that
agedness in the midst of active life which binds the old and the new
into harmony. We, in England, have our new street, our new inn, our
green shaven lawn, and our piece of ruin emergent from it,--a mere
_specimen_ of the middle ages put on a bit of velvet carpet to be shown,
which, but for its size, might as well be on the museum shelf at once,
under cover. But, on the Continent, the links are unbroken between the
past and present, and in such use as they can serve for, the grey-headed
wrecks are suffered to stay with men; while, in unbroken line, the
generations of spared buildings are seen succeeding each in its place.
And thus in its largeness, in its permitted evidence of slow decline, in
its poverty, in its absence of all pretence, of all show and care for
outside aspect, that Calais tower has an infinite of symbolism in it,
all the more striking because usually seen in contrast with English
scenes expressive of feelings the exact reverse of these.

Sec. 4. And I am sorry to say that the opposition is most distinct in that
noble carelessness as to what people think of it. Once, on coming from
the Continent, almost the first inscription I saw in my native English
was this:

+"TO LET, A GENTEEL HOUSE, UP THIS ROAD."+

And it struck me forcibly, for I had not come across the idea of
gentility, among the upper limestones of the Alps, for seven