ANTON HARDWICK,
April 25, 1904.

DEAR HERBERT,--Since I last wrote I have been making pious pilgrimages
to some of the great churches hereabouts: to Gloucester, Worcester,
Tewkesbury, Malvern, Pershore. It does me good to see these great poems
in stone, beautiful in their first conception, and infinitely more
beautiful from the mellowing influences of age, and from the human
tradition that is woven into them and through them. There are few
greater pleasures than to make one's way into a Cathedral city, with
the grey towers visible for miles across the plain, rising high above
the house roofs and the smoke. At first one is in the quiet country;
then the roads begin to have a suburban air--new cottages rise by the
wayside, comfortable houses, among shrubberies and plantations. Then
the street begins; the houses grow taller and closer, and one has a
glimpse of some stately Georgian front, with pediment and cornice;
perhaps there is a cluster of factories, high, rattling buildings
overtopped by a tall chimney, with dusty, mysterious gear, of which one
cannot guess the purport, travelling upwards into some tall, blank
orifice. Then suddenly 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, a