of the Houses of Parliament and their great towers. And St.
Margaret's Church, nestling close to it on the north, mars the full view
of its length. But when we draw near to it, all other buildings are
forgotten. Crossing St. Margaret's churchyard where Raleigh sleeps, we
seem to come into the shadow of a great gray cliff. Arch and buttress
and pinnacle and exquisite pointed windows tier upon tier, are piled up
to the parapet more than a hundred feet over our heads. Before us is the
north entrance--well named "Solomon's Porch." It is a "beautiful gate of
the temple" indeed, with its three deep-shadowed recesses, rich with
grouped pillars supporting the pointed arches above the doorways--its
lines of windows and arcades above and below the grand Rose Window, over
thirty feet across--its flying buttresses and delicate pinnacles
terminating one hundred and seventy feet above the ground--the whole
surface wrought with intricate carving, figures of saint and martyr,
likeness of bird and flower, grotesque gargoyles, fanciful traceries and
lines and patterns--a stone lace-work of surpassing beauty.

We gaze and gaze, and try to take in the wonder of stone before us.
Then, through the bewildering noise of London streets, the rattle of
cabs and carriages, the whistle and rumble of underground railways, the
ceaseless tramp of hurrying feet on the pavement--"Big Ben" booms out
eleven times solemnly and slowly from the Clock Tower. We pass the
photograph and guide-book sellers, and push open the doors under the
central archway of Solomon's Porch. In an instant the glare and noise
and hurry are left behind. We find ourselves in a sweet mellow
silence--in a dim tender light--in a vast airy stillness, such as you
find at noontide in the depths of a beech forest. But here the boles of
the beech-trees are huge pillars of stone--the branches are graceful
pointed arches that spring from them, and vaultings and ribs that flash
with gold through the blue mist that hangs forever about the roof a
hundred feet overhead. Outside the Abbey surge the waves of the great
city. We hear a faint murmur of the roar and turmoil of its restless
life breaking like distant surf upon the shore. But within these walls
we are still and peaceful--and, if we will, we may read in "brass and
stony monument" the story not only of England's worthies, but of her
religion, her politics, her art, and her literature for full eight
hundred years. Yes! for eight hundred y