s
their chief excellence and glory; for they are in a sense a growth, a
flower of many minds and many periods, and are imperfect even as Nature
is, in her rocks and trees; and, being in harmony with Nature and like
Nature, they are inexpressibly beautiful and satisfying beyond all
buildings to the aesthetic as well as to the religious sense.

Occasionally I met and talked with an old man employed at the cathedral.
One day, closing one eye and shading the other with his hand, he gazed
up at the building for some time, and then remarked: "I'll tell you
what's wrong with Salisbury--it looks too noo." He was near the mark;
the fault is that to the professional eye it is faultless; the lack of
expression is due to the fact that it came complete from its maker's
brain, like a coin from the mint, and being all on one symmetrical plan
it has the trim, neat appearance of a toy cathedral carved out of wood
and set on a green-painted square.

After all, my thoughts and criticisms on the cathedral, as a building,
were merely incidental; my serious business was with the feathered
people to be seen there. Few in the woods and fewer on the windy downs,
here birds were abundant, not only on the building, where they were like
seafowl congregated on a precipitous rock, but they were all about me.
The level green was the hunting ground of many thrushes--a dozen or
twenty could often be seen at one time--and it was easy to spot those
that had young. The worm they dragged out was not devoured; another was
looked for, then another; then all were cut up in proper lengths and
beaten and bruised, and finally packed into a bundle and carried off.
Rooks, too, were there, breeding on the cathedral elms, and had no time
and spirit to wrangle, but could only caw-caw distressfully at the wind,
which tossed them hither and thither in the air and lashed the tall
trees, threatening at each fresh gust to blow their nests to
pieces. Small birds of half a dozen kinds were also there, and one
tinkle-tinkled his spring song quite merrily in spite of the cold that
kept the others silent and made me blue. One day I spied a big queen
bumble-bee on the ground, looking extremely conspicuous in its black and
chestnut coat on the fresh green sward; and thinking it numbed by the
cold I picked it up. It moved its legs feebly, but alas! its enemy
had found and struck it down, and with its hard, sharp little beak had
drilled a hole in one of the upper plates of its ab