IT was not so long after this that I journeyed southward. My plan was to leave London two days ahead of Barfleur, visit Canterbury and Dover, and meet with him there to travel to Paris together, and the Riviera. From the Riviera I was to go on to Rome and he was to return to England.
Among other pleasant social duties I paid a farewell visit to Sir Scorp, who shall appear often hereafter in these pages. During the Christmas holidays at Barfleur’s I had become well acquainted with this Irish knight and famed connoisseur of art, and while in London I had seen much of him. Here in his lovely mansion in Cheyne Walk I found him surrounded by what one might really call the grandeur of his pictures. His house contained distinguished examples of Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Van Dyck, Paul Potter, Velasquez, Mancini and others, and as I contemplated him on this occasion he looked not unlike one of the lymphatic cavaliers of Van Dyck’s canvases. A pale gentleman, this—very remote in his spirit, very far removed from the common run of life, concerned only with the ultimately artistic, and wishing to be free of everything save the leisure to attend to this. He was not going to leave London, he thought, at this time, except possibly for a short visit to Paris. He was greatly concerned with the problem of finding a dilapidated “cahstle” which he could restore, live in, fill with his pictures and eventually sell, or dedicate to his beloved England as a memorial of himself. It must be a perfect example of Tudor architecture—that he invariably repeated. I gained the impression that he might fill it with interesting examples of some given school or artist and leave it as a public monument.
He urged upon me that I ought to go about the work of getting up a loan exhibit of representative American art, and have it brought to London. He commended me to the joys of certain cities and scenes—Pisa, San Miniato outside of Florence, the Villa Doria at Rome. I had to smile at the man’s profound artistic assurance, for he spoke exactly as a grandee recounting the glories of his kingdom. I admired the paleness of his forehead and his hands and cast one longing look at his inestimable Frans Hals. To think that any man in these days should have purchased for little a picture that can in all likelihood be sold for $500,000—it was like walking into Aladdin’s cave.
The morning I left it was gray as usual. I had brought in all my necessary belongings from Bridgely Level and installed them in my room at the hotel, packed and ready. The executive mind of Barfleur was on the qui vive to see that nothing was forgotten. A certain type of tie must be purchased for use on the Riviera—he had overlooked that. He thought my outing hat was not quite light enough in color, so we went back to change it. I had lost my umbrella in the excitement, and that had to be replaced. But finally, rushing to and fro in a taxi, loaded like a van with belongings, Barfleur breathing stertorously after each venture into a shop, we arrived at the Victoria Station. Never having been on the Continent before, I did not realize until we got there the wisdom of Barfleur’s insistence that I pack as much of my belongings as possible in bags, and as little as possible in trunks. Traveling first class, as most of those who have much luggage do, it is cheaper. As most travelers know, one can take as many as five or six parcels or bags in the compartment with one, and stow them on racks and under the seats, which saves a heavy charge for excess baggage. In some countries, such as Italy, nothing is carried free save your hand-luggage which you take in your compartment with you. In addition the rates are high. I think I paid as much as thirty shillings for the little baggage I had, over and above that which I took in my compartment with me. To a person with a frugal temperament such as mine, that is positively disconcerting. It was my first taste of what I came subsequently to look upon as greedy Europe.
As the train rushed southeastwards I did my best to see the pleasant country through which we were speeding—the region indicated on the map as North Downs. I never saw any portion of English country anywhere that I did not respond to the charming simplicity of it, and understand and appreciate the Englishman’s pride in it. It has all the quality of a pastoral poem—the charm of Arcady—fields of sheep, rows of quaint chimney pots and odd houses tucked away among the trees, exquisite moldy and sagging roofs, doorways and windows which look as though loving care had been spent on them. Although this was January, all the leafless trees were covered with a fine thin mold, as green as spring leaves. At Rochester the ruins of an ancient castle came into view and a cathedral which I was not to see. At Faversham I had to change from the Dover express to a local, and by noon I was at Canterbury and was looking for the Fleur-de-lis which had been recommended to me as the best hotel there. “At least,” observed Barfleur, quite solemnly to me as we parted, “I think you can drink the wine.” I smiled, for my taste in that respect was not so cultivated as his.
Of all the places I visited in England, not excluding Oxford, I believe that Canterbury pleased me most. The day may have had something to do with it. It was warm and gray—threatening rain at times—but at times also the sun came out and gave the old English town a glow which was not unrelated to spring and Paradise. You will have to have a fondness for things English to like it—quaint, two-story houses with unexpected twists to their roofs, and oriel and bay windows which have been fastened on in the most unexpected places and in the strangest fashion. The colors, too, in some instances, are high for England—reds and yellows and blues; but in the main a smoky red-brick tone prevails. The river Stour, which in America would be known as Stour’s Creek, runs through the city in two branches; and you find it in odd places, walled in closely by the buildings, hung over by little balconies and doorsteps, the like of which I did not see again until I reached Venice. There were rooks in the sky, as I noticed, when I came out of the railway station; I was charmed with winding streets, and a general air of peace and quiet—but I could not descry the cathedral anywhere. I made my way up High Street—which is English for “Main”—and finally found my recommended inn, small and dark, but in the hands of Frenchmen and consequently well furnished in the matter of food. I came out after a time and followed this street to its end, passing the famous gate where the pilgrims used to sink on their knees and in that position pray their way to the cathedral. As usual my Baedeker gave me a world of information, but I could not stomach it, and preferred to look at the old stones of which the gate was composed, wondering that it had endured so long. The little that I knew of St. Augustine and King Ethelbert and Chaucer and Thomas à Becket and Laud came back to me. I could not have called it sacred ground, but it was colored at least with the romance of history, and I have great respect for what people once believed, whether it was sensible or not.
Canterbury is a city of twenty-eight thousand, with gas-works and railroads and an electric-power plant and moving pictures and a skating-rink. But, though it has all these and much more of the same kind, it nevertheless retains that indefinable something which is pure poetry and makes England exquisite. As I look at it now, having seen much more of other parts of Europe, the quality which produces this indefinable beauty in England is not so much embodied in the individual as in the race. If you look at architectural developments in other countries you have the feeling at times as if certain individuals had greatly influenced the appearance of a city or a country. This is true of Paris and Berlin, Florence and Milan. Some one seems to have worked out a scheme at some time or other. In England I could never detect an individual or public scheme of any kind. It all seemed to have grown up, like an unheralded bed of flowers. Again I am satisfied that it is the English temperament which, at its best, provides the indefinable lure which exists in all these places. I noticed it in the towns about Manchester where, in spite of rain and smoke, the same poetic hominess prevailed. Here in Canterbury, where the architecture dates in its variation through all of eight centuries, you feel the dominance of the English temperament which has produced it. To-day, in the newest sections of London—Hammersmith and Seven Kings, West Dulwich and North Finchley—you still feel it at work, accidentally or instinctively constructing this atmosphere which is common to Oxford and Canterbury. It is compounded of a sense of responsibility and cleanliness and religious feeling and strong national and family ties. You really feel in England the distinction of the fireside and the family heirloom; and the fact that a person must always keep a nice face on things, however bad they may be. The same spirit erects bird-boxes on poles in the yard and lays charming white stone doorsteps and plants vines to clamber over walls and windows. It is a sweet and poetic spirit, however dull it may seem by comparison with the brilliant iniquities of other realms. Here along this little river Stour the lawns came down to the water in some instances; the bridges over it were built with the greatest care; and although houses lined it on either side for several miles of its ramblings, it was nevertheless a clean stream. I noticed in different places, where the walls were quite free of any other marks, a poster giving the picture and the history of a murderer who was wanted by the police in Nottingham, and it came to me, in looking at it, that he would have a hard time anywhere in England concealing his identity. The native horror of disorder and scandal would cause him to be yielded up on the moment.
In my wanderings, which were purely casual and haphazard, I finally came upon the cathedral which loomed up suddenly through a curving street under a leaden sky. It was like a lovely song, rendered with great pathos. Over a Gothic gate of exquisite workmanship and endless labor, it soared—two black stone towers rising shapely and ornate into the gray air. I looked up to some lattices which gave into what might have been the belfry, and saw birds perched just as they should have been. The walls, originally gray, had been turned by time and weather into a soft spongy black which somehow fitted in exquisitely with the haze of the landscape. I had a curious sensation of darker and lighter shades of gray—lurking pools of darkness here and there, and brightness in spots that became almost silver. The cathedral grounds were charmingly enclosed in vine-covered walls that were nevertheless worked out in harmonious detail of stone. An ancient walk of some kind, overhung with broken arches that had fallen into decay, led away into a green court which, by a devious process of other courts and covered arches, gave into the cloister proper. I saw an old deacon, or canon, of the church walking here in stately meditation; and a typical English yeoman, his trousers fastened about the knee by the useless but immemorial strap, came by, wheeling a few bricks in a barrow. There were endless courts, it seemed to me, surrounded by two-story buildings, all quaint in design, and housing Heaven-knows-what subsidiary factors of the archiepiscopal life. They seemed very simple habitations to me. Children played here on the walks and grass, gardeners worked at vines and fences, and occasional workmen appeared—men who, I supposed, were connected with the architectural repairs which were being made to the façade. As I stood in the courtyard of the archbishop’s house, which was in front and to the left of the cathedral as you faced it, a large blue-gray touring-car suddenly appeared, and a striking-looking ecclesiastic in a shovel hat stepped out. I had the wish and the fancy that I was looking at the archbishop himself—a sound, stern, intellectual-looking person—but I did not ask. He gave me a sharp, inquiring look, and I withdrew beyond these sacred precincts and into the cathedral itself, where a tinny-voiced bell was beginning to ring for afternoon service.
I am sure I shall never forget the interior of Canterbury. It was the first really old, great cathedral that I had seen—for I had not prized very highly either St. Paul’s or St. Alban’s. I had never quite realized how significant these structures must have been in an age when they were far and away the most important buildings of the time. No king’s palace could ever have had the importance of Canterbury, and the cry from the common peasant to the Archiepiscopal see must have been immense. Here really ruled the primate of all England, and here Becket was murdered.
Of all known architectural forms the Gothic corresponds more nearly to the finest impulse in nature itself—that is, to produce the floreated form. The aisles of the trees are no more appealing artistically than those of a great cathedral, and the overhanging branches through which the light falls have not much more charm than some of these perfect Gothic ceilings sustained by their many branching arms of stone. Much had happened, apparently, to the magnificent stained-glass windows which must have filled the tall-pointed openings at different periods, and many of them have been replaced by plain frosted glass. Those that remain are of such richness of color and such delightful variety of workmanship that, seen at the end of long stretches of aisles and ambulatories, they are like splotches of blood or deep indigo, throwing a strange light on the surrounding stone.
I presently fell in tow of a guide. It is said to-day that Americans are more like the Germans than like the English; but from the types I encountered in England I think the variety of American temperaments spring naturally from the mother country. Four more typical New England village specimens I never saw than these cathedral ushers or guides. They were sitting on the steps leading up to the choir, clad in cap and gown, engaged in cheerful gossip.
“Your turn, Henry,” said one, and the tallest of the three came around and unlocked the great iron gates which give into the choir. Then began, for my special benefit, a magnificent oration. We were joined, after we had gone a little way, by a party of ladies from Pennsylvania who were lurking in one of the transepts; and nothing would do but my guide must go back to the iron entrance-way to the choir and begin all over. Not a sentence was twisted, not a pause misplaced. “Good heavens,” I thought, “he does that every day in the year, perhaps a dozen times a day.” He was like a phonograph with but one record, which is repeated endlessly. Nevertheless, the history of the archbishops, the Black Prince, the Huguenot refugees, the carving of the woodwork and the disappearance of the windows was all interesting. After having made the rounds of the cathedral, we came out into the cloister, the corridors of which were all black and crumbling with age, and he indicated the spot and described the manner in which Becket had been stabbed and had fallen. I don’t know when a bit of history has moved me so much.
It was the day—the gentle quality of it—its very spring-like texture that made it all so wonderful. The grass in this black court was as green as new lettuce; the pendants and facets of the arches were crumbling into black sand—and spoke seemingly of a thousand years. High overhead the towers and the pinnacles, soaring as gracefully as winged living things, looked down while I faced the black-gowned figure of my guide and thought of the ancient archbishop crossing this self-same turf (how long can be the life of grass?).
When I came outside the gate into the little square or triangle which faces it I found a beautiful statue of the lyric muse—a semi-nude dancing girl erected to the memory of Christopher Marlowe. It surprised me a little to find it here, facing Canterbury, in what might be called the sacred precincts of religious art; but it is suitably placed and brought back to my mind the related kingdom of poetry.
All the little houses about have heavy overhanging eaves and diamond-shaped, lead-paned windows. The walls are thick and whitewashed, ranging in color from cream to brown. They seem unsuited to modern life; and yet they frequently offered small shop-windows full of all the things that make it: picture-postcards, American shoes, much-advertised candy, and the latest books and magazines. I sought a tea-room near by and had tea, looking joyously out against the wall where some clematis clambered, and then wandered back to the depot to get my mackintosh and umbrella—for it was beginning to rain. For two hours more I walked up and down in the rain and dark, looking into occasional windows where the blinds had not been drawn and stopping in taprooms or public houses where rosy barmaids waited on one with courteous smiles.