CANTERBURY
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.