the more ready to appreciate the changed appearance which everything
wears. If that peaceful, bright aspect had been habitual, you would
never have noticed anything remarkable to-day. It is this very changeful
nature of our English climate which gives it more than half its charm.

But the great attraction of this country lies in its being one of the
few spots now remaining on earth which have not only been made beautiful
by God, but in which the hand of man has erected scarcely a building
which is not in strict conformity and good taste. One cannot walk
through these Cotswold hamlets without noticing that the architecture of
the country in past ages, as well as in the present day to a certain
degree, shows obedience to some of those divine laws which Ruskin has
told us ought to govern all the works of man's hand.

"The spirit of sacrifice," "the lamp of truth" are manifest in the
ancient churches and manor houses, as well as in the humble farmhouses,
cottages, and even the tithe barns of this district. Two thirds of the
buildings are old, and, as Ruskin has beautifully expressed it: "The
greatest glory of a building is not in its stones, nor in its gold. Its
glory is in its age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern
watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay, even of approval or condemnation,
which we feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves
of humanity. It is in their lasting witness against men, in their quiet
contrast with the transitional character of all things, in the strength
which, through the lapse of seasons and times, and the decline and birth
of dynasties, and the changing of the face of the earth, and of the
limits of the sea, maintains its sculptured shapeliness for a time
insuperable, connects forgotten and following ages with each other, and
half constitutes the identity, as it concentrates the sympathy, of
nations;--it is in that golden stain of time that we are to look for the