He envied the cleverness of Cardinal Manning. Manning would have got
right into the front of this affair. He would have accumulated credit
for his church and himself....

But would he have done much?...

The bishop wandered along the platform to its end, and stood
contemplating the convergent ways that gather together beyond the
station and plunge into the hillside and the wilderness of sidings and
trucks, signal-boxes, huts, coal-pits, electric standards, goods sheds,
turntables, and engine-houses, that ends in a bluish bricked-up cliff
against the hill. A train rushed with a roar and clatter into the
throat of the great tunnel and was immediately silenced; its rear lights
twinkled and vanished, and then out of that huge black throat came wisps
of white steam and curled slowly upward like lazy snakes until they
caught the slanting sunshine. For the first time the day betrayed
a softness and touched this scene of black energy to gold. All late
afternoons are beautiful, whatever the day has been--if only there is a
gleam of sun. And now a kind of mechanical greatness took the place of
mere black disorder in the bishop's perception of his see. It was harsh,
it was vast and strong, it was no lamb he had to rule but a dragon.
Would it ever be given to him to overcome his dragon, to lead it home,
and bless it?

He stood at the very end of the platform, with his gaitered legs wide
apart and his hands folded behind him, staring beyond all visible
things.

Should he do something very bold and striking? Should he invite both men
and masters to the cathedral, and preach tremendous sermons to them upon