between the old buildings closely bordering on each side. The whole
effect was delightful and so soft with sunset colors as to be suggestive
of Venice. We noted that although Canterbury is exceedingly ancient, it
is also a city of nearly thirty thousand population and the center of
rich farming country, and, as at Chester, we found many evidences of
prosperity and modern enterprise freely interspersed with the quaint and
time-worn landmarks. One thing which we noticed not only here but
elsewhere in England was the consummate architectural taste with which
the modern business buildings were fitted in with the antique
surroundings, harmonizing in style and color, and avoiding the
discordant note that would come from a rectangular business block such
as an American would have erected. Towns which have become known to fame
and to the dollar-distributing tourists are now very slow to destroy or
impair the old monuments and buildings that form their chief
attractiveness, and the indifference that prevailed generally fifty or a
hundred years ago has entirely vanished. We in America think we can
afford to be iconoclastic, for our history is so recent and we have so
little that commands reverence by age and association; yet five hundred
years hence our successors will no doubt bitterly regret this spirit of
their ancestors, just as many ancient towns in Britain lament the folly
of their forbears who converted the historic abbeys and castles into
hovels and stone fences.

Fortunately, the cathedral at Canterbury escaped such a fate, and as we
viewed it in the fading light we received an impression of its grandeur
and beauty that still keeps it pre-eminent after having visited every
cathedral in the island. It is indeed worthy of its proud position in
the English church and its unbroken line of traditions, lost in the mist
of antiquity. It is rightly the delight of the architect and the artist,
but an adequate description of its magnificence has no place in this