compartments knelt some dignified persons, similarly habited, in
face exactly like the saints above, except that they were fitted
out with unaccountable beards--all pretty and correct, but with no
character or force. I suppose that fifty years hence, when our
taste has broadened somewhat, this window will probably be
condemned as impossible too. There can be no absolute canon of
beauty; the only principle ought to be to spare everything that is
of careful and solid workmanship, to give it a chance, to let time
and age have their perfect work. It is the utter conventionality of
the whole thing that is so distressing; the same thing is going on
all over the country, the attempt to put back the clock, and to try
and restore things as they were; history, tradition, association,
are not considered. The old builders were equally ruthless, it is
true; they would sweep away a Norman choir to build a Decorated
one; but at all events they were advancing and expanding, not
feebly recurring to a past period of taste, and trying to
obliterate the progress of the centuries.

About noon I left the little town, and struck out up a winding lane
to the hills. The copses were full of anemones and primroses; birds
sang sharply in the bushes which were gemmed with fresh green; now
and then I heard the woodpecker laugh as if at some secret jest
among the thickets. Presently the little town was at my feet,
looking small and tranquil in the golden noon; and soon I came to
the top. It was grassy, open down-land up here, and in an instant
the wide view of a rich wooded and watered plain spread before me,
with shadowy hills on the horizon. In the middle distance I saw the
red roofs of a great town, the smoke going peacefully up; here was
a shining river-reach, like a crescent of silver. It was England
indeed--tranquil, healthy, prosperous England.