enriched the literature of his country, | and |
won for himself a place amongst | those |
who have made men happier, | and wiser.”
If Jefferies had to be commemorated in a cathedral, it was unnecessary to drag in Almighty God. Perhaps the commemorator hoped thus to cast a halo over the man and his books; but I think “The Story of my Heart” and “Hours of Spring” will be proof against the holy water of these feeble and ill divided words.
Outside the city I had the road to Wilton, a road lined on both sides by elms, almost to myself. The rooks cawed in their nests in the elms, and the eight bells of Bemerton called to worshippers from among the trees, a field’s-breadth distant on the left. I was not tempted by the bells, yet this was one of those Sundays that help us to see beauty and a sort of sense in the lines of George Herbert, vicar of Bemerton,—
“Sundays the pillars are
On which heav’ns palace arched lies:
The other days fill up the spare
And hollow room with vanities.