She
Ely, June 15,
At Miss Kettlestring’s lodgings.
I have lost him! He was not at St. Paul’s or Westminster in London—great, cruel, busy, brutal London, that could swallow up any precious thing and make [p52] no sign. And he is not here! They say it is a very fine cathedral.
Memoranda: The Octagon is perhaps the most beautiful and original design to be found in the whole range of Gothic architecture. Remember also the retrochoir. The lower tier of windows consists of three long lancets, with groups of Purbeck shafts at the angles; the upper, of five lancets, diminishing from the centre, and set back, as in the clerestory, within an arcade supported by shafts. (I don’t believe even he could make head or tail of this.) Remember the curious bosses under the brackets of the stone altar in the Alcock Chapel. They represent ammonites projecting from their shells and biting each other. (If I were an ammonite I know I should bite Aunt Celia. Look up ammonite.)
[p53]
He
Ely, June 18,
The Lamb Hotel.
I cannot find her! Am racked with rheumatic pains sitting in this big, empty, solitary, hollow, reverberating, damp, desolate, deserted cathedral hour after hour. On to Peterborough this evening.
She
Peterborough, June 18.
He is not here. The cathedral, even the celebrated west front, seems to me somewhat overrated. Catherine of Aragon (or one of those Henry the Eighth wives) is buried here, also Mary Queen of Scots; but I am tired of looking at graves, viciously tired, too, of writing in this trumpery note-book. We move on this afternoon.