It was the day—the gentle quality of it—its very spring-like texture that made it all so wonderful. The grass in this black court was as green as new lettuce; the pendants and facets of the arches were crumbling into black sand—and spoke seemingly of a thousand years. High overhead the towers and the pinnacles, soaring as gracefully as winged living things, looked down while I faced the black-gowned figure of my guide and thought of the ancient archbishop crossing this self-same turf (how long can be the life of grass?).
When I came outside the gate into the little square or triangle which faces it I found a beautiful statue of the lyric muse—a semi-nude dancing girl erected to the memory of Christopher Marlowe. It surprised me a little to find it here, facing Canterbury, in what might be called the sacred precincts of religious art; but it is suitably placed and brought back to my mind the related kingdom of poetry.
All the little houses about have heavy overhanging eaves and diamond-shaped, lead-paned windows. The walls are thick and whitewashed, ranging in color from cream to brown. They seem unsuited to modern life; and yet they frequently offered small shop-windows full of all the things that make it: picture-postcards, American shoes, much-advertised candy, and the latest books and magazines. I sought a tea-room near by and had tea, looking joyously out against the wall where some clematis clambered, and then wandered back to the depot to get my mackintosh and umbrella—for it was beginning to rain. For two hours more I walked up and down in the rain and dark, looking into occasional windows where the blinds had not been drawn and stopping in taprooms or public houses where rosy barmaids waited on one with courteous smiles.
CHAPTER XX
EN ROUTE TO PARIS
One of the things which dawned upon me in moving about England, and particularly as I was leaving it, was the reason for the inestimable charm of Dickens. I do not know that anywhere in London or England I encountered any characters which spoke very forcefully of those he described. It is probable that they were all somewhat exaggerated. But of the charm of his setting there can be no doubt. He appeared at a time when the old order was giving way, and the new—the new as we have known it in the last sixty years—was manifesting itself very sharply. Railroads were just coming in and coaches being dispensed with; the modern hotel was not yet even thought of, but it was impending.
Dickens, born and raised in London, was among the first to perceive the wonder of the change and to contrast it graphically with what had been and still was. In such places as St. Alban’s, Marlowe, Canterbury, Oxford, and others, I could see what the old life must have been like when the stage-coach ruled and made the principal highways lively with traffic. Here in Canterbury and elsewhere there were inns sacred to the characters of Dickens; and you could see how charming that world must have appeared to a man who felt that it was passing. He saw it in its heyday, and he recorded it as it could not have been recorded before and can never be again. He saw also the charm of simple English life—the native love of cleanly pots and pans and ordered dooryards; and that, fortunately, has not changed. I cannot think of any one doing England as Dickens did it until there is something new to be done—the old spirit manifested in a new way. From Shakespeare to Dickens the cry is long; from Dickens to his successors it may be longer still.
I was a bit perturbed on leaving Canterbury to realize that on the morrow at this same time I should catch my first glimpse of Paris. The clerk at the station who kept my bags for me noted that I came from New York and told me he had a brother in Wisconsin, and that he liked it very much out there.
I said, “I suppose you will be coming to America yourself, one of these days?”
“Oh, yes,” he said; “the big chances are out there. I’ll either go to Canada or Wisconsin.”