These vast buildings, so elegant in decoration, so aged, so satisfying to the beholder, as remarkable works of skill in decorative and constructive points of view, are great museums and libraries of themselves; and to the reflective observer there are "sermons in stones." When here and at like places, we are amid the results of the anticipations and prayers and labors of centuries. We go back to the day when a lot of mortals, full of a pious aspiration for the good and the true,—yet superstitious,—were travelling over these spots in quest of a best place for study and repose; and they at last here rested, and founded an abbey or monastery, a priory it may be, or a simple nunnery. By-and-by the foundation of a great church was to be laid, but with no hope or expectation of ever seeing those foundation walls of an entire cathedral reach even the earth's surface: comprehending the scheme, they plied themselves to the task, and labored and died; others came, the walls arose, and centuries passed. Tower, battlement, and roof climbed heavenward, and then came consecration and worship, but never rest. Death of prelate, then monuments were in order; repairs of cathedral; civil wars, rebellions, destruction of the art-work of centuries; overturnings of doctrines, disputes, and surrender of cathedral, and all its sacred belongings come; new doctrines are inaugurated, and become the law of the land. Generations after generations are born and die. The cathedral grows old, aged; the grounds only remain as they were; and not as they were, for the soil is raised by the dust of the thousands that are buried and moulder in it, and so, in transfigured glory, even the old trees that throw their grateful shadows have in their fibre earth that was once the royal bone and flesh and sinew of bishop, cardinal, or king. At places in cathedral premises are charnel houses, or rooms where are deposited bones and remains exhumed, or taken from tombs, and these are thrown into promiscuous heaps to moulder on a little longer, and, having become resolved back to mother earth, to be quietly shovelled out as food for grass and flowers on the great lawns. These are the seen, the temporal; but the unseen, the eternal, is no less fact, nor less real, for the influence these men exerted lives and acts. The mortal is greater than any material thing he builds. That decays, and as an organized thing ceases to be, but the influence of thought dies never. We know not into whose little mass of earth, whose narrow house, the rootlets of the tree whose branches shade us have gone, and taken up their infinitesimal particles of human earth, and carried it on to make leaf and blossom, or fibre of wood or bark. We know it has been done, and is yet doing, and has been so for centuries; for, as Shakespeare has it:—
Imperious Cæsar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away;
Oh that the earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw!
Not seen as fact, with material eyes, but known beyond peradventure by the less material thought; so it is of the deeds done,—living and acting, when the authors are dead, as the world judges and declares. But are not the great arch and pillar of nave influential now? Is not the elegant decoration of cut stone refining to those of this day? Does not the largeness even of the cathedral inspire us now to do large things? Does not the patience of monk, of old bishop, of the master mind of those back ages,—content to but lay a foundation and then resignedly die,—does not that beget the like, even in this hurrying nineteenth-century time? And the determination of Cromwell or of Henry VIII., even though destructionists,—iconoclasts not only of stone, but unwittingly of superstitions and religious tyranny,—though in a sense tyrants themselves, does not their work make it comfortable for free conscientious worship now? Does not the work of such ones and their sustaining bishops,—of martyrs, by their faithfulness and sacrifices even of life itself,—do not these make our good conditions possible, which but for them would never have been? Cathedral is museum and library; it is shrine,—inspiring thought and evolving new good, and in no way inferior to picture-gallery or depository of mechanical production or of curious art.
A long digression this, and but for the license we at the start reserved, apology would be due. We greatly enjoyed Ely and all things in it. A fine long walk came next, from the cathedral off half a mile into a back road, where, amid the good suburban shade of overhanging garden trees, and enveloped in the nice odor of flowers, we took our last view of the old structure, and turned our feet to the station. Dreamish was the whole thing. A few hours ago we were not in sight of the famed place, where has crystallized the greatness engendered by centuries. A choice bit of earth, covered over and enveloped in extraordinary history and momentous events, the site of any cathedral is. A few hours only there at the shrine, and the material curtain for us two drops, and never perhaps to be raised while we are in the flesh. It was another scene of lightning-like presentation, but the photograph was taken. The impression is clear, clean-cut of detail and outline; and though it may be dimmed it will never be effaced, nor beyond recall. We leave the famed place, and, entering the station, sit mute in our car. The common things of every-day life take us in charge. Engine, embankments, bridges, tunnels, fields, every-day things, terribly modern, come up in front, and gently absorb attention. The mind quietly and imperceptibly yields. We are kindly let down, and the spell is broken.
We are on our way to Cambridge. It's 6.30 p. m. only, and that's early for these long English June days. Classic and worthily renowned Cambridge! Our thoughts go on and not back now. When one has been thinking of a great thing, it's a comfort, when ruthlessly removing from it, to be permitted to think of another as great or greater.
CHAPTER XIX.
CAMBRIDGE.
Our arrival here was at 7.30 p. m. on Thursday, June 11, with but an hour's ride from Ely. This city, as is well known, is the other great university place of England, with its sister Oxford, and is in many respects like that; for aside from its being a great seat of learning, the general look and surroundings are much the same. Fine meadows surround the city, and the River Cam runs through it, as does the Cherwell at Oxford. The place is one of great antiquity, for in Doomsday-book it is described as an important place, and is there called Grente-bridge, from one of the then names of the river. Its present name is derived from the more modern name, Cam, which is nearer correct. The pronunciation by the inhabitants was Cambridge, giving a its sound as in can, instead of its long sound as in came, by our usage. In 871 it was burnt by the Danes; rebuilt; and burnt in 1010. Subsequent to this it has been the scene, at various periods, of great historical events, but we will leave its ancient history and speak of it as it now is.