CHAPTER XI
WESTMINSTER ABBEY
It is strange that the life of the past, in its unfamiliar remains and fading traces, should so far surpass the life of the present, in impressive force and influence. Human characteristics, although manifested under widely different conditions, were the same in old times that they are now. It is not in them, surely, that we are to seek for the mysterious charm that hallows ancient objects and the historical antiquities of the world. There is many a venerable, weather-stained church in London, at sight of which your steps falter and your thoughts take a wistful, melancholy turn—though then you may not know either who built it, or who has worshipped in it, or what dust of the dead is mouldering in its vaults. The spirit which thus instantly possesses and controls you is not one of association, but is inherent in the place. Time's shadow on the works of man, like moonlight on a landscape, gives only graces to the view—tingeing them, the while, with sombre sheen—and leaves all blemishes in darkness. This may suggest the reason that relics of bygone years so sadly please and strangely awe us, in the passing moment; or it may be that we involuntarily contrast their apparent permanence with our own evanescent mortality, and so are dejected with a sentiment of dazed helplessness and solemn grief. This sentiment it is—allied to bereaved love and a natural wish for remembrance after death—that has filled Westminster Abbey, and many another holy mausoleum, with sculptured memorials of the departed; and this, perhaps, is the subtle power that makes us linger beside them, "with thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls."
When the gentle angler Izaak Walton went into Westminster Abbey to visit the grave of Casaubon, he scratched his initials on the scholar's monument, where the record, "I. W., 1658," may still be read by the stroller in Poets' Corner. One might well wish to follow that example, and even thus to associate his name with the great cathedral. And not in pride but in humble reverence! Here if anywhere on earth self-assertion is rebuked and human eminence set at nought. Among all the impressions that crowd upon the mind in this wonderful place that which oftenest recurs and longest remains is the impression of man's individual insignificance. This is salutary, but it is also dark. There can be no enjoyment of the Abbey till, after much communion with the spirit of the place, your soul is soothed by its beauty rather than overwhelmed by its majesty, and your mind ceases from the vain effort to grasp and interpret its tremendous meaning. You cannot long endure, and you never can express, the sense of grandeur that is inspired by Westminster Abbey; but, when at length its shrines and tombs and statues become familiar, when its chapels, aisles, arches, and cloisters are grown companionable, and you can stroll and dream undismayed "through rows of warriors and through walks of kings," there is no limit to the pensive memories they awaken and the poetic fancies they prompt.