some way set in opposition to you: he thinks differently from you: he has a high, shrill voice: he parts. his hair in the middle: he is fat, and looks stupid: he thinks little of Tennyson: where would the list end? And beyond all the dislikes which we know to be unworthy, and which we know might be resisted. and put down, is that which comes of natural antipathy. There are things you cannot help hating. By the make of your individual being you must hate them. And it is just the things for your hatred of which it is impossible to give any reason, that you hate the most. The creaking of a chair rubbing against another: the tapping of a spoon against a soup-plate the sound of whistling: such little things. as these are inexpressibly disagreeable to some. And there are physical and moral peculiarities about your fellow-creatures which have precisely the same irritative effect on one here and there. You cannot get over the dislike. Nothing remains for you but to keep out of the provocative person's way.

There is a relative depreciation. In this you do not say of a man that he is bad. But you fix on another man universally recognised as bad: and you declare that in your judgment the first man is not so good as he.

Let me relate an analogous instance. An excellent person, conscientiously disapproving of fermented wine, as a poisonous drink, was wont to offer his

friends a draught of the pure juice of the grape, freshly expressed, and void of alcohol. Once, he set that pleasant beverage before a friend, a man of great amiability and politeness. The amiable friend drank, moderately, of the fluid; and said no word of direct depreciation. But, as he departed, the repressed feeling of his heart found vent. Turning to his host, he said, 'My friend, the next time we partake of a bottle together, if it is quite the same to you, I would rather it should be in Gregory's mixture.' He added no more, but went. And after reflection, the entertainer had it strongly borne in upon him, that his friend had not greatly liked the innocuous and unfermented wine. Striking instance of refined yet expressive depreciation ! And who, let me ask the reader to consider, would again set before a friend that uninebriating cup, when the friend declared that (good as the uninebriating cup might be) he would, on the whole, prefer to sip the wholesome extract of the renowned physician?

75

CHAPTER V.

A FEW OCTOBER DAYS.1

I AM sorry to say it; but true it is that living in hotels one gets a bad view of human nature; I mean in the matter of petty selfishness. Plainly, many human beings go upon the principle expressed by that great and good man George the Fourth, It will last my time. In many little ways one is made to see this.

I have come away, in this sunshiny October weather, for a little turn among Cathedral churches: a little turn, which must be the last. Never more in England can the writer visit any such church for the first time: all are well known now. Clearly, in the mind's eye, can he call up every one; accurately indeed, but somewhat paler and less substantial than the fact. For the remembrances of things are ghostly.

No more, after this last time, shall I discourse of Gothic church-architecture. Already, even the most long-suffering friends appear somewhat wearied of

1 1871.

that topic. Already I am rather ashamed of a too accurate recollection of the measurements of length and height; and driven to pretend not to exactly know facts which are known to me with entire exactness. There is a certain pudency about a stronglyfelt liking specially one whose origin cannot be explained. And I live in a country in which various good people are of opinion that one might find something better to recollect.

Let us sit down here on a large stone. How silent it is!

The sun is

It is the twelfth day of October. going down, a great red ball. The trees around (and there are many trees) are rich as ever. The leaves are thick, and green in the main; but a little touched with autumn purple, yellow, and gold. This is a quiet lane, running through an undulating landscape; a little way below flows a river, never seen till yesterday, though its name has long been familiar in HartLeap Well. It is the Ure: I crossed it by a bridge of seventeen arches. The arches are small, or they would not have so counted up. A mile off, towards the west, there is a solemn grey mass; a great building, with three low square towers :-Ripon Cathedral. I have left it to very near the end of my Cathedral explorations, not expecting much of it; but it is a moble church, worth going far to see. And this autumn stillness and this smoky light (though there is no smoke) suit this distant view of it. It impresses

the writer as few things can impress him. People who live among these things may get accustomed to them, and not mind them much. But there is no such fortune for me.

Coming by railway from the north, you turn off from the track at Thirsk, between Darlington and York. Just a quarter of an hour of rapid steain travel, and here is Ripon station; of red brick, and not unbefitting the cathedral city. Drive up-hill into the town; and in the market-place, an ancient square with a lofty shaft in the middle, you may find the Unicorn, a quaint comfortable old-fashioned inn. Leaving it, turn to the left, walk on; and in a few minutes you come full on that western front, familiar to all students of Mr. King's admirable Handbook to the Northern Cathedrals. There are the low square towers, low by comparison, for the gable between is nearly as high-a little more than a hundred feet. In old days, each of these three towers carried a spire of wood, leaded, which added more than another hundred feet to their height. Let us enter straightway always see the interior of a cathedral first. Broad, light nave, timber-roofed; respectable transept; beautiful choir, with grand eastern window filled with middling stained glass, with rich tabernaclework over the stalls, as rich as anywhere in England, with groined roof of wood, with glazed triforium, with no episcopal throne beyond a comfortable seat at the end of the stalls next the altar. Once there was a