This part of London having escaped the
Great Fire, I suppose there may be many relics of architectural antiquity
hereabouts.
At the end of an hour I went back to the Refreshment-room, within the
outer gate of the Tower, where the rest of us shortly appeared. We now
returned westward by way of Great Tower Street, Eastcheap, and Cannon
Street, and, entering St. Paul's, sat down beneath the misty dome to rest
ourselves. The muffled roar of the city, as we heard it there, is very
soothing, and keeps one listening to it, somewhat as the flow of a river
keeps us looking at it. It is a grand and quiet sound; and, ever and
anon, a distant door slammed somewhere in the cathedral, and reverberated
long and heavily, like the roll of thunder or the boom of cannon. Every
noise that is loud enough to be heard in so vast an edifice melts into
the great quietude. The interior looked very sombre, and the dome hung
over us like a cloudy sky. I wish it were possible to pass directly from
St. Paul's into York Minster, or from the latter into the former; that
is, if one's mind could manage to stagger under both in the same day.
There is no other way of judging of their comparative effect.
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