w grand a sight, too, it is when the nave is almost in darkness--save
for eight or ten small jets of light overhead--to see the choir lighted
up, with the organ standing out in strong relief against the blaze of
light below and behind it, and now and then a gleam of light showing
through as the door under the screen is opened.

[Illustration: THE NAVE, LOOKING EAST.]

Then, again, note and study the marvellous effects of sound in the
building. Listen, if possible, from the Lady Chapel, to an anthem by
some old composer; listen to Bach's G minor fugue from the triforium of
the choir, and hear the echoes rolling from pier to pier; listen to the
Hallelujah Chorus sung on some great festival service in the nave, or
some simple well-known hymn sung by close upon 3000 people, and the
listener will have some idea of the effect that mere sound, taken as
such, can produce.

The sound of Stainer's Gregorian _Miserere_, sung entirely
unaccompanied, as heard from the great west door, is grand in the
extreme. It needs but little imagination to take oneself back, say, four
hundred years, and picture the monks singing the very same Psalm.

The tiles in an ancient building are always of interest, and Gloucester
contains many that are worth inspection. There are some in the choir and
its chapels, and there are some in the Lady Chapel; others may be found
near Raikes' monument, exposed to view in the south aisle. There are
also some in the south-east chapel of the triforium of the choir. The
chapter-house tiles are modern (Minton), but were made after the tiles
that were in existence there.

The nave was originally tiled, and specimens have been found when
excavations have been made. In the days that are to come, possibly, the
Georgian flooring may be taken up, and the tiles now hidden from view
will be revealed in places where they have not been broken up, where
graves have been dug in the nave and aisles.

Perhaps the weakest point in the cathedral is the modern glass. There is
much that shows careful work and thought, but there has been no
systematic controlling spirit at work to suggest, to guide, or to check.
The chief blots, too, are the so-called memorial windows, and the reason
is not hard to find. It is well put by Mr Ruskin, who, in his "Seven
Lamps of Architecture," says: "The peculiar manner of selfish and
impious ostentation, provoked by the glassmakers for a stimulus to
trade, of putting up painted windows to be recor