ven foliage wreathed and blew like banners
going into battle; the silence was deafening with all the mingled noises
of a military march; the great bell shook down, as the organ shook up
its thunder. The thirsty-throated gargoyles shouted like trumpets from
all the roofs and pinnacles as they passed; and from the lectern in
the core of the cathedral the eagle of the awful evangelist clashed his
wings of brass.

And amid all the noises I seemed to hear the voice of a man shouting in
the midst like one ordering regiments hither and thither in the fight;
the voice of the great half-military master-builder; the architect of
spears. I could almost fancy he wore armour while he made that church;
and I knew indeed that, under a scriptural figure, he had borne in
either hand the trowel and the sword.

I could imagine for the moment that the whole of that house of life had
marched out of the sacred East, alive and interlocked, like an army.
Some Eastern nomad had found it solid and silent in the red circle of
the desert. He had slept by it as by a world-forgotten pyramid; and been
woke at midnight by the wings of stone and brass, the tramping of the
tall pillars, the trumpets of the waterspouts. On such a night every
snake or sea-beast must have turned and twisted in every crypt or corner
of the architecture. And the fiercely coloured saints marching eternally
in the flamboyant windows would have carried their glorioles like
torches across dark lands and distant seas; till the whole mountain of
music and darkness and lights descended roaring on the lonely Lincoln
hill. So for some hundred and sixty seconds I saw the battle-beauty of
the Gothic; then the last furniture-van shifted itself away; and I saw
only a church tower in a quiet English town, round which the English
birds were floating.

THE MAN ON TOP

There is a fact at the root of all realities to-day which cannot be
stated too simply. It is that the powers of this world are now not
trusted simply because they are not trustworthy. This can be quite
clearly seen and said without any reference to our several passions or
partisanships. It does not follow that we think such a distrust a wise
sentiment to express; it does not even follow that we think it a good
sentiment to entertain. But such is the sentiment, simply because such
is the fact. The distinction can be quite easily defined in an example.
I do not think that private workers owe an indefinite loyalty to th