ry for painting them; and secondly, by a feeling
that though I, as a novelist, may feel myself entitled to write of
clergymen out of their pulpits, as I may also write of lawyers and
doctors, I have no such liberty to write of them in their pulpits.
When I have done so, if I have done so, I have so far transgressed.
There are those who have told me that I have made all my clergymen
bad, and none good. I must venture to hint to such judges that
they have taught their eyes to love a colouring higher than nature
justifies. We are, most of us, apt to love Raphael's madonnas
better than Rembrandt's matrons. But, though we do so, we know that
Rembrandt's matrons existed; but we have a strong belief that no
such woman as Raphael painted ever did exist. In that he painted,
as he may be surmised to have done, for pious purposes,--at least
for Church purposes,--Raphael was justified; but had he painted so
for family portraiture he would have been false. Had I written an
epic about clergymen, I would have taken St Paul for my model; but
describing, as I have endeavoured to do, such clergymen as I see
around me, I could not venture to be transcendental. For myself I can
only say that I shall always be happy to sit, when allowed to do so,
at the table of Archdeacon Grantly, to walk through the High Street
of Barchester arm in arm with Mr. Robarts of Framley, and to stand
alone and shed a tear beneath the modest black stone in the north
transept of the cathedral on which is inscribed the name of Septimus
Harding.

And now, if the reader will allow me to seize him affectionately by
the arm, we will together take our last farewell of Barset and of the
towers of Barchester. I may not venture to say to him that, in this
country, he and I together have wandered often through the country
lanes, and have ridden together over the too well-wooded fields, or
have stood together in the cathedral nave listening to the peals
of the organ, or have together sat at good men's tables, or have
confronted together the angry pride of men who were not good. I may
not boast that any beside myself have so realised the place, and
the people, and the facts, as to make such reminiscences possible
as those which I should attempt to evoke by an appeal to perfect
fellowship. But to me Barset has been a real county, and its city a
real city, and the spires and towers have been before my eyes, and
the voices of the people are known to my ears, and the pavement of