_The Cathedral_, as the new book is called, rests the whole of its effect
upon just such an edifice as young Hugh was familiar with. The Cathedral
of the story stands in Polchester, in the west of England, in the county
of Glebeshire--that mythical yet actual county of Walpole's other novels.
Like such tales as _The Green Mirror_ and _The Duchess of Wrexe_, the aim
is threefold--to give a history of a certain group of people and, at the
same time, (2) to be a comment on English life, and, beyond that, (3) to
offer a philosophy of life itself.

The innermost of the three circles of interest created in this powerful
novel--like concentric rings formed by dropping stones in water--concerns
the life of Archdeacon Brandon. When the story opens he is ruling
Polchester, all its life, religious and civic and social, with an iron
rod. A good man, kindly and virtuous and simple, power has been too much
for him. In the first chapter a parallel is made between Brandon and a
great mediaeval ecclesiastic of the Cathedral, the Black Bishop, who came
to think of himself as God and who was killed by his enemies. All through
the book this parallel is followed.

A certain Canon Ronder arrives to take up a post in the Cathedral. The
main thread of the novel now emerges as the history of the rivalry of
these two men, one simple and elemental, the other calculating, selfish
and sure. Ronder sees at once that Brandon is in his way and at once
begins his work to overthrow the Archdeacon, not because he dislikes him
at all (he _likes_ him), but because he wants his place; too, because
Brandon represents the Victorian church, while Ronder is on the side of
the modernists.

Brandon is threatened through his son Stephen and through his wife. His
source of strength,--a source of which he is unaware--lies in his
daughter, Joan, a charming girl just growing up. The first part of the
novel ends with everything that is to follow implicit in what has been
told; the story centres in Brandon but more sharply in the Cathedral,
which is depicted as a living organism with all its great history behind
it working quickly, ceaselessly, for its own purposes. Every part of the
Cathedral life is brought in to effect this, the Bishop, the Dean, the
Canons--down to the Verger's smallest child. All the town life also is
brought in, from the Cathedral on the hill to the mysterious little
riverside inn. Behind the town is seen the Glebeshire country, behind
that,