have produced
a certain kind of poetical temper, even though it were a temper of
indolent enjoyment rather than of creative force. But not even a beauty
born of murmuring sound--and the air is full of murmurs--seemed to have
passed into the faces of the simple townsfolk who make it their home. I
could not gather thatthe exquisite loveliness of the place had any
particular effect upon the dwellers there, except a mild pleasure in
the fact that so many strangers should come to see the place. I do not
exactly grudge strangers the sight of it, though I should like better
to think of it all as standing in an enchanted valley hard to
penetrate. But it is difficult to see exactly for whom it all exists.
It seems to be a place that ought to have a dreamful, appreciative,
emotional life of its own, a place where a few worthy natures might
live in a serene, joyful, impassioned mood; a place where there is
nothing that need remind the dweller of ugliness or vulgarity, of
progress or statistics; a place for elect souls and fine natures.

One does not want to be fantastic or absurd in such reveries as these;
but it is sad to think that scattered about England in mean towns,
perhaps in sordid houses, are natures that could live in a place like
Wells with a perpetual delight, a constant drinking at the sources of
beauty, while most of the actual inhabitants have come there almost by
chance, and do not appear to be particularly conscious of their
blessings or particularly affected by their surroundings. It seems
indeed a curious wastefulness, that the Power who rules the world
should have heaped in this tiny place among the hills such a treasure
of delicate beauty, with such an indifference as to whether it should
he perceived or discerned by congenial spirits.

The type of ecclesiastic whom I would like to see in a place like this
would be a man deeply sensitive to art and music, with a strong
mystical sense of wonder and desire; visionary perhaps, and what is
called unpractical, believing that religion was not so much a matter of
conduct as a matter of mood; in whom conduct would follow mood, as a
rush bends in the stream. I do not say that this is the most vital form
of religion. It is not the spirit of Luther or of John Wesley; it lives
more among hopes than certainties; it desires to see God rather than to
proclaim His wrath. Such a man, tenderly courteous to all, patient,
wise, sad with a hopeful sadness, living in an atmospher