Such a vision of feverish and yet noble energy and endeavour, wholly
material if you will, and seemingly unaware of any world or life but
this, is altogether alien from Rochester itself, where an old
fashioned leisure, an air almost Georgian lingers yet. Indeed, one
expects to meet Mr Pickwick in the High Street or at least Charles
Dickens come in from Gadshill.
The only mood that has quite passed from Rochester, and that is yet
more securely crystallised there in the Cathedral and the Castle than
any other, is that of the Middle Age. You will not find it in any of
the churches now, nor in any inn that is left to us, nor in the houses
often both interesting and charming. All day long Rochester expects
the coach and not the pilgrims; but at night, under a windy sky, if
you wander up the hill and linger about the Cathedral in the shadow of
the great Keep while the moon reels steeply up the heavens, you may
in early Spring at any rate return for a little to that age which
built such things as these, so that they have outlasted everything
that has followed them and put it under their feet.
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