The cells
are delightful to look upon, "a solitude within a solitude"; each
consists of five rooms, two below and three above, reached by a
staircase, the whole approached from a passage closed by a door giving
on to the Great Cloister. Here live and pray some thirty-six monks,
with a like number of conversi or lay-brothers.
I do not know in all England a place more peaceful than this one, more
solemn and salutary to visit in the confusion of our modern life. Here
is one of the lightning conductors that preserves the modern world
from the wrath of God. Let others think as they will, for me the
monastery of St Hugh in the Weald is holy ground.
And at any rate, even though you may not agree with me so far, in this
at least I shall carry you with me, when I say that this monastery,
and especially because it is Carthusian, bears out the old character
of the Weald and endorses it. I have said the Weald was ever a wild
and inhuman place where only few men could go together, without great
towns and with only infrequent villages; not a thick or impenetrable
woodland but a difficult and a lonely country sparsely scattered with
steadings.
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