At any rate it is by far the most interesting thing left to us in the
city. The other churches, except perhaps St Olave's, are not worth a
visit; even in St Olave's everything has been done to make it as little
interesting as possible.
The best thing left to us in Chichester, apart from the Cathedral and
its subject buildings, is, I think, St Mary's Hospital, a foundation
dating from the time of Henry II., which possesses a noble great hall,
and a pretty Decorated chapel, with old stalls, which is still used as
an almshouse. It stands upon the site of the first Franciscan house
established in Chichester. In 1269 the Friars Minor left this place and
moved to the site of the old Castle. There they built the church of
which the choir still remains, a lovely work ruined at the dissolution
and used as the Guildhall. It is now a store room. Nothing in
Chichester is more beautiful than this Early English fragment, which
seems to remind us of all we have lost by that disastrous revolution of
the sixteenth century, whose latest results we still await with fear
and dread.
But let who will be disappointed in Chichester, I shall love it all my
days; not so much for these its monuments, but for itself, its
curiously sleepy air of disinterested quiet, its strong dislike of any
sort of enthusiasm, its English boredom, even of itself, its complete
surrender to what is, its indifference to what might be.
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