Canterbury is a city of twenty-eight thousand, with gas-works and railroads and an electric-power plant and moving pictures and a skating-rink. But, though it has all these and much more of the same kind, it nevertheless retains that indefinable something which is pure poetry and makes England exquisite. As I look at it now, having seen much more of other parts of Europe, the quality which produces this indefinable beauty in England is not so much embodied in the individual as in the race. If you look at architectural developments in other countries you have the feeling at times as if certain individuals had greatly influenced the appearance of a city or a country. This is true of Paris and Berlin, Florence and Milan. Some one seems to have worked out a scheme at some time or other. In England I could never detect an individual or public scheme of any kind. It all seemed to have grown up, like an unheralded bed of flowers. Again I am satisfied that it is the English temperament which, at its best, provides the indefinable lure which exists in all these places. I noticed it in the towns about Manchester where, in spite of rain and smoke, the same poetic _hominess_ prevailed. Here in Canterbury, where the architecture dates in its variation through all of eight centuries, you feel the dominance of the English temperament which has produced it. To-day, in the newest sections of London--Hammersmith and Seven Kings, West Dulwich and North Finchley--you still feel it at work, accidentally or instinctively constructing this atmosphere which is common to Oxford and Canterbury. It is compounded of a sense of responsibility and cleanliness and religious feeling and strong national and family ties. You really feel in England the distinction of the fireside and the family heirloom; and the fact that a person must always keep a nice face on things, however bad they may be. The same spirit erects bird-boxes on poles in the yard and lays charming white stone doorsteps and plants vines to clamber over walls and windows. It is a sweet and poetic spirit, however dull it may seem by comparison with the brilliant iniquities of other realms. Here along this little river Stour the lawns came down to the water in some instances; the bridges over it were built with the greatest care; and although houses lined it on either side for several miles of its ramblings, it was nevertheless a clean stream. I noticed in different places, where the walls were quite free of any other marks, a poster giving the picture and the history of a murderer who was wanted by the police in Nottingham, and it came to me, in looking at it, that he would have a hard time anywhere in England concealing his identity. The native horror of disorder and scandal would cause him to be yielded up on the moment.