As we stand in the choir of to-day, we would indeed be of dull imagination did we not see and drink in the poetic beauty of such a growth as this, beautiful in its association with the centuries, with countless thousands of worshippers; beautiful intrinsically and as a record of faithful labour, of splendid artistry, of devout perseverance. There are other cathedral choirs more perfect as specimens of one or other style of architecture, but not one more hallowed by sacred and stirring memories. Here stands Norman and Early English work side by side, melting, as historically they did, from one into the other; the work of French and English hands and brains. Here the mind is forcibly carried back to the far, dim ages, when on this very ground the rude Saxons worshipped--this ground which Augustine found already dedicated to the worship of Christ, upon which he reared his new temple, [Illustration: IN THE NAVE AFTER EVENSONG, CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL] where ever since has sounded the chanting of the monks and of sweet-voiced choirs. One unusual structural feature at once strikes even the usually unobservant; the trend inward of the walls as they reach toward the east, accounted for by the builders having to accommodate themselves to the two towers of St Anselm and St Andrew, left undestroyed by the great fire which called for the rebuilding of the choir. It is not possible to say with any degree of surety at what point the work of French William ended and was succeeded by that of English William; and, indeed, it is most probable that the latter worked from and completed the designs of the former. Striking, however, is the exquisite contrast in the combination of the French stone from Caen and the English Purbeck marble. Glorious as was the choir of Conrad, this that succeeded to it is far more beautiful and, of course, more ornate. The mouldings are very varied--billet-work, dog-tooth, zigzag and so forth, Norman intermixed with the succeeding style. Gervase states that “The old capitals were plain, the new are most artistically sculptured. The old arches and everything else either plain, or sculptured with an axe and not with a chisel; but in the new work first-rate sculpture abounded everywhere. In the old work no marble shafts, in the new innumerable ones.” But excellent work in stone can be executed with the axe in skilful, practised hands--easy tools do not necessarily mean fine output; and Willis points out the interesting fact that down to his day at any rate French masons used the axe “with great dexterity in carving.”