Our Family Affairs, 1867-1896Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
General
Our Family Affairs, 1867-1896
Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
Benson family
had known I was working at it, he certainly would have suggested that I
might have been better occupied. Already, though half-unconsciously, I
knew to what entrancing occupation I had really determined to devote my
life, and though I might have made a better choice, I could not, my
choice being really made, have been better occupied than in practising
for it. The book in itself, for the mere lightness which was all that it
professed, was not really very bad: the ominous part about it (of which
the omens have been amply fulfilled) being the extreme facility with
which it was produced.
Of all the temples in the world, built by the wisdom of cunning
artificers, and consecrated by the love of reverent hearts, none can
surpass and few can equal the glory of that holy and beautiful house
which the founder of King’s decreed for the worship of God, with its
jewelled windows and the fan-vaulting of its incomparable roof. Half-way
up, separating choir from nave, is the tall oak screen stretching from
side to side, on which stands the organ, a “huge house of sounds” with
walls of gilded pipes, and, at the corners, turrets where gold angels
with trumpets to their mouths have alighted. The nave on Sunday
afternoons in the short days of winter would be nearly dark, but for the
soft glow of the innumerable wax candles with which the choir was lit,
flowing over the organ screen. At half-past three, the hour of those
Sunday afternoon services, there would still be a little light outside,
though that would have faded altogether before service was over, and
just opposite where I sat was the window that I love best in all the
world. The Saviour has risen on Easter morning, and before him in dress
of sapphire and crimson Mary Magdalene is kneeling. She had been weeping
and had heard behind her the question, “Woman, why weepest thou?” Her
bereaved heart had answered, and he whom she supposed to be the gardener
had said, “Mary.” It was then, in that window, that she knew him, and
turning, she bowed herself to the ground, with one hand stretched out to
him, and said, “Rabboni!” In the garden of the Resurrection He stood,
with the flowers of the spring about His feet, instead of the spikenard,
very precious, with which she had anointed them for his burial....
During the Psalms for the twenty-seventh evening of the month, when she
who sowed in tears reaped in joy, the window would grow dark against
the faded light outside, and the wise and tranquil candle-light spread
like a luminous fog to the cells of the vaulting above. At the end of
the service, the red curtain across the arch in the screen was drawn
back, and you peered into the dusk of the nave, and the dark of the
night....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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