Part Second

AT CHRISTMINSTER

I

The city of Christminster, being a place far away from the haunts of men, nestled unseen, unknown, except to a few, of the in- habitants of its own county and those of the counties conterminous thereto. Within the circuit of the walls there were, perhaps, too many feet treading the same pavements for the comfort of those whose sense of romance must not be com- promised by the improprieties of daily tread; but the details of life in Christminster city were carried on at their own picturesque level, and it was a spot less teeming with scandal than with unsolved mysteries. Strolling through the hushed streets of grave- stones, where all was colourless light, as if it were a permanent Sunday in heaven , the stranger found himself environed with incarnate phantoms, any one of which might have been Adam, so healthy and jocund a life seemed to look out from the houses. In the early ages of Christianity this city of Christminster seems to have been a place of classic dignity. Now, it was a mediaeval town with the quaint irregularity of a haphazard growth; but ancient as it was, it had the same busy conven- tional life as any modern mercantile centre, when Prince Posterity met Messers Past and Present in the Town hall. Hence it was argued by some that the place was Christian in name only; of them those only seemed to advocate the necessity of belief on purely historical and com- parative grounds whose unbelief had a belated intelligibility.

To have a Prince of the Blood Royal as a mayor, and a Bishop by courtesy, is not necessary for a city’s existence, but it is undeniable that they help, and here they were. The Representative Hall (originally the Thane’s banquet-room) was the scene of the present as of many a bygone fete. Here Olivia de Campedonore, the beautiful Countess-pop- ess, had moved to the sound of the minstrel’s lyre; here the humbler melodies of the Christminster vicinage, such as “All Round my Hat,” had likewise resounded up and down from everlasting to everlasting. Here now the multitude came and went mainly in coils, as if they had dined, and arn- ica cordialis or White’s pugilistic tissues were in demand. Moreover, as regards the Izal patent — post- ed to catch the eye and stimulate contemplation — there was the scientific possibility of everyone in the City having had his face put on to a label, much enlarging the range of human interest un-der the longevity of one shilling endonje of glow-worm paste per annum. For the blanched liquid tooth wash of equal force had its separate con-tingencies.
He said to himself, in 

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