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                   The Spirit of Place and Other Essays 



The Spirit of Place and 

              Other Essays 



                         by Alice Meynell 



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                               The Spirit of Place and Other Essays 



                  THE SPIRIT OF PLACE 



     With   mimicry;   with   praises;   with   echoes;   or   with   answers;   the   poets 

have all but outsung the bells。            The inarticulate bell has found too much 

interpretation; too many rhymes professing to close with her inaccessible 

utterance; and to agree with her remote tongue。                  The bell; like the bird; is 

a musician pestered with literature。 

     To   the   bell;   moreover;   men   do   actual   violence。        You   cannot   shake 

together a nightingale's notes; or strike or drive them into haste; nor can 

you   make   a   lark   toll   for   you   with   intervals   to   suit   your   turn;   whereas 

wedding…bells are compelled to seem gay by mere movement and hustling。 

I have known some grim bells; with not a single joyous note in the whole 

peal; so   forced to hurry  for   a human   festival;   with their harshness   made 

light of; as though the Bishop of Hereford had again been forced to dance 

in his boots by a merry highwayman。 

     The clock is an inexorable but less arbitrary player than the bellringer; 

and the chimes await their appointed time to flywild prisonersby twos 

or   threes;    or  in  greater    companies。       Fugitives      one   or  twelve     taking 

wingthey   are   sudden;   they   are   brief;   they   are   gone;   they   are   delivered 

from   the   close   hands   of   this   actual   present。    Not   in   vain   is   the   sudden 

upper door opened against the sky; they are away; hours of the past。 

     Of   all   unfamiliar   bells;   those   which   seem   to   hold   the   memory   most 

surely   after   but   one   hearing   are   bells   of   an   unseen   cathedral   of   France 

when one has arrived by night; they are no more to be forgotten than the 

bells    in  〃Parsifal。〃     They   mingle      with    the  sound     of  feet   in  unknown 

streets;   they  are   the   voices   of   an   unknown   tower;   they  are   loud   in   their 

own language。          The spirit of place; which is to be seen in the shapes of 

the   fields   and   the   manner   of   the   crops;   to   be   felt   in   a   prevalent   wind; 

breathed in the breath of the earth; overheard in a far street…cry or in the 

tinkle of some black…smith; calls out and peals in the cathedral bells。                        It 

speaks its local tongue remotely; steadfastly; largely; clamorously; loudly; 

and   greatly   by   these   voices;   you   hear   the   sound   in   its   dignity;   and   you 

know   how   familiar;   how   childlike;   how   lifelong   it   is   in   the   ears   of   the 



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                               The Spirit of Place and Other Essays 



people。      The bells are strange; and you know how homely they must be。 

Their utterances are; as it were; the classics of a dialect。 

     Spirit   of   place!    It   is   for   this   we   travel;   to surprise   its   subtlety;   and 

where   it   is   a   strong   and   dominant   angel;   that   place;   seen   once;   abides 

entire in the memory with all its own accidents; its habits; its breath; its 

name。      It is recalled all a lifetime; having been perceived a week; and is 

not     scattered    but    abides;    one    living    body     of   remembrance。          The 

untravelled spirit of placenot to be pursued; for it never flies; but always 

to be discovered; never absent; without variationlurks in the by…ways and 

rules over the towers; indestructible; an indescribable unity。                    It awaits us 

always in its ancient and eager freshness。                It is sweet and nimble within 

its immemorial boundaries; but it never crosses them。                     Long white roads 

outside have mere suggestions of it and prophecies; they give promise not 

of its coming; for it abides; but of a new and singular and unforeseen goal 

for   our   present   pilgrimage;   and   of   an   intimacy   to   be   made。       Was   ever 

journey too hard or too long that had to pay such a visit?                   And if by good 

fortune   it   is   a   child   who   is   the   pilgrim;   the   spirit   of   place   gives   him   a 

peculiar welcome; for antiquity and the conceiver of antiquity (who is only 

a   child)    know    one    another;    nor   is  there   a  more    delicate    perceiver    of 

locality than a child。         He is well used to words and voices that he does 

not understand; and this is a condition of his simplicity; and when those 

unknown words are bells; loud in the night; they are to him as homely and 

as old as lullabies。 

     If; especially in England; we make rough and reluctant bells go in gay 

measures; when we whip them to run down the scale to ring in a wedding… 

…bells that would step to quite another and a less agile march with a better 

gracethere are belfries that hold far sweeter companies。                     If there is no 

music   within   Italian   churches;   there   is   a   most   curious   local   immemorial 

music in many a campanile on the heights。                 Their way is for the ringers to 

play a tune on the festivals; and the tunes are not hymn tunes or popular 

melodies;   but   proper   bell…tunes;   made   for   bells。         Doubtless   they   were 

made in times better versed than ours in the sub…divisions of the arts; and 

better   able   to   understand   the   strength   that   lies   ready   in   the   mere   little 

submission   to   the   means   of   a   little   art;   and   to   the   limits   nay;   the   very 



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                               The Spirit of Place and Other Essays 



embarrassmentsof those   means。              If it   were but possible to give   here   a 

real   bell…tunewhich   cannot   be;   for   those   melodies   are   rather   longthe 

reader would understand how some village musician of the past used his 

narrow       means     as   a   composer       for   the   bells;   with    what     freshness; 

completeness; significance; fancy; and what effect of liberty。 

     These   hamlet…bells   are   the   sweetest;   as   to   their   own   voices;   in   the 

world。      Then   I   speak   of   their   antiquity   I   use   the   word   relatively。   The 

belfries   are   no   older   than   the   sixteenth   or   seventeenth   century;   the   time 

when   Italy   seems   to   have   been   generally   rebuilt。       But;   needless   to   say; 

this is antiquity for music; especially in Italy。 At that time they must have 

had foundries for bells of tender voices; and pure; warm; light; and golden 

throats; precisely tuned。 The hounds of Theseus had not a more just scale; 

tuned in a peal; than a North Italian belfry holds in leash。                  But it does not 

send them out in a mere scale; it touches them in the order of the game of 

a charming melody。            Of all cheerful sounds made by man this is by far 

the    most    light…hearted。     You     do   not   hear   it  from    the  great    churches。 

Giotto's coloured tower in Florence; that carries the bells for Santa Maria 

del   Fiore   and   Brunelleschi's   silent   dome;   does   not   ring   more   than   four 

contralto   notes;   tuned   with   sweetness;   depth;   and   dignity;   and   swinging 

one musical phrase which softly fills the country。 

     The   village   belfry   it   is   that   grows   so   fantastic   and   has   such   nimble 

bells。    Obviously it stands alone with its own village; and can therefore 

hear   its   own   tune   from   beginning   to   end。      There   are   no   other   bells   in 

earshot。     Other such dovecote…doors are suddenly set open to the cloud; 

on a festa morning; to let fly  those soft…voiced flocks; but the nearest is 

behind      one   of   many    mountains;       and   our   local   tune    is  uninterrupted。 

Doubtless   this   is   why   the   little;   secluded;   sequestered   art   of   composing 

melodies for bellscharming division of an art; having its own ends and 

means; and keeping its own wings for unfolding by lawdwells in these 

solitary places。       No tunes in a town would get this hearing; or would be 

made clear to the end of their frolic amid such a wide and lofty silence。 

     Nor does every inner village of Italy hold a bell…tune of its own; the 

custom   is   Ligurian。       Nowhere   so   much   as   in   Genoa   does   the   nervous 

tourist complain of church bells in the morning; and in fact he is made to 



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                              The Spirit of Place and Other Essays 



hear   an   honest   rout   of   them   betimes。     But   the   nervous   tourist   has   not; 

perhaps; the sense of place; and the genius of place does not signal to him 

to go and find it among innumerable hills; where one by one; one by one; 

the belfries stand and play their tunes。            Variable are those lonely melodies; 

having a differing gaiety for the festivals; and a pitiful air is played for the 

burial of a villager。 

     As   for the   poets;  there is   but one   among   so   many  of   their bells   that 

seems to toll with a spiritual music so loud as to be unforgotten when the 

mind goes up a little higher than the earth; to listen in thought to earth's 

untethered sounds。          This is Milton's curfew; that sways across one of the 

greatest of all the seashores of poetry 〃the wide…watered。〃 



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                             The Spirit of Place and Other Essays 



                            MRS。 DINGLEY 



     We cannot do her honour by her Christian name。 {1}                   All we have to 

call her by more tenderly is the mere D; the D that ties her to Stella; with 

whom   she   made   the   two…in…one   whom   Swift   loved   〃better   a   thousand 

times than life; as hope saved。〃           MD; without full stops; Swift writes it 

eight times in a line for the pleasure of writing it。           〃MD sometimes means 

Stella    alone;〃    says   one    of  many     editors。   〃The     letters  were    written 

nominally   to   Stella   and   Mrs。   Dingley;〃   says   another;   〃but   it   does     not 

require to be said that it was really for Stella's sake alone that they were 

penned。〃      Not so。     〃MD〃 never stands for Stella alone。             And the editor 

does not yet live who shall persuade one honest reader; against the word o

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