THE MARITIME DISTRICT 253 



is probably due to this quality that the song carries 

 much further than that of the blackbird. 



What the missel-thrush is to the hearing, the 

 spire of Chichester cathedral is to the sight in this 

 flat district — the chief feature and object of beauty 

 and interest for the eyes to rest upon. In a way it 

 is always present. It may be seen at an immense 

 distance from the downs — from Cissbury Hill, for 

 instance, and from the hill-tops far away to the west, 

 and from the borders of Hampshire ; but down on the 

 flat green country amidst which it rises, so tall and 

 lessening to a point, we look at it with different eyes, 

 and its aesthetic value in the scene is greater and of 

 a different kind. 



The sound, too, of the cathedral bell, booming out 



the hour in deep, measured strokes, will, if the wind 



be favourable, follow you many a mile as you walk by 



the harbour — 



Over the wide-watered shore 

 Swinging slow with sullen roar. 



Where Milton heard the great bell he had in his 

 mind when he wrote the lines in Fenseroso I do not 

 know, but they admirably describe this great bell 

 sound from the vast bell- tower at Chichester, when it 

 travels seawards over the flat harbour country, where 

 land and water mix. It is the character of the 

 country, its flatness and silence and the loneliness of 

 its shores, that gives to this one great sound its im- 

 portance, or value. For a similar reason this solitary 



