Few, if any, men of over five-and-forty completely readjust themselves to changed conditions, however novel and challenging the changes may be, and nearly all the leading figures in these affairs are elderly men trained in a tradition of diplomatic ineffectiveness, and now overworked and overstrained to a pitch of complete inelasticity.

One of the western towers of Lanfranc was to remain, and therefore the new nave though loftier than the old, was no longer, and it remains a glory certainly without, but within a hopeless disappointment saved from utter ineffectiveness only by the noble height of the great choir above it.