GUIDES AND GUIDE-BOOKS you with a long detailed description of the sacred edifice. For this I will refer you to the guide-books, of which there are many; of their quality or utility I cannot speak, for we did not consult one ourselves, preferring to see the cathedral in our own way, and to form our own opinions, and to admire what most impressed us, not what the handbook compilers assert is the most to be admired. Of course by doing this it is quite possible that we may have missed some things of minor note, but nothing, I think, of real importance. Personally I have always found the constant consulting of a guide-book not only to be disturbing but preventive of my gaining an individual impression of a place, for one is but too apt to be influenced to a greater or lesser extent by the opinion of others, often expressed in a most irritatingly dogmatic manner. Some people are so annoyingly certain about the most uncertain things in this world! Moreover, once upon a time, as the fabled stories of childhood begin, I placed implicit faith in guide-books, but as I grew older and knew more, my faith in them, sad to relate, grew feebler, and this because I found that in certain things I knew well about, they were not by any means correct, indeed, often very inexact. After which experience I now feel less inclined than perhaps I should be to trust them in matters of which I am ignorant or not well informed. I may also add that, according to my experience, the personal guide is even less reliable than the printed one; only you are enabled to cross-question the former, and so indirectly estimate the value of the information imparted—for a tip; the latter you cannot.
