One of the galleries is in ruins, - a sad
witness of the brutality of armies. But the three others are enough to
show how much of beauty was possible in that final age of pure Gothic
building. The arches bear a double garland of leaves, of flowers, and of
fruits, and among them are ramping and writhing and playing every figure
of bird or beast or monster that man has seen or poet imagined. There
are no two arches alike, and yet a most beautiful harmony pervades them
all. In some the leaves are in profile, in others delicately spread upon
the graceful columns and every vein displayed. I saw one window where a
stone monkey sat reading his prayers, gowned and cowled, - an odd caprice
of the tired sculptor. There is in this infinite variety of detail a
delight that ends in something like fatigue. You cannot help feeling
that this was naturally and logically the end of Gothic art. It had run
its course. There was nothing left but this feverish quest of variety.
It was in danger, after having gained such divine heights of invention,
of degenerating into prettinesses and affectation.
But how marvellously fine it was at last! One must see it, as in these
unequalled cloisters, half ruined, silent, and deserted, bearing with
something of conscious dignity the blows of time and the ruder wrongs of
men, to appreciate fully its proud superiority to all the accidents of
changing taste and modified culture. It is only the truest art that can
bear that test. The fanes of Paestum will always be more beautiful even
than the magical shore on which they stand. The Parthenon, fixed like a
battered coronet on the brow of the Acropolis, will always be the
loveliest sight that Greece can offer to those who come sailing in from
the blue Aegean. It is scarcely possible to imagine a condition of
thought or feeling in which these master-works shall seem quaint or
old-fashioned. They appeal, now and always, with that calm power of
perfection, to the heart and eyes of every man born of woman.
The cloisters enclose a little garden just enough neglected to allow the
lush dark ivy, the passionflowers, and the spreading oleanders to do
their best in beautifying the place, as men have done their worst in
marring it. The clambering vines seem trying to hide the scars of their
hardly less perfect copies. Every arch is adorned with a soft and
delicious drapery of leaves and tendrils; the fair and outraged child of
art is cherished and caressed by the gracious and bountiful hands of
Mother Nature.
As we came away, little Francisca plucked one of the five-pointed leaves
of the passion-flowers and gave it to La Senora, saying reverentially,
"This is the Hand of Our Blessed Lord!"
The sun was throned, red as a bacchanal king, upon the purple hills, as
we descended the rocky declivity and crossed the bridge of St. Martin.
