But The Angel Gently Lays A Hand Upon
The Shoulder Of The Little Girl - The Movement Is Full
Of Dignity - As If To Say, "No; She Belongs To The Other
Side." The Frieze Below Represents The General Re-
Surrection, With The Good And The Wicked Emerging From
Their Sepulchres.
Nothing can be more quaint and
charming than the difference shown in their way of
responding to the final trump.
The good get out of
their tombs with a certain modest gayety, an alacrity
tempered by respect; one of them kneels to pray as
soon as he has disinterred himself. You may know
the wicked, on the other hand, by their extreme shy-
ness; they crawl out slowly and fearfully; they hang
back, and seem to say, "Oh, dear!" These elaborate
sculptures, full of ingenuous intention and of the
reality of early faith, are in a remarkable state of pre-
servation; they bear no superficial signs of restoration,
and appear scarcely to have suffered from the centu-
ries. They are delightfully expressive; the artist had
the advantage of knowing exactly the effect he wished
to produce.
The interior of the cathedral has a great simplicity
and majesty, and, above all, a tremendous height. The
nave is extraordinary in this respect; it dwarfs every-
thing else I know. I should add, however, that I am,
in architecture, always of the opinion of the last
speaker. Any great building seems to me, while I
look at it, the ultimate expression. At any rate, during
the hour that I sat gazing along the high vista of
Bourges, the interior of the great vessel corresponded
to my vision of the evening before. There is a tranquil
largeness, a kind of infinitude, about such an edifice:
it soothes and purifies the spirit, it illuminates the
mind. There are two aisles, on either side, in addi-
tion to the nave, - five in all, - and, as I have said,
there are no transepts; an omission which lengthens
the vista, so that from my place near the door the
central jewelled window in the depths of the perpen-
dicular choir seemed a mile or two away. The second,
or outward, of each pair of aisles is too low, and the
first too high; without this inequality the nave would
appear to take an even more prodigious flight. The
double aisles pass all the way round the choir, the
windows of which are inordinately rich in magnificent
old glass. I have seen glass as fine in other churches;
but I think I have never seen so much of it at once.
Beside the cathedral, on the north, is a curious
structure of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, which
looks like an enormous flying buttress, with its sup-
port, sustaining the north tower. It makes a massive
arch, high in the air, and produces a romantic effect
as people pass under it to the open gardens of the
Archeveche, which extend to a considerable distance
in the rear of the church.
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