The Hebrew Ritual, In A Far More Sensuous
Age, Had Its Sculptured Cherubim, Its Pictorial And Artistic Wealth Of
Representation, Its Gorgeous Priestly Vestments, Its Incense, And Its
Chants; And They Never Became, So Far As We Know, The Objects Of
Idolatrous Veneration.
But I love to go back over and over the scenes of that cathedral; to
look up those arches
That seem to me, in their buoyant lightness, to
have not been made with hands, but to have shot up like an
enchantment - to have risen like an aspiration, an impersonation of the
upward sweep of the soul, in its loftiest moods of divine communion.
There were about five minutes of feeling, worth all the discomforts of
getting here; and it is only for some such short time that we can
enjoy - then our prison door closes.
There are four painted glass windows, given by the King of Bavaria. I
have got for H. the photograph of two of them, representing the birth
and death of Christ. They are gorgeous paintings by the first masters.
The windows round the choir were painted in a style that reminded me
of our forests in autumn.
Well, after our sublimities came a farce. We went to St. Ursula's
church, to see the bones of the eleven thousand virgins, who, the
chronicle says, were slain here because they would not break their
vows of chastity. I was much amused. As we entered the church, C.
remarked impressively, "It is evident that these virgins have no
connection with cologne water!" The fact was lamentably apparent.
Doleful looking figures of virgins, painted in all the colors of the
rainbow, were looking down upon us from all quarters; and in front, in
a glass frame, was a bill of fare, in French, of the relics which
could be served up to order.
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