Let us come down to pictures, masses,
and common sense. We came down. We entered the room, and sat before
the Descent from the Cross, where the dead body of Jesus seems an
actual reality before you. The waves of the high mass came rolling in,
muffled by intervening walls, columns, corridors, in a low, mysterious
murmur. Then organ, orchestra, and choir, with rising voices urged the
mighty acclaim, till the waves seemed beating down the barriers upon
us. The combined excitement of the chimes, the painting, the music,
was too much. I seemed to breathe ether. Treading on clouds, as it
were, I entered the cathedral, and the illusion vanished.
Friday, August 19. Antwerp to Paris.
Saturday, August 20. H. and I take up our abode at the house of M.
Belloc, where we find every thing so pleasant, that we sigh to think
how soon we must leave these dear friends. The rest of our party are
at the Hotel Bedford.
LETTER XLVII.
Antwerp.
MY DEAR: -
Of all quaint places this is one of the most charming. I have been
rather troubled that antiquity has fled before me where I have gone.
It is a fatality of travelling that the sense of novelty dies away, so
that we do not realize that we are seeing any thing extraordinary. I
wanted to see something as quaint as Nuremberg in Longfellow's poem,
and have but just found it. These high-gabled old Flemish houses, nine
steps to each gable!
