The World of Romance

dows o

ering the love I have for them and the longing that was in me to see them, during the time that came between the first and second visit, I

n how much I loved them; so that though they might laugh at me for my foolish and confused words, they m

st loving of all the buildings that the earth has ever borne; and, thinking of their past-away builders, can I see throug

ve of all men that they had, and moreover for the great love of God, which they certainly had too; for this, and for this work of theirs, the upraising of the great cathedral front with its beating heart of the thoughts of men, wrought into the leaves and flowers of the fair earth; wrought into the faces of good men and true, fighters against the wrong, of angels who upheld them, of God who rules a

their works, and I have to

o me in the hot

et, the cavernous porches of the west front opening wide, and marvellous with the shadows of the carving you can only guess at; and above stand the kings, and above that you would see the twined mystery of the great flamboyant rose window w

see nothing but the graceful spire; it is of wood covered over with lead, and was built quite at the end of the flamboyant times. Once it was gilt all ove

he chapter got them the inside of their cath

at the angles, the lead being arranged in a quaint herring-bone pattern; at the base of the spire too is a crown of open-work and figures, making a third stage; finally, near the top of the

h its belt of eastern chapels; first the long slim windows of these chapels, which are each of them little apses, the Lady Chapel projecting a good way beyond the rest, and then, running under the cornic

ms spread so here, that each of the clerestory windows looks down its own space between them, as if between walls: above the windows rise their canopies running through the parapet, and above all the great mo

with that figure of huge St. Christopher quite close over our heads; thereby we enter the church, as I said, and are in its western bay. I think I felt inclined to shout when I first entered Amiens cathedral; it is so fr

on the geometrical tracery of the windows, on the sweeping of the

transepts, and from either side the stained glass, in their huge windows, burns out on us; and, then, first we begin to appreciate somewhat

we, walking up the choir steps, can look and see the gorgeous carving of the canopied stalls; and then, alas! ‘the concentration of flattened sacks

know, carved in wood, in the early sixteenth ce

s dream, how splendid that was! the king lying asleep on his elbow, and the kine coming up to him in two companies. I think the lean kine was about the best bit of wood-carving I have seen yet. There they were, a writhing heap, cr

s solid, the upper part of it carved (in the flamboyant times), with the history of St. John the Baptist, on the north side; with that of St. Firmin on the south. I remember very littl

e painted too, and at any rate

finding of St. Firmin’s relics, and the translation of the same relics when found; the many bishops, with their earnest faces, in the first, and the priests, bearing the reliquaries, in the second; with their long vestments girded at the waist and falling over their feet, painted too, in light colours, with golden flowers on them. I wish I remembered these carvings better, I liked them so much. Just abo

choir. It is very hard to describe the interior of a great church like this, especially since the whitewash (applied, as I said, on this scale in 1771) lies on everything so; before that time, some book says, the church was painted from end to end with patterns of flowers

into the forest of beams between the slates and the real stone roof: one can look down through a hole in the vaulting and see the people walking and prayi

(or it seemed so) above our heads; also, while I was in the galleries, now out of the church, now in it, the canons h

e beams of the great dim roof. We came out from the roof on to the parapet in the blaze of the sun, and then going to the crossing, mounted as h

it from the bare reminiscences of the church, I should have been able to say little enough about the most interesting part of all, the sculptures, namely

is as unlike as possible to the grey of Amiens. So, for the facts of form, I have to look at my photographs; for facts of colour I have to try and remember the day or two I spent at Amiens, and the reference to the former has considerably dulled my memory of the latter. I have something else to say, too; it will seem considerably ridiculous, no doubt, to many

irgin, holding our Lord. She is crowned, and has a smile upo

holding a censer; the others are ecclesiastics, and (some book says) benefactors to the church. They have solemn faces, stern, with firm close-set lips, and eyes deep-set under their brows, almost frowning, and all but one or two are beardless, though evidently not young; the square door valves are carved with deep-twined leaf-mouldings, and the capitals of the door-shafts are carved with varying knots of leaves and flowers. Above th

of the trefoils flashes a grand leaf cornice, one leaf again to each apostle; and so we come to the next compartment, which contains three scenes from the life of St. Honoré, an early French bishop. The first scene is, I think, the election of a bishop, the monks or priests talking the matter over in chapter first, then going to tell the bishop-elect. Gloriously-draped figures the monks are, with genial faces full of good wisdom, drawn

y have chosen, with his left hand laid on his arm, and his long robe falls to his feet from his shoulder all along his left side, moulded a little to the shape of his body, but falling heavily and with scarce a fold in it, to the ground: the chosen one sitting there, with his book held between his two hands, looks up to him with his brave face, and he will be bishop, and rule well, I think. So, by the next scene he is bishop, I suppose

re very much; they are meant for hawthorns and oaks. There are a very few leaves on each tree, but at the top they are all twisted about, and are thicker, as if the wind were blowing them. The little capitals of the canopy, under which the bishop is sitting, are very delightful, and are common enough in larger work of this time (thirteenth century) in France. Four bunches of leaves spring from long stiff stalks, and support the sq

he drapery, one of the most beautiful in the upper part of this tympanum; his head is a little bent, and t

to bless. On the western side are two worshippers; on the eastern, a blind and a deaf man are being healed, by the touch of the dead bishop’s robe. The deaf man is leaning forward, and the servant of the shrine holds to his ear the bishop’s robe. The deaf man has a very deaf face, not very a

iracles being wrought at his t

division, the first especially; his head raised and his body leaning forward to the weight of the reliquary, as people nearly always do walk when they carry burdens and are going slowly; which this procession certainly is doing, for some of the figures are even turning round. Three men are kneeling or bending down beneath the shrine as it passes; cripples, they are, all three have beautiful faces, the one who is apparently the worst c

trefoil, very sharply cut, looking, in fact, as if it were cut with a punch: this cornice, simple though it is, I think, very beautiful,

wish I could say something more about this piece of carving than I can do, because it seems to me that the French thirteenth century sculptors failed less in their representations of the crucifixion than almost any set of artists; though it was certain

the shade so much; St. John’s I cannot see ver

t saying, certainly, looking on the westernmost of these two angels. I keep using the word beautiful so often that I feel half inclined to apologise for it; but I cannot help it, though it is often quite inadequate to express the loveliness of some of the figures carved here; and so it happens surely with the face of this angel. The face is not of a man, I should think; it is rather like a very fair woman’s face; but fairer than any woman

figures under canopies, about which I can say little, partly from

avy shadows over the faces of nearly all; and without the photograph I remember nothing but much fretted grey stone above the line of the capitals of the doorway shafts; grey stone with something carved in it, and the swallows flying in and out of it. Yet now there are three niches I can say something about at all events. A stately figure with a king’s crown o

n her face, the other with her head turned up in passionate entreaty, grown women they are plainly, but dwarfed to the stature of young girls before the hidden face of the King. The judgment of Solomon. — An old man with drawn sword in right hand, with left hand on a fair youth dwarfed, though no child, to the stature of a child; the old man’s head is turned somewhat towards the presence of an angel behind him, who points downward

f Joseph. And many more which I remember not, know not, mingled too with other things which I dimly

oured do not keep at all; still however I can recall whenever I please the wonder I felt before that great triple porch; I remember best in this way the porch into which I first entered, na

of some early French bishop; it seemed very interesting. I remember, too, that in the door-jambs were standing

ve seen carved by the French architects. I have seen many, the faces of which I do not like, though the drapery is always beautiful; their faces I do not like at all events, as faces of the Virgin and Child, though as faces of other people even if not beautiful they would be interesting. The Child is, as in the transept, draped down to the feet; draped too, how exquisitely I know not how to say. His right arm and han

o paint young children: for he says that it might very well happen that Giotto could paint children, but yet did not choose to in this instance, (the Presentation of the Virgin), for the sake of the much greater dignity to be obtained by using the more fully developed figure and face; * and surely, whatever could be said about Giotto’s

hich he failed in a little, we can see when we look, that his ideal was such an one. The Virgin’s face is calm and very sweet, full of rest — indeed the two figures are very full of rest; everything about them expresses it from the broad fo

scoes in the Arena Chapel, published by the Arundel Society. I regret not

them which runs up also into the first division of the tympanum

parently; I do not know who these are, but think they must be French kings; one, the farthest toward the o

at — I know not who he is. Five figures outside the porch, and on the angles of the door-jambs, are I suppose

the tables of the law, and Aaron with great blossomed staff: with them again, two on either side, sit the four greater prophets, their heads ve

ph were on a larger scale, for this indeed seems to me one of the most beautiful pieces of carving about this church, those earnest faces expressing

ing that they too might finish the long fight, that they might be with the happy dead: there is a wonder on their faces too, when they see what the mighty power of Death is. The foremost is bending down, with his left hand laid upon her breast, and he is gazing there so long,

n, can see scarce anything of the faces, only just the forms, of the Virgin lying quiet a

rch. I only know that it represents the Virgin sitting glorifie

candlesticks; the next has in it the kings who sprung from Jesse, with a flowing

lowers, hanging to their outermost arch, and above this a band of flower-w

the porch are the Apostles, but not the Apostles alone, I should think; those that are in the side that I can see have their distinctive emblems with them, some of them at least. Their faces vary very much here, as also

m, in the midst over the head

rds, so that their blast goes round the world and through it; and the dead are rising between the robes of the angels with their hands many of them lifted to heaven; and above them and below them are deep bands of wrought flowers; and in the vaulting of the porch are eight bands of niches with many, many figures carved therein; and in the first row in the lowest niche Abraham stands with the saved souls in the folds of his raiment.

hem to crown them. But on the inferno side the devil drives before him the wicked, all naked, presses them on toward hell-mouth, that gapes for them, and above their heads the devil-cornice hangs and weighs on them. And above these the Judge showing the wounds that were made for the salvation of the

h I have done even that which I have attempted to do;

temple-mountain that rises so high above the water-meadows

the rain-storms, grey with the beat of many days’ sun, from sunrise to sunset; showing white sometimes, too, when the sun strikes it strongly; snowy-white, sometimes, when the moon is on it, and the shadows growing blacker; but grey now, fretted into black by the mitres of the bishops, by the solem

ll and grey now, alas; but still it catches, through its interlacement of arches, the intensest

ll, though the

en across it, in the wild Februa

nd