tone from the Chilmark quarries twelve
miles distant, with a lavish use of Purbeck marble in its interior.
The grey colour of the leaden roofs and the pure unstained tone of its
walls, impart a quasi-modern aspect to it, which, no matter how little
justified by facts, always presents Salisbury to one's mind, as a late
addition to the superb array of English churches; yet considering that
as we see it from the Close no portion (except possibly the spire)
later than the twelfth century comes into the picture, there is no
other cathedral that so little justifies such an impression, and one
cannot escape a return to the first reason advanced, namely, that its
singular unity has given it an aspect of perpetual youth.

[Illustration: THE CHOIR SCREEN.
_From a Photograph by Carl Norman and Co._]

FOOTNOTES:

[4] This was carefully replaced in its original position inclosed in a
copper cylinder.

[5] Recently, however, anxiety has been again aroused, and the spire
has been once more strengthened.

[6] This lantern story was removed in 1757 by order of the Dean and
Chapter.

THE INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL AND CHAPTER HOUSE.

The ground plan of Salisbury is a well-proportioned double cross with
the arms, of the choir transepts, more important than usual. Indeed,
the exquisitely proportioned and balanced symmetry of every portion,
as of the whole, which almost places Salisbury among classic
buildings, is as marked in its ground plan as in any part of the
building. As an appreciative student of the building has written:
"This is the great beauty of Salisbury, the composition of its mighty
body as a whole. So finely proportioned and arranged are its square
masses of different heights and sizes, so splendid are the broad
effects of light and shadow they produce, so appropriate is the slant
of the roof lines, and so nicely placed and gracefully shaped are the
simple windows, that for once we can give no thought of regret either
to the circling apses of continental lands or the rich traceries and
surface carvings and figures--sculptures of later generations. The
whole effect is in the strictest sense architectural. Few large
buildings teach so clearly the great lesson that beauty in a building
depends first of all upon composition, not decoration; upon masses,
not details; upon the use and shaping, not the ornamentation of
features; and very few show half so plainly that mediaeval architects
could realize this fa