sts, the adoration of relics, vows to saints and pilgrimages
to holy places. In his chapter on "The Influence of Christianity upon
Music," he says that the "Christian religion is essentially melodious for
this single reason, that she delights in solitude"; the forests are her
ancient abode, and her musician "ought to be acquainted with the
melancholy notes of the waters and the trees; he ought to have studied
the sound of the winds in cloisters, and those murmurs that pervade the
Gothic temple, the grass of the cemetery, and the vaults of death." He
repeats the ancient fable that the designers of the cathedrals were
applying forest scenery to architecture; "Those ceilings sculptured into
foliage of different kinds, those buttresses which prop the walls and
terminate abruptly like the broken trunks of trees, the coolness of the
vaults, the darkness of the sanctuary, the dim twilight of the aisles,
the chapels resembling grottoes, the secret passages, the low doorways,
in a word everything in a Gothic church reminds you of the labyrinths of
a wood, everything excites a feeling of religious awe, of mystery, and of
the Divinity." The birds perch upon the steeples and towers as if they
were trees, and "the Christian architect, not content with building
forests, has been desirous to retain their murmurs, and by means of the
organ and of bells, he has attached to the Gothic temple the very winds
and the thunders that roll in the recesses of the woods. Past ages,
conjured up by these religious sounds, raise their venerable voices from
the bosom of the stones and sigh in every corner of the vast cathedral.
The sanctuary re-echoes like the cavern of the ancient Sibyl;
loud-tongued bells swing over your head; while the vaults of death under
your feet are profoundly silent." He praises the ideals of chivalry;
gives a sympathetic picture of the training and career of a
knight-errant, and asks: "Is there then nothing worthy of admiration in
the times of a Roland, a Godfrey, a Coucey, and a Joinville; in the times
of the Moors and the Saracens; . . . when the strains of the Troubadours
were mingled with the clash of arms, dances with religious ceremonies,
and banquets and tournaments with sieges and battles?" Chateaubriand
says that the finest Gothic ruins are to be found in the English lake
country, on the Scotch mountains, and in the Orkney Islands; and that
they are more impressive than classic ruins because in the latter the
a