he better on his memory
he tried to sum it up, to concentrate it, saying to himself,--

"It is the epitome of Heaven and Earth; of Heaven by showing us the
serried phalanx of its inhabitants--Prophets, Patriarchs, Angels and
Saints, lighting up the interior of the church by their transparent
figures; by singing to the glory of the Mother and the Son. Of Earth,
for it connotes the elation of the soul, the ascension of man; it
points out quite clearly to Christian souls the path of the perfect
life. They, to apprehend its symbolism, should enter by the Royal
doorway, and pass up the nave, the transept and the choir--the three
successive phases of Asceticism; reach the top of the Cross where,
surrounded by the chapels of the apse as by a Crown, the head of the
Saviour lies, His neck bent, as we see them symbolized by the altar and
the deflected axis of the church.

"There the pilgrim has reached the united ways, close to the Virgin, who
mourns no more as she does in the agonizing scene on Calvary, at the
foot of the Tree, but, under the figure of the Sacristy, remains veiled
by the side of Her Son's countenance, getting closer to Him the better
to comfort and to see Him.

"And this allegory of the mystical life as set forth by the interior of
the cathedral, is carried out by the exterior, in the suppliant effect
of the whole building.

"The Soul, distraught by the joy of union, heart-broken at having still
to live, only aspires now to escape for ever from the Gehenna of the
flesh; thus it beseeches the Bridegroom with the uplifted arms of its
towers, to take pity on it, to come to fetch it, to take it by the
clasped hands of its spires and snatch it from earth, to carry it up
with Him into Heaven.

"In short, this church is the finest expression of art bequeathed to us
by the Middle Ages. The great front has neither the awful majesty of
that of Reims, pierced as it is with tracery, nor the dull melancholy of
Notre Dame de Paris, nor the gigantic grace of Amiens, nor the massive
solemnity of Bourges; but it is full of imposing simplicity, a
lightness, a spring, which no other cathedral has attained to.

"The nave of Amiens alone grows beautifully less as it rises with as
eager a spring from the earth; but the body of the Amiens church is
light and uncomforting, and that of Chartres is mysterious and hushed;
of all cathedrals it is that which best suggests the idea of a delicate,
saintly woman, emaciated by prayer, an