e colossal monstrosity of the inclined ways, the disastrous
lack of symmetry in the church of the Rosary and the Basilica, the former
looking too heavy, like a corn market, whilst the latter had an anaemical
structural leanness with no kind of style but the mongrel.

"Ah! one must really be very fond of God," he at last concluded, "to have
courage enough to come and adore Him amidst such horrors! They have
failed in everything, spoilt everything, as though out of pleasure. Not
one of them has experienced that moment of true feeling, of real
naturalness and sincere faith, which gives birth to masterpieces. They
are all clever people, but all plagiarists; not one has given his mind
and being to the undertaking. And what must they not require to inspire
them, since they have failed to produce anything grand even in this land
of miracles?"

Pierre did not reply, but he was very much struck by these reflections,
which at last gave him an explanation of a feeling of discomfort that he
had experienced ever since his arrival at Lourdes. This discomfort arose
from the difference between the modern surroundings and the faith of past
ages which it sought to resuscitate. He thought of the old cathedrals
where quivered that faith of nations; he pictured the former attributes
of worship--the images, the goldsmith's work, the saints in wood and
stone--all of admirable power and beauty of expression. The fact was that
in those ancient times the workmen had been true believers, had given
their whole souls and bodies and all the candour of their feelings to
their productions, just as M. de Guersaint said. But nowadays architects
built churches with the same practical tranquillity that they erected
five-storey houses, just as the religious articles, the chaplets, the
medals, and the statuettes were manufactured by the gross in the populous
quarters of Paris by merrymaking workmen who did not even follow their
religion. And thus what slopwork, what toymakers', ironmongers' stuff it
all was! of a prettiness fit to make you cry, a silly sentimentality fit
to make your heart turn with disgust! Lourdes was inundated, devastated,
disfigured by it all to such a point as to quite upset persons with any
delicacy of taste who happened to stray through its streets. It clashed
jarringly with the attempted resuscitation of the legends, ceremonies,
and processions of dead ages; and all at once it occurred to Pierre that
the social and historical condem