rway. Striking as the effect of these foreign
entrances may be, there is no structural reason why a door should be
of an unwieldy size out of all proportion to the stature of the people
who use it, so that a smaller door has to be cut for ordinary use out
of the real door. It certainly, as even at Amiens, limits the
sculptor's opportunities; and in a country like England, where doors
can only be kept open for a few weeks in the year, great doorways
would be as inappropriate as closed doors are forbidding. As a matter
of fact, the usual entrance to Wells Cathedral in Jocelin's time was
not from the west, but through the cloister and the south porch. And
the central entrance of the west was made impressive, not by its size,
but by the exquisite nature of its carving, and the blue and scarlet
and gold with which it was coloured. It was not insignificant then. It
had the prominence of a jewel. Moreover, in French churches, where the
exterior is sacrificed to the internal effect, there is some wisdom in
concentrating attention upon the doorway. But in English churches--and
in Wells, perhaps, more than any other English church--the exteriors
are perfect in themselves, and the visitor need not be tempted to
hurry to their portals. After all, if the rabbit-holes on a
mountain-side looked as large as quarries, the mountain would not look
like a mountain.

There are, moreover, three faults in the front as it now stands which
cannot be attributed to its maker. In the first place, it is
undoubtedly a little formal, a little square, and this defect is
particularly marked in the photographs which one sees everywhere.
Unfortunately this picture, which is too small to show the detail,
gives no idea whatever of the general external effect of the church.
It gives the impression that Wells Cathedral is a glorified wall,
because the photograph cannot show the other parts upon which the
front depends. The architect, no doubt, intended the towers to be
carried higher or surmounted with spires, and though no trace of any
stone erection has been found on the tops of the present towers, they
may once have been crowned with wooden spires covered with lead or
shingle. One need hardly say how vast a difference such lofty towers
as exist at Laon Cathedral, or spires like those of Lichfield, would
make in the effect of the front. They would also account for the great
size of the buttresses, which seem to have been built with a view to
sustaining a