The Argosy — page 227: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

210 The Cruse of the Reserve Squadron. The front of the hospital is yet more hoary-looking than the cathedral: a delicious bit of antiquity that might have existed in the days of St. James himself. Gray and green, black and crumbling ; intact, yet looking ruinous. As I have said, this effect is due less to age than atmosphere. It is in part a delusion, but a delusion that is all gain to the visitor. We crossed the square, a long procession, and entered the hospital. For a moment, owing to a wrong impression, I thought we were visiting the college, and prepared for a feast of reason and a flow of soul. Through an open court into a chapel; richly ornamented, but out of harmony with the severe simplicity one expects from a body of grave University men. Then up a wide staircase, plain and unadorned. Here, at any rate, was austerity enough. Now, thought I, for the intellectual banquet: for grand rooms lined with ancient and interesting tomes: for learned men who will explain all that is mystery and indicate all that is marvel: for illuminated MSS. and rare missals worth almost the ransom of a St. Iago. Now for a price- less half hour spent amid the buried centuries and giant minds of the past. This shall be a time well devoted, long remembered. And then I awoke to realities: a greater shock, perhaps, for being so unprepared. Details of the hospital ward are unnecessary; but it was many days before a painful impression could be dismissed from the mind and the imagination. A few moments sufficed for the visit. There should be no further chance of shocks, surprises, or disappointments ; no more inspections. We fell away from the group, which passed through the doors of the seminary and disappeared. _ Pyramid, Oxford and I were now left standing in the middle of the square. It was being repaired, and great blocks of stone, lying about, added no little to its general aspect of ruin and desolation. For a moment, giving ourselves up to our surroundings, we were lost in a magnificent contemplation. To the right of the cathedral was the fine front of the chapter-house; and beyond, the windows of the Room of the Inquisition—as we will here call it. To the left, the archbishop’s palace, ancient looking as the church itself, formed the corner of the square. But passing time and decaying buildings reminded ‘one RIN of perishing human nature, which needs constant replenishment if the lamp is to be kept burning. So, insensibly, we wended our way past the palace, up the narrow, hilly street, between the heavy arcades that veiled the shops they in no way adorned. Our destination was the Fonda Suiza, and we should probably have found it difficult to thread the intricate mazes leading to the desired haven, but for a gentleman of Santiago; a good Samaritan; an Englishman actually, but a Spaniard for all practical purposes. Without his escort, for the remaining hours of our stay we had been cast adrift. Aided by our guide, philosopher and friend, we soon found our- Gomicbooksneom