The Argosy — page 161: what you’re looking at

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

144 | Fairy Normandy. memory, A fresco or drawing on the north wall records the tragic event. The church was commenced in the year 1318, and finished towards the end of the fifteenth century ; but a great part of the west front was reconstructed about the year 1846, and is there- fore modern. Whether in the centuries yet to come it will have crumbled into beauty and decay it remains for those centuries to disclose. Weof the present generation shall have long passed away with the Benedictine monks of St. Quen and all other orders to the Land of Shadows that hes beyond the veil. For the present the west portal of St. Quen offends the lover of beauty and antiquity. One cannot find fault with it architecturally, but it is destitute of all poetry and romance. It has the clear, hard outlines of newness. It might have beencompleted yesterday. It does violence to the rest of the building, and coming straight from the wonder- ful and dream-like west front of the cathedral, it becomes almost aggressive. Such, at least, was its impression upon us who gazed and could not help the comparison. H.C., who before the west front of the cathedral had gone into a profound series of raptures and contortions, here, figuratively, felt his spirit fainting within him, gnashed his teeth, and went into weeping and wailing. But passing beyond the portals into the interior, what a vision was at once disclosed. What a grand expanse, what broad and lofty proportions, what beauty and light and elegance. You were at once raised to another world, a higher influence.. The whole interior stood unfolded at a glance, in all the perfection of the Gothic school, marvellously pure and refined, full of charm and grace. The eye wandered upwards in a series of arches upon arches, tracery on tracery, the front pillars of the richly moulded piers running up to the very roof. ‘The rich glass of the windows threw its gorgeous light around, dyeing the pavement with its many colours. We gained something in effect when we first saw it, inasmuch as. that service was not going on, and the vast interior was empty, excepting for the presence of two quiet English ladies, apparently lost in contemplation of the scene. They sat where the sun- beams, penetrating through the windows, fell athwart them in brilliant rays, so that they looked like silent images brought into relief by rainbow colours. But they presently rose and joined us in our inspection, and we soon found that they were decidedly “children of earth,” and not inhabitants of purer and more ethereal regions. H. C., as usual, became immediately polite and attentive ; assuming that delicately tender and deferential manner which ladies so well appreciate ; explaining everything in his admirable way, and making clear and simple what to these ladies were mysteries of Architecture and motives of Period. ‘They were very much taken with him ; it was pronounced and unmistakable; and when they separated, presented him with their card and begged for his further acquaint- €om (~) 21 0)(0)(0)| KS n(EC0)